We recently watched Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a Canadian movie, as we usually do when visiting a new country. In the film, many actors added "eh" at the end of each sentence. We initially thought it was an old tradition or something that people didn't do anymore. However, we realised this wasn't the case.
While onshore checking out the "Wellness Centre" Cultural Camp—which you can spot in one of the drone shots—we encountered some locals collecting shells, which you can see in the last picture. The conversation went something like this:
Them: Where are you guys from, eh?
Us: We came from New Zealand by boat...lalala.
Them: That’s crazy, eh?
Us: What are you collecting?
Them: Oh, these are called butter clams, eh. We’re collecting some for a feed eh. You can find loads of them inside the bay, eh.
Anyway you get the point, they were super friendly and they remined me of the Maoris in New Zealand.
After chatting further with the locals, we learned that they were there chopping logs with some teenagers in preparation for the next visitors, who are arriving after Christmas. They gave us some tips on where to place our crab traps and invited us to visit the village, which we plan to do once we've sorted out a few repairs.
We had come into this bay to shelter from some bad weather and to enjoy some peace and quiet. Although the town has a dock that’s free to use, everyone likes their own space, and staying at a dock for a week can sometimes be a bit distracting.
This was also the bay where I finally got the generator completely fixed. Now we can charge the batteries more quickly and without using too much diesel. The reason we hadn’t been using it was simply because we hadn’t needed it for the past three years—we had plenty of sunlight.
We also got our jib (front sail) stitched up, and it’s now ready to be used again. We thought we’d finally have some free time from fixing things, but that was short-lived as the diesel heater started smoking.
No, the net is not burning. The exhaust is under the net, and white smoke usually means there’s a lot of carbon build-up in the cheap Chinese diesel heaters. Some of you might ask why we didn’t get a proper heater. Well, this boat wasn’t made for these regions, and we didn’t want to completely transform it. Since we’re heading south again, once we reach the tropical islands, we won’t need the heaters anymore, and we can just rip them out and be done with it (though that sounds easier than it actually is).
I really enjoyed eating these sea shells. They taste exactly like the green-lipped sea shells, which most of you can find at your local supermarket you can find under a sprinkler or something. However, eating them fresh is a whole different experience. They’re so easy to prepare—just 5 minutes in boiling salt water, and that’s dinner!
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, if you did feel free to comment.
Until next time,
Paul