Raiatea, 8-23-2017--Trip to Taha'a

By Pearl

Yesterday we decided to take the ferry over to Taha'a, the neighboring island within the same lagoon.

Pearl beside the ferry in Uturoa, Raiatea

Most of the ferry passengers are French school teachers who live on Raiatea and commute to the neighboring island of Taha'a

The ferry crosses the lagoon and half an hour later arrives at Taha'a

We settle in at the snack for an espresso and pastry

Then hitch-hiked to a local hotel where we picked up a rental car.  These decorations at the hotel were fresh flowers and leaves.  This hibiscus was about 7-8" across.  

The road gave fabulous views of the lagoon

We were impressed with the pride almost everyone seemed to take in their landscaping.  We were also impressed with how friendly everyone we met was, waving and wishing us "iorana", the traditional Tahitian greeting.   

Looking across the lagoon toward Raiatea

An especially ostentatious grave in front of a home.  As on Bora Bora, these were a common sight in front of homes.

Curious about the shade structures we kept seeing along the road, we stopped and found out they were vanilla "plantations"

The gorgeous vanilla blossom 

Since there are no native pollinators, the blossoms have to be hand pollinated, as demonstrated here by the staff

They said that about 6 months later the vanilla pods form.

Road through the forest

We saw much grooming of palm groves.  Here they are burning coconut husks and most curiously the nearby cows were feeding on cut palm branches.

A barge loaded with what we later discovered was bagasse, the shredded remains of processed sugar cane.

We'd heard about this place and stopped by for a tour.  They made a variety of organic products from local plants. 

One of the products is food grade coconut oil.  Here the coconuts are split with a machete.

Split coconuts

Coconut meat is removed with a shredding machine.  Between this and the machete, there's lots of potential for missing fingers.  Amazingly, this fellow had all 10. 

Empty coconut shells.

After drying the shredded coconut for several days, it's cold-pressed through this contraption.

Finished coconut oil, which is added to other local plant extractions including vanilla, basil and citronella to make a variety of products including soap, insect repellent, and various cosmetics.  

In another part of the operation, sugar cane is shredded and pressed... 

...yielding this liquid extract...

...and bagasse, the shredded remains after the liquid is removed.  Bagasse is then returned to the sugar cane field to be used as mulch.

The liquid portion of the sugar cane goes into these tanks with some yeast added, where it ferments for about 5 days.

It's then distilled in this copper and stainless steel distiller and aged in either the stainless steel tanks in the foreground or...

...in these oak barrels, which were formerly used at the Jack Daniels distillery in Kentucky.

The final product is a high-quality rum, either clear or, if aged in the oak barrels it becomes what they call "straw" rum.  

Sugar cane, which is grown in small-scale plots by a number of local suppliers for the rum production.

As we traveled around the island, we saw what appeared to be numerous long mailboxes, one of which said "breadbox" on it.  That's when we realized there's a baguette delivery service on the island.

After that we got carried away with photographing them.  The owner of this one was standing nearby and she said she gets 4 baguettes delivered every other day.  That's our baguette serving as a model.  We'll spare you all the photos, but here's a sampling for fun.

Standard gable-roof model

Same, but with corrugated roof and plexi-glass door on the front.

This is the heavy duty model, made from steel pipe.

Another gable roof type.  This was the most common.

Curved sheet metal style (what do you think, Erik?) 

And of course what David would make if he lived here, just a simple piece of PVC pipe.

We bid farewell to Taha'a.