Varo
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 23 May 2010 08:02
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May23rd 2030 Local May24th 0624
UTC
15:18.41S 146:22.81W
When I last blogged we were just leaving Fakarava
and heading on North. It is strange this North South thing. We are used to
talking about the cold North wind and in Tetamanu in Fakarava, they were
complaining that it was very cold due to the South wind! We are now heading
North to get warmer as it was only 29 degrees way down south in
Fakarava....
Anyway enough of the obvious. Our trip from
Fakarava was uneventful and I dont even think I fished as we had a backlog of
food in the fridge to eat. It seems every time Trish takes something out of the
freezer for dinner I catch or sometimes even cadge a fish.
There was barely a breath of wind the whole way so
we motored up the 40 miles or so to the north of Toau. This is a strange pass.
It is a "blind" one and simply takes you into a lagoon, but a very gorgeous one
at that. ( I really am sorry but none of these adjectives do any justice to the
places we are visiting and there is only so many times that "beautiful" and
"gorgeous" can be used with any impact). This place is called Anse Amyot and
there are a couple of families living there. We anchored up right in the middle
of the lagoon and it wasn't long before a plywood speed boat arrived into the
anchorage from afar. We hailed them over and met two very jolly local people who
we invited aboard for a cold drink after their long trip from Apataki. They were
still half gassed from their all night Tuesday party in Apataki. It seems they
go up to Apataki, the next atoll North, every Tuesday to meet the supply boat
from tahiti and they said it always ends up a bit of a party. Three of them had
travelled up, but there were only two on the boat returning. They said that he
couldn't be wakened when they had to leave and the supply ship would drop the
third member of the party back outside their bay later!
Anyway, aboard they came and we had a howling laugh
with them. It turns out they are Gaston and Valentine, he from Tahiti iti and
she from the Tuamoto's and a direct relative of the last Queen of the Tuamotos.
They are well known to cruisers in the area and are very friendly. As fellow
islanders we hope we are too and we hit it off with them. We thought we
would only anchor there for lunch before going on to Apataki, but off course we
ended up staying two days with them.
Now you may never have heard of this creature, but
if you like your crustaecians there is none better - the Varo. One of the
rarest shellfish you will ever find and it lives only in Toau and in
lesser numbers in one or two other islands. Well, having read about the Varo, I
asked Gaston about it and he was impressed that I knew about it. It wasn't
difficult it was right there in my pilot book! Anyway to cut a long story
short we went fishing the next morning and "we" (Gaston) caught four of
them. This thing - yes THING - lives in burrows in the sand under 2 foot of
water or so. A mature one is about 2 inches wide and 18 inches long from tail to
end of "praying mantis" like claws and is the most delicious shellfish you
could ever taste ( if you don't eat Scottish shellfish that is - seriously). The
fishing method is to spot a small hole in the sandy seabed indicating his
burrow, bend down with your ass in the air and you face masked face in the
water and tap a fish wrapped twig across the hole with one hand, while your
other hand waits to grab the Varo's claws as he takes the bait. Then firmly
holding his pincers with one hand the other is thrust into the sand to grab
his body and hoik him out. I have never seen such a bizarre creature in my life.
I can't truly describe it but will post a photo soon.
Gaston and Valentine were putting on a dinner
that night for the boats and Varo was on the menu. Being the fishing
companion I was not only shown the cooking method in the kitchen but I was
given the lions share of the Varo. On this one occasion I put my normal shy
disposition to one side and I did not hesitate for one second to devour every
bit of the Varo I could get. I think me "sooking" the innards out of the head as
I do at home with Scottish Prawns impressed them so they just gave me more. We
had a great time and a great
dinner.
The night before however we had a great dinner
also. Rhiann Marie's coconut fish curry. Her's the recipe:
Climb one coconut tree and recover several
coconuts. Pick the bark out off your grazed forearms after
Split off husk without chopping off your fingers or
stabbing yourself
Chop top off nut with machete and pour water into
glass - (drink half when nobody is
looking)
Split coconut in half with aforementioned machete being careful not to cut
your hand off at the wrist - ala convicted Arabian thief - what would people
think?
Grind out or scrape out coconut
"Wring" the ground coconut in dish cloth to squeeze out milk, being
careful not to rip cloth in two with the tension - I did........
Sit down and have a cold drink ..... then take spear gun and jump over
the side. Shoot one or two fish when the sharks are not looking. I decided on
parrot fish and a red snapper because they came in close range and were edible
(if you believe some of the locals but not the others)
Scale, gut and skin fish on back of boat being careful not to cut into your
teak or your toes
Ask your wife to do the chopping of onions and
garlic and peppers and set the cooking tools out as by now you are exhausted and
blood is present on most of your limbs (on the outside) and it does not look
good on the onions.
Marinade the fish in salt, pepper, olive oil,
wholegrain mustard (go easy), tartare sauce - yes, tartare sauce (1 teaspoon)
then a sprinkling from some jar of "Fish Spices" that you once bought on holiday
in Thailand and leave for half an hour till your wife finishes the chopping
bit.
Now heat up your cooking oil; in with the onions,
garlic, peppers, fish, a splash of "Susies" hot chilli sauce, a sprinkling of
curry powder, coconut milk prepared earlier, the half glass of coconut water you
didn't drink ....... un be luddy lievable!
Alternatively, if you are a bit pushed for time or
neither you nor anyone on your street has a coconut tree just nip down to
Tescos and you can get a jar for two quid and you will probably keep all your
limbs intact too.
Again we were sad to leave but the show must go
on..... but not before Gaston and Valentine came to give us gifts and
had us write up their visitors book. In return we had given them gifts and
supplied them with some medicines and such like that they requested, along
with lemons which we had and they needed for the raw fish dish which
they made for us at the dinner.
I had also repaired Gaston's outboard engine, which
I had diagnosed as being starved of fuel and cured by removing the beach from
his fuel filter - "but it's only six months old" he said in
bewilderment......... so everyone was happy and we could feel we had given
a little something back for their kindness to us and other cruising
yachtsmen.
After leaving Toau ( To ah oo - boy, do they like
their vowels) we headed over the twenty or so miles to the pass at Apataki. On
leaving the anchorage at Toau where Nika had joined us the previous day I made a
bit of a foopah.
I have done several silly things on this trip so
far.
One day fired my speargun's first shot from
the cockpit into the water - never to see the spear again and to be whiplashed
by the cord which snapped when there was no water resistance to slow the
spear down.
Another day, not content with my thought through
policy of dumping bottles at sea when far off shore, and in thousands of feet of
water, I thought it would be a good idea to break the bottles while dumping them
over the side. So - I took the first bottle - a clear one - and let
it drop over the side with one hand while
smashing it with a hammer with the other. Excellent idea - except that the
bottle exploded when hit with the hammer (even though it had no lid) and
impregnated me from head to waist with glass and sprayed the whole afterdeck
with clear, difficult to see shards of glass - well you get the
picture.......
I can't remember the other ones now but I will tell
you when I remember. Anyway I was telling you about leaving the anchorage - you
see I have developed this very clever idea of stringing two fenders together and
tying them off under the transom at night, which minimises any bottom slapping
in the evening if you know what I mean. However if you drive off from an
anchorage with them still tied in place, waving your goodbyes, it is not so
clever, eh!
This whole blog is going on a bit and I know that
some of the Gael Force staff read it - so to minimise the disruption to service
I will leave this one now and tell you all about the amazing time we have had in
Apataki and some other stupid things I have done if I can remember them!
By for now ........... and you lot GET BACK TO WORK!
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