Cooking, The Cooks and the Captain
Fleck
Sat 28 Jun 2008 00:36
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Hi
Friday 27th June
Noon position 18:11.6S 157:08.9W
We are making good but not perfect progress to our
chosen target amongst the widely spaced Cook Islands: Aitutaki. It is pretty,
but the anchorage is tight and shallow, just like me!!, and we will arrive at
dusk, not a safe time. Our usual dilemma on this trip. We can't speed up much,
so we will probably have to slow down, and arrive the following
morning. First we are getting a weather forecast, to see if that will guide
our decision, and while we are waiting for it we thought of you all and decided
to write!
Over to Vicky: I guess i'm talking about the
cooking and Mr Captian Cook! Dad on his hunt for the best shrimp curry
this side of the equator produced a exceptionally yummy and indeed
ambitions first nights dinner onboard at sea. No mean feat when the boat
rolls so much! Yesterday morning we put out the fishing line complete
with dad's favourite DIY squid lure made from bits of blue surgical
gloves and biro eyes -i was a little sceptical but fish are pretty thick!.
Just before dusk as i was digging out the tins for the vegetarian dinner
option the reel went and we hauled in a rather subdued large black
finned tuna (given the usal flapping and chaos assiciated with landing
a big fish). It was filleted and did for a tuna tai green curry and he other
half is for tonight's dinner. In Polynesia their favourite local dish is Poisson
Cru which is raw tuna chunks marinaded in lemon juice and then covered in
coconut milk and some raw onions and tomatoes stired in. Its good in the
restaurants but not sure if we should both eat raw fish on the boat at
sea! I have been reading Captain Cook's daries of his adventures in this
part of the world from 1774. Even by then a few of the major
pacific islands icluding Tahiti had been visited by european adventureres
but he still found and named a good deal more of the south
pacific islands including (obviously) some of the Cook Islands which
is where we are heading, 234 years and 2 weeks after him! Most of the
islanders he encountered were friendly and the women (by 1774 standards)
quite liberated! He spent his days ashore meeeting chiefs, searching
for water, trading odds and sods (nails and cloth) for fruit and
coconuts. In that respect not much has changed from today as on
arrival in each island, we still go go see the customs/police man, search
endlessely for a tap and in the case of dad, try and pay for mangos by using up
his Equadorian money!! Anyhow off to
prepare dinner now, what would you do with a fresh fillet of tuna, an
onion, a green pepper and a stack of assorted tins? Its a bit like an
episode of Ready, Steady......Cook!
Me, again. Just to say that we do rotate the
chores, it's a liberated ship, I do get to hang on to some of the keytasks
however, like cleaning the shower drain!!!!! Thanks to Geoff for news from RHH:
life goes on. It will be good to have him back on the boat now he has reading
glasses: I had formed the view that without them his navigational skills were
becoming limited. Don't suppose anyone at work was bothered that he couldn't
read anything for the last couple of years, it's not something that an ICU bod
would be expected to do anyway!!
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