Wet and wetter
X86
Rich Carey
Sun 15 Jul 2018 19:16
16 38.575S, 151 30.947W
This wet and windy weather just will not buzz off. Its become a complete pain in the butt. We made one improvement by moving to the opposite side of the Island, which after most of a week on the East side was at least a welcome new view. There was a downside to the move, but an unexpected upside.
The downer was that there were even less facilities on the West side. We'd enjoyed the somewhat expensive but high quality French restaurant we'd had (one of the very few restaurants on the whole Island), and the Chef had made a couple of excellent Vegetarian meals for Chance. At the new location there was nothing but a small shop. We'd come in and hooked a mooring ball marked with 'Vanilla Tours'. Figuring it was used as a stop for small grockle boats, we thought it would be unlikely that we'd get kicked off. However, I did a quick scan of the area with the Wirie, and - blast - picked up a 'Vanilla Tours' wifi signal, that meant the mooring belonged to someone close by. So, Chance and I set off the find them, as there was no reply to our call to the phone number on the scant web presence we found. After a couple of tries we were pointed to the right house, about 100 meters from the bouy. There was no-one there but we'd been told the owner monitored Ch9 and we did get an answer a couple of hours later. To cut the story short, we got permission to stay, and booked a 6 hour tour with the very nice owner - 'Noah'.
The tour was two days later, so we sat and did not much else but relax - I watched 6 episodes of Westworld S2. The weather was still crappy on the tour day, but it didn't dampen things - well, it did dampen the bods a few times (open back Landrover Defender), but not the spirits. Billed as a 4x4 tour, we'd describe it as 'Froggy Polly Botany 101' - and it was excellent. Our host spoke perfect English, knew his stuff inside out, and had a sense of humor. Trees: plants; bushes; fruits; local production techniques; Rum factory; Vanilla plantation (amazing polanization story/demo). We'd stop every 5 miles of so on a circular coast route around the Island, and jump off for mini lectures around some new interesting find.
This being festival month, we even stopped at a local shindig, and watched a dancing competition.
Then we headed inland, off roading through the mud up to a high point, where Noah cut us fresh Grapefruit, Star Fruit, Star Apples, and Coconuts - awesome feast in the rain forest, looking down on the bay we'd recently left. On the way back it chucked it down, and we huddled in the back, wet but laughing. Noah kept stopping to ask if we wanted the covers down, but it was warm water, and plastic screens would have ruined the fun, so we damped it out.
The gloomy rainey windy weather persists for more days yet, but today we hop to BoraBora.
All's well, on wet and wetter x86.
This wet and windy weather just will not buzz off. Its become a complete pain in the butt. We made one improvement by moving to the opposite side of the Island, which after most of a week on the East side was at least a welcome new view. There was a downside to the move, but an unexpected upside.
The downer was that there were even less facilities on the West side. We'd enjoyed the somewhat expensive but high quality French restaurant we'd had (one of the very few restaurants on the whole Island), and the Chef had made a couple of excellent Vegetarian meals for Chance. At the new location there was nothing but a small shop. We'd come in and hooked a mooring ball marked with 'Vanilla Tours'. Figuring it was used as a stop for small grockle boats, we thought it would be unlikely that we'd get kicked off. However, I did a quick scan of the area with the Wirie, and - blast - picked up a 'Vanilla Tours' wifi signal, that meant the mooring belonged to someone close by. So, Chance and I set off the find them, as there was no reply to our call to the phone number on the scant web presence we found. After a couple of tries we were pointed to the right house, about 100 meters from the bouy. There was no-one there but we'd been told the owner monitored Ch9 and we did get an answer a couple of hours later. To cut the story short, we got permission to stay, and booked a 6 hour tour with the very nice owner - 'Noah'.
The tour was two days later, so we sat and did not much else but relax - I watched 6 episodes of Westworld S2. The weather was still crappy on the tour day, but it didn't dampen things - well, it did dampen the bods a few times (open back Landrover Defender), but not the spirits. Billed as a 4x4 tour, we'd describe it as 'Froggy Polly Botany 101' - and it was excellent. Our host spoke perfect English, knew his stuff inside out, and had a sense of humor. Trees: plants; bushes; fruits; local production techniques; Rum factory; Vanilla plantation (amazing polanization story/demo). We'd stop every 5 miles of so on a circular coast route around the Island, and jump off for mini lectures around some new interesting find.
This being festival month, we even stopped at a local shindig, and watched a dancing competition.
Then we headed inland, off roading through the mud up to a high point, where Noah cut us fresh Grapefruit, Star Fruit, Star Apples, and Coconuts - awesome feast in the rain forest, looking down on the bay we'd recently left. On the way back it chucked it down, and we huddled in the back, wet but laughing. Noah kept stopping to ask if we wanted the covers down, but it was warm water, and plastic screens would have ruined the fun, so we damped it out.
The gloomy rainey windy weather persists for more days yet, but today we hop to BoraBora.
All's well, on wet and wetter x86.
