Tiffany and Greg Around the World
Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
Mooring up in Avarua, not as easy as one would think, even for salty dawgs such as ourselves.
The Cook Islands are also the first place we came into contact direct contact with the history of cannibalism in Polynesia. The practice is alive and well, just not exactly after a fashion you would expect: Continue reading “Cannibalism is Alive and Well in Rarotonga!”
Rangiroa, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
Look closely, there’s a spider in this plumeria (frangipani) flower!
There’s a winery on Rangiroa! We’ve been told that it’s the only winery on a coral atoll. The amazing thing is that they’re able to grow anything here at all. Back in the day, the islanders struggled to grow their crops. Plants had to be constantly fed with other food scraps and compost in the hopes that they would grow. Why? There’s no topsoil out here! When you walk around in the “brush” of the island, you’re crunching on shells and coral. Dirt is not native. Sand is, but sand doesn’t contain minerals. Only the extremely hardy plants can survive out here without help, and since when have you heard of grape vines as being extremely hardy? Never, that’s when. Even in California wine country they baby the grapes and make sure they get enough water and protection from the bugs and frost.
**20100527 – photo – Rangiroa (106).JPG**
We’d heard about this place quite a way back in our travels. As we’ve been going, we’re specifically looking for wineries, because, um, we like wine 🙂 The guidebook for French Polynesia mentions it briefly, but we had a hard time believing that there would only be one winery in the entire country of French Polynesia. I mean, come on… they’re FRENCH! And usually where there’s one winery, there are about 50 more. There’s bound to be more, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled!
Unfortunately the winery, Vin de Tahiti, was closed for the season when we arrived on Rangiroa (closed for the season!?! We arrived in the middle of the tourist season!?!). We did manage to get a nice guy to open the door for us and to answer a few questions. Here’s their story:
The wine wasn’t spectacular, but it was pretty solid. Definitely drinkable, but not something we’d go out of my way to find. (oh, wait, too late 😉 The most awesome thing about it is that it’s the only Tahitian wine you can get.
The funniest thing about our wine tasting experience was the chicken that kept wandering into the bar. Now, you would think we’d be used to it by now. After months in Mexico hanging around a cat that would steal your drink when you weren’t looking and sailing around a bunch of small islands with free range chicken working the copra industry, we shouldn’t be surprised where they end up! Maybe if the chicken had stayed outside the bar, we wouldn’t have thought it unusual. Heck, the chicken could even have just gone inside the door and we probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it, even though we’re talking lagoon view, individual bungalows, high end hotel here! No, we probably wouldn’t have been too excited about it. But when you’re sitting in the bar of a high end hotel, and a scraggly chicken jumps up onto a table near you and basically orders a cold one, well… you notice it…
What’s your best pet/animal story?
After what could easily be qualified as a “bumpy” night transit south, against the wind and the waves we find ourselves on the island of Fatu Hiva in French Polynesia. (For our non-sailing friends, it’s called “bashing” when you drive into the wind & waves. It sucks. A lot. This single fact alone actually explains why the entire international cruising community constantly sails to the west; in order to avoid bashing as much as humanly possible.)
We anchored in the Bay of Penises. Now wait one second. Before you get all uppity on me, look, don’t blame me that the Polynesian people came up with overly descriptive names for things, because that’s the freaking original Polynesian name, alright (well, the English translation at least). It’s due to the rock towers that surround the bay. I’m serious, look it up. (Tiff’s note – the name of the town is Hana Vave in Fatu Hiva) For those of you too lazy to look it up, I explain the whole issue (inserting my own obvious bias and providing nice views of the anchorage, but not of the male reproductive system) here:
Having arrived at what arguably could be the most amazingly named place on the entire planet, we spent our two days here:
Firstly, by exploring the village. Being as the total island inhabitants number at about 650 split between two villages, this took about a grand total of 15 minutes. We did however discover some precious little tidbits. Such as, everyone eats coconuts here and I mean everyone.
Also, speaking of chickens and coconuts, you may want to think twice before you buy that “all natural” tropical coconut meat or coconut oil in the grocery store.
Polynesians do have cats and dogs…lots of cats and dogs, but they also keep other interesting animals on leashes.
We also ran into an interesting event going on as we arrived: all the school aged children were leaving. Because of the minimal population, there are only grade schools on the island. Anyone wanting a high school education has to travel by ferry 10 hours or so to Hiva Oa. The nearest college is in Tahiti (again, about 2000 miles away.) So kids who want an education spend a lot of time away from home from the 8th grade on.
– Greg
