Fare, Huahine, Society Islands
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 16 May 2008 22:19
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16:42.745S 151:02.404W
On Friday (5/9) we motored (no wind) the short trip
through the Huahine (HOO-HA-Hiney) eastern reef pass around the northern tip of
the island and back through the northwestern reef pass to an anchorage just
outside the town of Fare. Here, as mentioned before, we joined eighteen of
our closest boating friends and set down anchor (picture 1 - the crowd).
That afternoon Don and I lolled about on the boat while our ambitious crew took
the dinghy into town for a quick tour. That night the four of us joined
the crew of Andante again for a dinner out in the one restaurant that exists in
the town of Fare. The open air restaurant situated on the water front was
complete with table tops made of great tree trunk slabs and branches
for legs - all varnished quite nicely for an elegant ambiance. A good time
was had by all and some of us sampled the local specialty - fish with
a vanilla coconut sauce. Brilliant! Bob, the captain of Andante,
picked up the tab for us as a thank you for Don and Bill's help in fixing
Andante's water pump impeller. Again, brilliant!
The next day was a true island adventure.
Bill dinghied into town bright and early (9am) to secure us a rental
car such that we could complete an island circumnavigation - on land - something
new for us. We volunteered Bill for the driving since Don and I
haven't driven since October (not to mention the fact that we no longer
have car insurance since we sold our cars). Around ten-thirty we
all piled into what we fondly referred to as our roller-skate - a Fiat
Panda (picture 2). Once in, we wondered how many Americans could be
crammed into such a car and thought it might make a nice competition some
day - kind of like the telephone booth cram sessions of old. Besides, who
in their right mind would name a car model a Panda? A more unmanly name I
can't think of. We paid extra for the air conditioning though and enjoyed
it mightily throughout the day - pure luxury.
Our first stop was another marae archeological site
- larger than we had seen before, but similar in construction. Lots of
stone paved platforms and human sacrifices left to our imagination. Once
again we escaped without ghost harassment and moved on to the next sight -
ancient stone fish traps. These were constructed in a salt water stream
that connected an inland lagoon with the outer lagoon. They looked like
stone mazes rising from the stream bed to the water surface. Many of the
walls had collapsed and it didn't appear as if they were effective as a trap
anymore as many of the fish we saw were easily swimming in and out of the stone
wall maze. When we listened hard, we could swear we heard them yelling,
'Na, na, na, naaaa, na!' at us. Nasty fish.
Next, things really got interesting when we pulled
into the parking lot for Huahine (HOO-HA-Hiney) Pearl Farm and Pottery.
The Andante crew was leaving just as we arrived and said it was, 'Lovely!' and
you guessed it, 'Brilliant!'. We hopped in the boat taxi and headed out to
the farm. Picture 3 is the pearl farm as we headed toward it.
Picture 4 was taken from the front of the taxi by Bill, looking back
at Don and I, with our boat taxi driver in the background -
obviously enjoying the photo session. This was a bit of a higher class
establishment than the pearl farm we visited in the Tuamotus, but the operation
was basically the same. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a hearty French
welcome and each given a Tiare to put behind our ear (the national flower of
French Polynesia). Next, we received a speech on the cultured black pearl
production process, which Kathie interrupted several times to ask various
burning questions. At each interruption, our host Frank took a deep
breath, looked kindly at Kathie and said quietly, 'I'm just there', then
proceeded to finish his spiel and in the process answered Kathie's questions
just as he quietly indicated he would. Our host's patience!
Highly commendable. We of course bought some things, the most notable
being the gorgeous black pearl earrings Bill bought Kathie for Mother's
Day. In return, Kathie offered Bill a guaranteed full day of 'You can do
no wrong'. Not a bad deal all in all.
Leaving the pearl farm behind, we moved on to the
fresh water blue-eyed eel viewing spot. We never found it, but are
pretty sure we came close to it at one point when we passed through a small
village and saw a bunch of kids gathered around the edge of a small
stream. We later learned from the crew of Andante that we didn't miss all
that much unless we really had a thing for blue-eyed eels. Or green-eyed
eels as there were some of those too. None of us are too fond of eels in
general, so we didn't feel cheated having not seen them.
We then wound our way over the twisted, narrow, but
nicely paved road that circles the island, our roller-skate occasionally
struggling with the inclines. All worth it as the views were
excellent. The most important stop was yet to come though...that being
lunch. A beachfront hotel/restaurant had been highly recommended by
several sources, so we headed for it on the southern coast of Huahine
(HOO-HA-Hiney). We arrived, only to find Andante's roller-skate in the
small parking area - it's hard not to bump into fellow boaters when traveling
around an island the size of greater East Aurora, NY. We were ushered in
to a table made from a giant tree trunk slab with branches for legs. Sound
familiar? Still extremely quaint though. A thatched roof, woven palm
frond ceiling, banana stalks hanging from the ceiling, a bunch of giant
grapefruits piled up in a gigantic clam shell the size of a kitchen sink and
open air with a fabulous view of the multi-blue colored lagoon. Pictures 5
and 6 are views of the hotel and restaurant grounds. Note the thatched
roof with oyster shells hanging from it as well as those stuck to
the outside walls and foundation stilts of the building. Kathie couldn't let a lunch in a tropical South Pacific
restaurant go by without ordering a pina colada, so that's exactly what she
received. One just about as big as her head (picture 7). And quite
excellent - flavored with the locally grown coconut and vanilla. Our
waitress was very cute, and for those of you that have been pining for more
pictures of Polynesian women - this is for you (picture 8).
Last, but certainly not least, we stopped at what
was billed as a vanilla plantation. We had a little difficulty finding it
- none of these islands are big on the idea of signs. We did find it
though and pulled into a narrow grass strip that lead up to a small area where
we parked next to what appeared to be the owner's BMW. Hmmmm, the vanilla
business must be good. There we met Frank and his wife? boss? wife
and boss? Frank and his wife/boss didn't speak much English, but Frank was
somehow delegated to take us on a tour. He started up the slope of the
plantation going at a massive pace, yelling back at us in French, 'Keep up!
Keep up!'. We quickened our pace. Sweating. He stopped at each
type of tree, ceremoniously handed the stained and rumpled vanilla farm
plantation brochure he was carrying to Kathie and explained in English as best
he could gesticulating wildly, 'This no fruit! No vegetable! No
eat! This medicine!' In this case referring to the noni trees (the
fruit is picked, pressed, dried and shipped to a company in the US for
processing into a dietary supplement sold in health food stores...we know this
only because we've read about it in our guide books). Next, 'This paupau!
Ok for eat!' - a papaya tree. A long handled implement appeared from
nowhere and in one quick motion, Frank clipped two papayas out of the tree,
caught them gracefully in one hand (one at a time) and gave one to Kathie
and one to me. Then, 'Pomelmouse! (sp)'. Grapefruit. Again,
one for Kathie and one for me. 'Citron!' Lime. One for Kathie
and one for me. Then, 'Hot, hot!!' Chile peppers. None for
Kathie and none for me. At this point we had climbed a fair distance
and Frank must have decided we had seen the best of the various trees.
Back we went, Frank quizzing us as we went. 'What this?' 'Mango!',
we yelled in unison. Great rolling of the eyes, 'No! Paupau!', said
Frank. A series of three of four more trees, each time we guessed
wrong. Very poor students. However, we did chant 'Hot! Hot!' at the
correct time while passing the chili pepper bushes.
Finally, we got to the purpose of our visit,
vanilla. Frank opened a door into a screened enclosure filled with row
upon row of vanilla bean plants. He led us to one, stopped, ceremoniously
handed the stained and rumpled vanilla farm plantation brochure over to Kathie
and concentrating hard, explained as he pointed to a vanilla bean blossom, 'No
papa! No mama! No baby!'. We looked at each other. 'No
papa? No mama? No baby?'. We shrugged our shoulders and looked
blankly at Frank. He tried again. More emphatically he said, 'No
papa! No mama! No baby!' Not waiting for a response, he
repeated louder, 'No papa! No mama! No baby!'. Not wanting to disappoint,
we repeated back, 'No papa! No mama! No baby!'. Frank smiled.
Encouraged, we repeated again, more enthusiastically this time, 'No papa! No
mama! No baby!' Frank beamed and laughed. Ok, so at least he was
feeling good about the conversation. Later, we read in one of our
guidebooks, 'Polynesian vanilla grows on a vine, its flowers must be fecundated
(in Polynesia, following the 'marriage' method of artificial fecundation) to
produce a fruit, the vanilla bean.' Aha! So some kind of artificial
pollination takes place, hence, 'No papa! No mama! No baby!'. We get
it. Frank picked one vanilla bean for Kathie, and one for me. 'No
papa! No mama! No baby!' was repeated several more times just to be sure we got
it. Bill caught Frank's vanilla bean lesson in movie mode on his
camera, so if anyone doubts this story, proof exists. Picture 9 shows
a smiling Frank with Bill, Don and myself.
The tour finished, the real business began.
Out came a dilapidated brief case. Frank, after ceremoniously handing the
smudged and rumpled vanilla plantation brochure over to Kathie, opened the
briefcase with a flourish, revealing several clear plastic bags of dried vanilla
beans - about six per bag. He took some out, rubbing them on both Kathie
and my hands. 'Smell good?' Next he rubbed some on my face.
Hmmm.. not sure why. We asked how much, he said 1,000 French Polynesian
francs (about $13). After some deliberation between Kathie and I (it went
something like this, 'What do you do with vanilla beans? I don't
know. We should get some, just to have them. So we can remember
Frank. Will we have trouble bringing them back into the US? Maybe we
should only get one pack and split it.'). I turned to Frank and delivered
the news, 'We would like just one pack.' I received the death stare from
the previously jovial Frank. Only hesitating a few seconds and after a
quick glance at Kathie for confirmation, I quickly said, 'Ok, we'll take
two.' A slightly less hurt look from Frank and we paid our 2,000 francs
and hopped back in our roller-skate for the trip back to Fare.
And that's the tale of our trip around the island
of Huahine (HOO-HA-Hiney).
Does anyone know what to do with vanilla
beans? We're not just talking about the beans themselves, we are talking
about the whole, five inch long pod. The fragrance is lovely, but how and
to what kind of food do you transfer this lovely essence?
Remember - No papa. No mama. No
baby.
Anne
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