Going Bananas

Serendipity
David Caukill
Tue 22 May 2012 22:32

Tuesday 22nd  May: South Pacific Ocean 17 34 .1S  165 15.1W  

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone UTC -11.00;  BST-12.00)

 

Bob does like  bananas.  He has had a number of forays into the local populace in search of them with varying degrees of success.   The problem with bananas is, that,  if we get a whole stick of several hands, they tend all to ripen at once. On Huahine, he found a very amiable chap who gave him several separate hands of bananas which were to (and in fact did) ripen over several days.  By the time we got to Raiatea though, it was time to replenish supplies.

 

Together with the crew of Anastasia, we  embarked upon our dinghies and ventured deep into the jungle:

 

 

This was not just  really a banana venture, more a tourist excursion.   But we went further and further up the narrowing and shelving river….

 

 

 

 

Eventually, and by chance,  we came across a native farmer:

 

 

 

 

He proved to be a lovely chap who endowed both our boats with more bananas, paw paws and cucumbers than one could shake a stick at. Such generosity  has  not been  uncommon  (although they were so close to ripe he would have had a struggle getting them to a market)!!

 

HOWEVER, after a few days, of three or four bananas for breakfast, two slices of Rachel’s richest banana cake and Peter’s occasional banana and sugar sandwich there were  still far more left than we knew what to do with – why,  even Bob’s passion for bananas wore off as he moved on to breakfasts anew.   There were  enough in this photo for about 8 -10  banana cakes.

 

 

 

 

Sadly though, the bananas don’t give up. They just sit there ripening more and more each day challenging us to eat them before we are completely infested with Fruit flies. 

 

Today, the fruit flies won. Peter has just committed the last of our bananas to the deep.  Pax Vobiscum.