On Friday evening we went to a party put on by the Tahiti Tourism board for cruisers. The Tourism Board was sponsoring a rally from our anchorage area over to the island of Moorea, 10 miles away. We weren’t taking Kosmos in the rally, but we had been invited to be crew on another boat named Priscilla. This was the pre-rally party. There was free beer and appetizers. There was a Polynesian dance show, which was good. In addition to the female dancers, there were also male dancers. The female dances involved lots of hip gyration and flowing arm movements. The male dances involved lots of squatting, hitting one’s own legs and chest, and arm movements mimicking the rowing of canoes and use of spears.

We were both recruited to go on stage to learn one of the dances. It was a male dance and it really was very easy to pick up. Sadly, the people we gave our camera to to take photos couldn’t figure out how to use it, so we have no pictures. Latitude 38 was there taking pictures, so will someone check their website and/or paper magazine and see if there are any photos of us in there? If there are some, please let us know.

The party was the only real interesting thing we did all day. Christi still wasn’t feeling very good, so we didn’t do much beyond going out to lunch and grocery shopping during the day.

Saturday was a very full day! We arrived at Priscilla, the boat we were “crewing” on at 08:30. Our friends that own Priscilla, Tom and Suzie, know we aren’t sailors, so we weren’t sure if we were getting sailing lessons or just hanging out and keeping them company. Turns out it was the latter. Christy from Special Blend was also with us. The ride over was pretty slow since there wasn’t much wind. Kosmos would have clobbered all these sailboats! Too bad we did not enter. We had a great time visiting with our friends. The day was sunny and beautiful.

Since the wind was so light, most of the boats put out their spinnaker sail. Usually, all the sails are white except for the spinnaker. The spinnaker is usually brightly colored. It was very pretty to watch all the boats go by us with their colorful sails. Yes, go by. Sadly we started in the lead but fell the back of the pack by the end of the rally. We noticed a boat from San Diego and made a mental note to go introduce ourselves to them later.

We were greeted at the other end by people in outrigger canoes that directed us towards the anchorage.

There was another party waiting for us at Moorea. We dinghied over to a beach not too far away from the anchorage. There was a luau with a traditional Tahitian food buffet. The food was similar to what we had at the Marquesan buffet. There was breadfruit and taro, both completely tasteless. There was raw fish in coconut milk with veggies, the staple of the diet in these parts. There was pig roasted in the ground, and we were disappointed that it wasn’t as good as we had expected it to be. There was cooked spinach and chicken in coconut milk, which was very similar to the Taro leaf dish in the Marqusas, but much tastier. Christi hates cooked spinach and she liked it. There was pork and cabbage, which tasted a lot like chow mein. There was cooked bananas, which was good. There were also sweet potatoes, which were bland. There was another raw fish dish with shredded coconut that was pretty good, but not as good as the fish in coconut milk.

The most noteworthy items in the meal are called Tahitian Cakes. At the time we had no idea what they were. One looked like raw tuna in coconut milk and the other looked like raw salmon in coconut milk. The texture of both was similar to raw tuna, but a little squishier. They were fruity tasting and incredibly sweet, obviously a dessert item. Our entire table had a heated discussion about whether this was fish in a sweet sauce or whether it was some sort of weird fruit we had never seen before. A lady at our table asked a local, who explained to us that they are mashed fruit and cornstarch. The red one is banana and the orange one is pumpkin.

We found the people from San Diego and introduced ourselves. It turns out we have a couple of mutual friends and we had heard of one another through our friends.

After lunch there was an outrigger canoe race. Each boat in the rally sent three people to race. Eric was recruited to row. Eric has a new respect for how hard it is to row those canoes. He is hard to see, but is in the front of the canoe to the right wearing his trademark hat.

They came in second in their heat, but we didn’t stick around long enough to find out how they ranked against all the boats in the rally. The last ferry back to Papeete was at 16:00 (4:00 pm), so we had to leave the party early to get to the ferry dock. BTW, in France and in French Polynesia, they use a 24 hour clock just like sailors do, so the 24 hour clock is getting to be normal for us.