The reason for our return to Tahuata was we had been told that one of the village on the island was planning what they call a sailors feast. A demonstration of a traditional celebration meal cooked in a big hole in the ground. Apparently anything can be cooked this way, it just depends on the size of the hole. Basically you dig your hole and light a fire in it, the aim is to create a bed of coals in the bottom. Meanwhile you prepare your food. In our case we were offered a whole pig, goat, octopus, plantain and banana, uru,( bread fruit), and other starchy fruits i didn't recognise. Everything is cut up, wrapped in banana leaves and put in baskets made from woven coconut leaves.
Once the fire in the hole has burned to coals you put a layer of banana leaves on them and put in the baskets of food, more banana leaves and then fill in the hole. I am sure there is more to it than that, what goes where in the hole, how wet the leaves and baskets are, how much soil you add etc but basically everything is crammed into a hot pit and left overnight.
We missed the excavation of the hole as our guide to the venue was working on local time but by the time we arrived there were mounds of food piled onto huge wooden platters, I am always amazed at the number of ways there are to cook banana but I swear at least ½ the dishes were just that in one form or another. We were also offered fish, fresh from the sea, cut into bite sized pieces and marinated in coconut milk. The food was good, slightly hard to differentiate which meat was which, but good. It all had a mild smoked flavour and was falling off the bones.
The feast fed 40 sailors and an unknown number of the village and was enjoyed by everyone.
After the food was eaten there was an attempt to teach the men the local "haka", a dance designed to frighten your enemy and the ladies some local dance steps. The ladies were definitely the most convincing, I doubt the sailors contingent of the haka would have frightened a mouse. The local dogs certainly didn't look in the least bit bothered.
At this point the heavens opened and as we all sheltered out came the ukulele and drums and we were entertained with local Polynesian music.
All in all a very entertaining experience.
Later, after we had made our way back to the boat, Heather and I decided a snorkle would be the ideal way to help digest such a big meal, just minutes after we jumped in we were lucky to see the biggest manta ray to date swim below us, we followed it for a while until it effortlessly outpaced us, unfortunately we didn't have a camera so when we say it was at least 3m across you will have to believe us.
A fantastic end to a great day.
Tim