Friday, May 23, 2008

Tahiti Pictures- Haraiki Atoll Barbecue

Shane recorded most of everything in his journal and he got a written menu from Hannah- on of the chefs. The pictures of the meals are very nice but her descriptions were amazing too. I couldn't find the picture for this one- he has one- but for dessert one night she recorded:

"crepes with cognac flambeau, bananas in a Kahlua caramel sauce with fried bananas"

Dinner on the boat was pretty fancy. One log reports:

Roast leg of lamb with steamed broccoli and roast potatoes, onion-white wine sauce with mustard and capers

Dessert- pannacotta with freshly made guava sorbet and passionfruit-pineapple-blackberry sorbet.

And that was just one night. I think I made waffles for dinner that night. They were pretty good. Not the home made kind just the toaster kind. But if you get the crispiness just right and use hot syrup to melt the butter they are quite tasty.

This was just lunch.
One night they decided to have a barbecue on Haraiki a little triangular shaped atoll, whose channel was extremely tricky and Gavin had the guys in the water watching the reef as they went through. Shane said there were some very close calls, sometimes with just barely enough distance for the two hulls to clear the reef. A picnic on a deserted atoll sounds incredible. Shane thought this tree was neat and as he got nearer to it he heard rustling sounds like a large animal. As he investigated he found tons of hermit crabs underneath all making their way to the beach. Like a wildebeast migration. Only hermit crabs. So not nearly as fast.

For dinner they took banana leaves and nestled snapper, corral trout, parrot fish, flat fish, with coconut rice inside. Then wrapped them up in tin foil and put them in the fire to bake. For drinks they skinned coconuts which of course they had just picked, and poured rum in them. And then drank it. I think they had a good time.
Shane's friend was introduced to the game "spoons". You play against a person and take turns being blindfolded while the other one hits you with a metal spoon. I'm not sure what genious thought up this one. You go back and forth until one person quits. The hard part is you have to hold the spoon in your teeth when you hit the other person. Craig was really in pain and the thuds of the spoon on his skull were painful to hear- and watch. And his ineffectual hits hurt his teeth as he tried to use more force. They got it all on video. When they got back to the boat they showed Craig the video which reavealed the other player using his hand to hold the spoon and delivering a resounding whack on Craig's head every time. Welcome to the Odyssey Craig!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That game sounds hilarious! We are thinking about going to Haraiki! How was the anchorage there? Any clues or advice would be great!

Unknown said...

We were in a catamaran that had a very shallow draft. We anchored ocean-side briefly in about 60 feet off water near the mouth of the outlet. After surveying a bit, we went inside, but it was pretty harrowing - it was pretty much threading the needle with our hulls on each side of large coral heads. It was a bit of a nutball idea, but we did make it in and anchored for the night just north of the first islet on the right. Not another soul around. Beautiful little atoll.

Unknown said...

We were in a catamaran that had a very shallow draft. We anchored ocean-side briefly in about 60 feet off water near the mouth of the outlet. After surveying a bit, we went inside, but it was pretty harrowing - it was pretty much threading the needle with our hulls on each side of large coral heads. It was a bit of a nutball idea, but we did make it in and anchored for the night just north of the first islet on the right. Not another soul around. Beautiful little atoll.