Commodore
May 26, 2023

Friday 26 May – a great supermarket at last!

Rowan was up bright and early while I slumbered, loving the cooler temperature. Rowan went into town/village and did a good shop at the supermarket. All the essentials for breakfast, eggs, bacon and mushrooms, plus croissants. He bought croissants for Far and Andrew, plus Ostrika (the Swiss/Italian neighbours next to us in Rangiroa) who pulled in this morning around 8am. We saw a turtle while having breakfast which was a lovely treat, we feel they are rather threatened here.

Once we had eaten our delicious breakfast we headed into the dinghy dock to go and have a good walk. We headed up a dirt road that climbed up out of the village, it was glorious in the shade but pretty steamy out in the sunshine. It was lovely dense vegetation and fascinating to see the local’s homes, and a bit scary going past endless guard dogs. The locals all seem to be waging war with the dense vegetation that must grow at a phenomenal rate. Everyone is out strimming and burning fires. We walked as far as we could which was to the intake for the village water supply, we assume. It was a good walk and great to feel like we have done a bit of exercise.

We went and did a further shop and got some fresh veg and fruit, and thought we would pop into the cafe shack next door, under some shade at the water’s edge. We bumped into Andrew at the shack. He is divorced and single, but has met a French lady here (online) who is a GP, she has lived here for 10 years. She seemed lovely, and had helped them hire e bikes with Phil and Lorraine from Far, to celebrate Phil’s birthday. We had arranged last night to host a pot luck birthday supper this evening on PolePole with the other Arc boat Jan. The food at the shack looked pretty mediocre, so Rowan went and bought a side of Tuna from a roadside shack to take home.

We stuffed ourselves on raw tuna chunks in soy/wasabi sauce which was delicious. The afternoon was spent tidying up the boat and making a bean salad for our contribution to the food. Everyone was on board by 5:30pm including Jan (the boat is called after his wife), and Giorgio, the Italian heart surgeon who practices in Mississippi! Andrew’s lady joined us too, she is on board Voyager 2 for the week end, we noticed Andrew had a spring in his step. Andrew brought his guitar along, it turned out he was very good on the guitar and has a great voice. Han and Megan had heard him in the Marquessas and told us how good he was. Very funny he definitely played a few love ballads! It was an entertaining evening with a few large characters, Giorgio thinks he is a step away from God being a heart surgeon and Lorraine is a feisty character. It was funny to see them getting rather testy with each other! Both partners are delightful but don’t get a word in edge ways! Far and Andrew leave tomorrow heading west, stopping along the way, en route to Fiji.