I did a few boat jobs and could make check marks on my to-do list.

The arrangement of spare parts shipment from Tahiti to me took also some time. Fortunately my friend Tevai in Tahiti will get the spare parts at DHL Fa’a’a (Pape’ete airport) and send them to me. But how can I pay him the money he uses for me in Tahiti? As he has an account with Socredo Bank and in Uturoa is a Socredo Bank branch office. I thought I just make a deposit on his account. In Pape’ete I made the same thing at Socredo Bank for the down payment for the new sunscreens. Here in Uturoa they say it’s not possible without a banking card which requires a bank account, which I can’t get here. Now I will transfer the money from my German bank account. Problem solved.

I also could arrange with DHL Fa’a’a that Tevai can pick up the shipment instead of me. Thierry Tchung of DHL Fa’a’a is really of great help.

And now I have to wait that the spare part arrive at Tahiti.

Yesterday we took again a rental car from Easy Car for 3 h to get gasoline for the outboard motor and took the chance to drive almost to the SE corner of Raiatea to visit a botanical garden, which we could not look at on Sunday because we were running out of time.

The “Jardine Botanique de Faaroa” is not big, but nice. Well maintained with lots of plants and especial with a variety of bird of paradise flowers. I found that these plants are original from South Africa but became very common here. They just look beautiful.

I also could identify the tree growing the Tahitian chestnut we ate on Sunday. The trees pretty big with roots starting already above ground, this y the trees are easily to be recognized. The fruits are pretty hard and difficult to open. I assume the locals have a special tool to open them.

As I’m writing about special tools, we got recently the chance to see all steps of copra production.

Around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the copra production was booming here in French Polynesia. Nowadays there are only a few production places to be seen on the islands here.

As the first step I consider the collection of coconuts being good for copra production. This means the ones not eaten by the coconut crap. Then they need to be cracked open. The gentleman who showed us his work used a pretty heavy ax to crack it open in one stroke. The next step to fully break them into two halfs and take the meat out. For getting the meat out a specially formed tool is needed and a skillful move.
The meat is then put on a drying platform which indicates that there is still copra produced. The drying platform can be covered with a sliding roof or the platform can be slid under a roof to protect the drying fruits from rain. The drying process takes in normal weather conditions about 5 weeks. Finally all is packed into jute sacks and shipped by supply boat to a collection place, most likely in Tahiti.

We got all this shown from an elderly man who told us many things of his life and that he got a pacemaker in NZ.

Gas for cooking and baking – one of my two bottles holding maximal 12 kg of propane or butane gas got empty. As I always want to have it refilled ASAP I asked at the fuel station if they refill bottles. However, here on Raiatea they only exchange bottles, which is not possible für me.

I also asked Rava, the very kind secretary of Marina Lu and she gave me the hint to ask at Marina Carenage. There they do indeed refill bottles using gravity filling. Thus, I brought my empty bottle there. To my big surprise they cannot fill my bottle without an adapter. It’s the first time that I need an adapter in French Polynesia. As I have a set of adapters I went back to MaRe to get the right one.
This morning I’ll pick up the full one. Then I have again 2 full bottles in the storage for gas for the kitchen. This should last again for 6 – 12 month. Changing the connection takes only a few minutes thus the food on the range still stays warm when I reconnect the bottles.