Latitude: 17 29.481 S
Longitude 149 51 117 W
Russ had done some dumpster diving the day before and found an old pair of broken flipflops which he cut up to make pads for the bottom part of the davits where there is ongoing dinghy rub. He also worked a bit on cleaning barnacles off of Hydie’s rudder. About six we all returned to shore for pizza and salads. There is a little pizza shack with wood oven. We sat at the bar and were incredibly entertained watching a French woman and young man turning out pizzas.
It was a small kitchen and the two of them did a choreographed dance with just two long-handled pizza pallets. Each had his/her pallets. The thin crust pizza’s only took about two minutes to cook (1 minute in the outer part of the oven and 1 minute on the inner part of the oven. The oven looked like it could accommodate 3-4 pizzas at any one time. So every minute., one- two pizzas came out, one to two pizzas were moved forward, and one–two pizza’s were put on the outside edge.
During the 1 minute intervals, the young man answered the phone, took orders, collected money from customers, and put balls of dough into a press of sorts that made instant rounds which he then trimmed, floured, and staggered layers, sprinkled with flour onto a metal work surface.
The woman would flour one of the long handled pallets, lay on a round of pizza dough, sprinkle on the requested ingredients, All of the ingredients had been prepared in advance and were ready to sprinkle. The man would then take the his pizza pallet, remove the inside pizzas, shift the outside pizzas to the inside. The woman would then put her pizza into the outside oven and immediately return it the work bench to flour and make another. She could make two pizzas in minute.
The timing was amazing to watch. They worked steadily in this manner for the hour we were there eating dinner….great pizza’s too. One of their specialties was the banana pizza. The dough was covered with a thick whipping cream, piled with squished and sliced bananas and brown sugar. It was one of the few pizzas that didn’t require the full two minutes. After one minute in the outside oven, the young man would scoop it up on his pallet and hold up to the hot roof of the oven to bring the bananas and sugar to a golden brown. When it came out of the oven and was cut and boxed, dark chocolate was dribbled in concentric circles all of the the the top!
We were exhausted watching the pizza dancers, so we came back to the boat, lay in the hammock, listened to music and tried to count the stars before falling asleep.
The water behind the reef where we are anchored is a gorgeous turquoise. Our anchor which we can see is in about 30 feet of water dug into white sand. We can see the bottom and have already spotted a couple of rays. Before lunch we all went snorkeling. Garyn and Jess went out toward the western reef where they were followed by a curious puffer fish. Russ and I went toward the shore where there is a huge variety of reef fish living in the coral heads. I counted at least 10 sea cucumbers. The shore which is less than 100 yards from the boat is a public beach which has been filled all day with Polynesian families laughing playing in the water.
As I write this blog, Garyn and Jess are snorkeling, and Russ has gone off with Brian from Furthur on a dinghy ride, and I’m sitting in my office on the lido deck, but it’s time to get ready for island happy hour. The sun is dipping lower in the sky.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
