Well, new years afternoon here, just after midnight in england. Sitting thronelike on the roof of the boat as a shower blows through. I have just resecured the tarp that is covering the vents of our fruit dryer - a contraption that has the same shape and principles as a bamboo steamer, but is made of netting and hangs from one of the masts. Coconut, mango and papaya. A fine sight but am dubious about whether anything will actually dry in the fairly high humidity here.
Food and eating have been dominating discussion on the boat these last few days as our departure from Hiva Oa draws closer. We are putting an order in for 3 months worth of food (worst case scenario) to a lady in Tahiti. She will buy it and put it on a ship that will meet us in Nuku Hiva, the last island on the Marquesas before 1500 miles of open ocean to Kiribati, which apparently has no spare food, and then another 2000 to the Marshall Islands. What to take? A shopping list is proposed, discussed and generally agreed upon. Jan and Laura, the two newest crew members, are well keyed in to both nutrition and where food comes from and have a natural - and perfectly justified - aversion to highly processed, ethically dubious foods that I scoff down with little thought. Better to be around people on that side of things than the other, but I did make a robust (but ultimately doomed) argument for peanut butter. I didn't mention thatthe only kind you can get here is the american kind, which is basically palm oil and sugar, and has the same guilty addictiveness as smoking. Instant noodles made it onto the list though, as did processed cheese (the only kind of cheese for miles around it seems). And lots of the sauces and spices, based on the assumption that we are going to catch loads of fish. So good quality soy sauce for sashimi, and butter, cream and herbs for the french cooks.
But the other side of this is how we can preserve perishable food available on the island for the journey. Hence the fruit drying, and a trip by me round to all the other boats, my french level set to 'understandable yet highly flawed with accompanying naive grin', to ask for empty jars to make mango jam. Big success. Mushroom spores are being injected (endless oyster mushrooms in 6 weeks time), coconut dessicated, chillis and garlic set in olive oil. Lemons put in sand (no joke). Lots of work for relatively small quantities, but so interesting to learn.
The whole crew are here now, the last arriving yesterday. We are five and, though not famous, Enid herself would have stuggled to find a skill set more suited to an adolescent adventure book/tv series. Tom, the captain, picked up the boat 10 years ago in hong kong and can repair every part of it quickly, probably using material he found at the bottom of a coral reef or that he magics from a corner of the engine room. A captain at 24, lucky to be alive after a barracuda bit off half his forearm in cuba a few years ago, with the boat as much a part of his identity as 'unsung hero' is part of paul scholes'.
Emma, also french, quit her high flying job in paris after couchsurfing with tom whilst on a holiday to see her brother in tahiti, and has been here ever since. Amazing cook (lobster her speciality, which i am told we will be eating a lot of) and takes responsibility the logistical details - money, supplies (food and medicine) with the efficiency of someone who has made a profession of it.
Jan, czech, tall and strong, cares about plants - growing them, foraging them, eating them, saving them. He has dedicated most of his adult life to developing his skills and knowledge in different parts of the world, and when with you, will give you things to eat and smell and morsels of information about a world i rarely think about. Did you know, for example, that fruit still on a tree holds more water during the full moon (and vica versa)? So if a farmer wants to sell his fruit, he harvests on a full moon so the fruit are bigger, but if he wants to dry his fruit he picks it on a new moon. Cool. Each day Jan sets off with his backpack and returns a few hours later heavily laden with of coconuts, chillis, mangos, breadfruit, grapefruit (it helps that there is fruit dropping from trees all over the place). Likes to go to bed early. Great guy to have around.
Laura arrived the other day having just finished walking 3000 miles from the coast of australia to the middle. Realised she missed the sea, and so here she is. Outdoors instructor by trade, her first aid skills are comfortably in the realm of 'medic'. Resourceful and grounded and reminds me a lot of Behla.
And then attached to this dream team like a advertising supplement to a newspaper is me, currently especially useless as i have a blood infection that manifests in particuarly ugly, pussy eruptions on my skin, and a swollen right foot, so i am hobbling about in an ungainly fashion and accidently leaving used bandages everywhere. This body was forged to stand up to the north sea and wind and doesn't know how to handle itself in the heat, sweat and insecty world of the tropics. So first it burnt and then it itched and now, seemingly, it has melted. But we are learning together, and I need to cut it a bit more slack.
But i digress. It has been a good process for me to initially think my skill set was useless out here: music is all well and good, but doesn't feed anyone, and there are no children on the boat to provide education to. Like a lot of people, i tend to value myself on what i can DO, and am seen to be doing: creating, producing, having something interesting to say, making money, being unique. But in comparison (comparisons, as someone once said, are odious, but here we are) to these dudes I possess merely an adequate amount of strength, wit, life experience, revolutionary zeal. Nothing to puff my chest out at. And on acknowledgement of this, the challeng is to learn to be ok with just being a person that is there, sharing time and space. And perhaps at the heart of it is the need to be respected, revered and perhaps even loved by others - validation of your existence. When that is gone you find out if you respect and love yourself. It has also made me think about what i do have to give to this situation, and what attributes I have learnt in the past that are relevant here and, crucially, what I want to spend time developing. Skills, of course, but I am thinking more like patience, discipline, self-control, non-judgement, ability to react spontaneously with the correct intent.
One thing I can do very well though is sit around and eat home made pizza and drink rum and play music and get to the heart of matters. That was our new years eve, with romano and the gang, and it was great (I now write after new year).
We set sail in a few days, so not sure when next blog will be up. I think there is a way of subscribing if you want to get a nudge...
In the meantime, happy new year
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