The Public Dock at Uturoa
After a good sleep-in, some last minute Internet-based projects, and a few boat chores, we left the Carenage and headed over to the public dock in town. First, we filled up with diesel … a whopping 220 gallons for a total 86,000 French Polynesian Francs (about $1000) even with duty-free. After I was revived from my sticker shock, we moved the boat off the diesel dock and settled in. The master generator repair guy showed up about a half hour later and we told him our sad generator tale. He seems to have some pretty good ideas.
At that point, it was 4:30 p.m., we had skipped lunch, and we were starving. Across the way, we saw a big sign for Chinese food which we haven’t had in a long time. We sauntered over and unfortunately for us, the restaurant doesn’t open until 6:30 p.m. We wandered around in a zombie-like state trying to find a snack to tide us over for two hours, and stumbled into the grocery store called Champion. We immediately went to the frozen food section in search of our favorite treat: an ice cream bar called Magnum … the most delicious vanilla ice cream center, first dipped in caramel, and topped with a chocolate shell. It’s outrageously good. The Champion did not have our favorite caramel variety, but they did have a double chocolate situation in a three-pack for the extra hungry super gluttonous Spectacle crew. We were just about to go for it when Andy noticed the price … 15,000 French Polynesian Francs. Yes, the ice cream bars were $20. They’re good, but not that good. Slowly step away from the frozen food section!
At 6:30 p.m. on the dot, we crossed the threshold of the Chinese restaurant and immediately ordered wonton soup and fried pork wontons. This was a highly auspicious beginning to the meal, but unfortunately, the lemon chicken and ginger prawns were both bland and disappointing. Even so, we won’t be giving up!