With apologies to the creators of the Tweety Bird cartoon character. . .
Back when we were hanging out with SV Halcyon – John and Becca, co-captains, they had this young Danish guy on board. Simon! They rescued him from a Kon Tiki recreation exercise last year. Anyway, we were fooling around on a remote motu on the South end of Toau having crab races and such, and we got an urge to enjoy some green coconuts. Simon convinced himself (or perhaps we convinced Simon) that he could climb a nearby palm tree and bring some down. My recollection isn’t terribly clear regarding how successful he was.
Where we’ve been anchored there are lots of coconut trees on the motus. Doesn’t look like they’re being farmed for copra. Most of them produce some pretty scrawny coconuts, but a few drop some big ones. The ones that are kind of a brownie – gray and still have some water inside (yes, you can hear it when you shake them) are perfect for harvesting coconut flesh. Isabel magically turns that into coconut milk for curries and coffee and tea and oatmeal and such – even gave a coconut milk rendering lesson recently. That sure made some campers happy.
So the meat coconuts are the ones laying on the ground. Mostly. The ones still attached to the trees are still green, mostly. In any case, it turns out the green ones are great for drinking the water from, and then spooning out the jelly-like flesh which is kind of tasty. If one removes a bit of coconut water then installs a bit of rum things get even more interesting. Best to have cold green coconuts, but one of our most awful hardships is not having enough refrigerator space to store green coconuts until they’re chilled, so we just have to make do. Kind of like drinking cask ale in a British pub.
Anyway, the green ones in the trees are a bit of a palaver to get to without Simon around to risk his young neck. Couple days ago, give or take, we found a rather short coconut tree heavily laden with very large green coconuts. Well, I’m an engineer. Used to be described by various coworkers as a bit of a McGiver type, and I got to thinking. . .
We’ve got this really multi-purpose telescoping aluminum pole with attachments such as boat hook, scrub brushes and mop head. The mop head died recently and went in the bin, but I kept the attachment bit. Turns out with a few hose clamps, a giant bolt that’s handy for moving an engine around, and a brand new Ginsu knife that I hid from Isabel, one can make a handy pruning tool. I’m a pretty small guy, but with the telescoping pole and pruning attachment, we managed to score all the good lookin’ coconuts on that tree. We’re in coconut fat city as they might say in New Orleans.
Remember Ginsu knives? Back in the day when we used to visit the Arizona State Fair, the Ginsu knife demonstration and sales booth was a big crowd pleaser. First the guy would slice a tomato paper thin, then he would saw a chunk out of a hammer, then he would slice another tomato just to prove how badass the blade was. I always bought one or got suckered into buying a set. Great blades, cheap crappy looking handles, but doggone handy altogether.
Last we heard they aren’t doing road shows anymore, so the last set I purchased for the boat was over the internet. Amazon or Ebay or some such. Isabel tried to make me get rid of all the extras, but I hid them instead, as they’re just such handy buggers.
Now she’s happy about having extra Ginsu knives, having had the all-round utility demonstrated to her. Marital bliss ensues. . .
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