Pacific Odyssey - Leg 2

Skipper, Arwen and I just had an impromptu pamplemousse feast together; it is our favorite tropical fruit.  We can´t get them at home because the fruit needs to ripen on the tree.  I think there´s something so right about that; one needs to be here, in French Polynesia to eat and truly appreciate the pamplemousse.  It is not what they call pamplemousse in our grocery stores.  They are bigger, light green-yellow and from the citrus family.  One cuts off the thick skin and pulls it into smaller sections just like we do with a mandarin orange.  We then open up each ´package,´ each slice, one by one by cutting through the membrane and peeling this membrane back to expose the flesh of the
fruit.  The fibres are light green, shaped like long teardrops and very juicy.  The
taste is way better than a grapefruit, sweeter, and the texture of the fibres is juicy, crispy, and it´s very refreshing.  It´s rather messy to eat, so we just hang over the side of the ship and let the juice drip off our elbows and into the sea.  At the moment there is some major laughing emanating from the stern, there must be about 10 trainees there having a very funny discussion.  In the hold they are listening to music, Chris is drawing, some are chatting, and some are still trying to catch up on their journaling (it´s become a verb here).  Jenna G. was sitting in the dark, in the stern with her journal trying to muster the
motivation to write, but said she just couldn´t, as she had recently finished writing 18 pages about the two dance nights on the islands of Tahuata and Hiva Oa.  She was done for the day.  In the foc´sle, things are pretty quiet.  Girls are heading to bed, Sara has been
taking 3 hours of the midnight watches for most of the trip, giving the watch officers a shorter night watch and thus allowing them to have some  more energy during the day. She stands from 2230-0130; she has already gone to sleep.  Trainees continue to carve the
coconut shell into various shapes.  The power sander came out to help with the sanding as well as a few more coping saws.  There was coconut shell dust everywhere, when mixed with water it looked like we had been into the chocolate.  The navigational team of Claire, Tristan, Jordan, Elske, Bec and Tavish are still putting in hours of work, figuring out our course to the different Tuamotus.  Skipper helped them later in the day with some  of their calculations; it appears to be quite a bit of work and Elske admitted she now loves the GPS even more.  We held a service this afternoon discussing the attributes of Christ with crew members sharing bits of their lives that to them reflected these attributes.  Supper was directly following, one sitting on deck.  It is fun to have one sitting for a meal out at sea.  We collect our food and find a place on deck to eat and conversation flows.  Tonight the sun was going down as we ate; the sky was full of beautiful oranges, yellows, reds, and mauves, with the few clouds there were on the horizon, lined in light. Karen had an invigorating and heated discussion on morality with her watch around the table at breakfast and lunch.  I wasn´t there, but I heard it was interesting with very different thoughts and views expressed.  We are enjoying eating coconut.  We were given a large bag of them in Tahuata by a woman named Ha´a.  She walked around the island with us collecting fruit and showing us how to get at it.  She taught us how to husk the coconuts, did most of them, but also let us try some.  To use them, we crack them in half, break out the coconut meat in chunks with a marlin spike or
knife and pass it around.  It´s wonderful, nothing like the coconuts we have at home, that have travelled far too long.  The meat is solid, sweet, chewy, has a very nutty and satisfying taste.  We then use the shells for carving. Carolyn emptied a few coconuts and shredded it up coursely and is going to make coconut chips for us possibly tomorrow.  She has a book on food eaten in the tropics, how it´s cultivated, harvested, prepared etc., and refers to it regularly.  Yesterday we tried the sour sop.  Inside it is white and slimy, but the taste is delicious, similar to a mango but more refreshing, as if combined with an apple.  We are still motoring, the wind is negligible; Skipper just informed me that it is so calm he can see the reflection of the stars on the water.   The motion is a very slight side to side, with an occasional set of deeper dips which sends stuff flying, reminding us to be continually on the alert.  The temperature was very hot today from the moment we got up.  Two tarps went up; we can do this when there is no wind.  We dumped lots of buckets on ourselves and kept to the shade.  Tavish set up the deck hose and pump so we
could stand under a shower with unlimited water from the ocean, a real treat. . .  pressure from above to rinse under.  The air temperature is perfect now, though the temperature below decks is warm.  This is partly due to the engine, it heats up the boat,
especially the areas around the engine room.  But, we are all happy, there´s lots of water to cool us down, we´re not going to complain. Life is very good.  Until tomorrow, Bonice.