15:48S 146: 09W

 

What is it about cabbages?   They simply refuse to die!  I have one lurking in the fridge that I bought in the Galapagos.  We’ve had coleslaw, cabbage sautéed in olive oil with garlic, added to a vegetarian curry and sliced raw in lunchtime wraps.  And there is still more there waiting to be dealt with!  A fellow cruiser told me to peel it leaf by leaf to make it last longer – but I don’t want to make it last longer!   My lettuce and bok choy disappeared in days without a whimper....but not the cabbage.  I only buy it as a last resort because of its amazing ability to survive weeks without any special treatment.  Other vegetables have to be vacuum packed and refrigerated but not cabbage – it happily sits in the vege basket in the spare cabin until I cut into it...then it moves to the fridge where it lasts weeks. 

 

My earliest cabbage memories hark back to my girl guiding days.  I was sitting my cooking badge and had to prepare and cook a meal for the examiner.  I’d been practising for weeks and felt quietly confident.  Arriving at the examiner’s house I was appalled to see a lump of fatty mutton, a limp cabbage, a handful of sad looking potatoes and a packet of sago sitting on the bench – my dinner ingredients which came with strict instructions – “everything is to be boiled”.  I put the mutton on and set about cooking sago pudding between groans.  Could it get any worse?  It could.  The examiner marched in and ordered me to put the cabbage on at the same time as the potatoes – “we like it soft”.  The resulting grey mass was accompanied by a white sauce - “it’s the test of a good cook....can you prepare a lump free white sauce,” she asked?......I could and it was, to my mind, about the only edible part of the meal.  I passed the badge but cabbage has never been boiled in my house since....nor has mutton.

 

Why I bring all that up is that my plans to buy fresh greens in the village at Fakarava went out the window when all that was on offer was cabbage.  We bought baguettes, brie and some fine French pastries instead.  Who needs cabbage?

 

We left the anchorage at Rotoava at 5.30am and it was straightforward through the pass.  With wind on the beam it was a lovely sail to the stunning reef studded anchorage in the north of Toau with spectacular turquoise and azure waters.   Our plans to head to Papeete were scuppered when we checked the weather which was pretty ghastly.  We’re getting 20 knots in the anchorage but Bandit is securely tied to a mooring with two lines and the anchor down as well – a few too many reefs around to feel comfortable on one line.  We’re hoping the weather will pass quickly as we need to be in Papeete by Wednesday. Meanwhile we’ll enjoy all that beautiful Toau has to offer which, judging by the shacky building on the beach, could well mean a meal ashore – yipee.   The cabbage continues to survive.