Wednesday 15 September 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Wednesday 15 September 2010 בס"ד

It squalled throughout the night, but my night watch was relatively calm, the ship not swinging out of the NNE-SSE sector. Woke up at 0715, had breakfast, and did domestics and deckwash and soogie before two school groups of about 25 kids each came aboard. I gave tours to the students, having a translator teacher come along since most of the kids only speak Pukapuka language. Then the kids played drums and did dances on the hatch, often pulling us up to join them. After the two school groups, we got ready to go ashore again. We got ashore, and the Mate was trying to organize a trip to the airstrip motu at the south end of the atoll. Before we met up to do this, Dapper, Brad, and I went to Lima's (one of our passengers') house and asked if it was cool if we stayed with him. He said yes and after our motu trip to find him and he'd take us to another house of his. We almost went on the trip, but as were waiting at the beach, a squall approached and we saw the ship let go the mooring line and take in all sail before motoring away. Then the massive rainstorm passed over so a few of us found shelter at somebody's house and played cards on the porch until it passed. We then walked around a bit and found a little shop where we bought some soda (that we had previously unloaded from our cargo hold). Then we went back to Lima's, and he and his sons walked us to our house. His wife and niece were preparing it still, so the four of us walked around, checking things out, but then it would squall intermittently, so we'd stop and take shelter with other islanders for the duration. We did this for a while and met some nice people. Then we returned to the house and had a massive feast with coconut latkes (made from sprouting coconut, which is like cotton candy on this inside). We were then adorned with flower leis, and we headed off to the community center for the dance party, but stopped at the nursery first were everybody was pregaming. Shortly after, we got the dance party going with the Mate as DJ Pukapuka #1 Dance Pah-tay 2010. At first, very few locals joined in; they all pulled up on their scooters and watched us like we were weirdos (which we are). Then we learned it is the Pukapuka custom to dance only when asked by a partner, so we all kept going out and grabbing people and once we invited them in, they started dancing away. Crazy dance party went late, then an even crazier afterparty at the nursery. Good times. Went back to our place at about 0230.

Woke up to a massive breakfast feast, and then Lima took us around to show us the sights, which included a penis statue built into a curb, and the three churches of the island. His family presented us with three mini-shell necklaces each, then we went to his boat and bailed it out for him before he returned us to the ship (the PC had returned to mooring after the squall passed). Shortly after we got back aboard, she started moving close to the reef and in a minute we let go the hawser and motored away. Once we had everybody aboard, many many locals also came and sang and dance and ate with us. I also helped lash an outrigger canoe the Captain acquired atop the galleyhouse. Finally, they left us and we motored off, there being no wind. 12-4 took the deck and we tacked the yards around, set some fore-and-aft sails, and I removed chafe gear from the hawser upon the galleyhouse. I stood fourth lookout, and had to go and loose the flying jib and pass it around to the new tack. After watch, I took a shower because I truly stank awful of BO from the dance party still, and then I got a lot of photos from everybody and hung out in the fly-infested forepeak (Pukapuka is a lovely island, but has about 1000 flies per cubic foot, and we got some stowaways).