We got up at 7am and tidied the villa. One downside of travelling light is that we already needed to do a laundry. Thankfully this was very cheap in Etu Moana, we simply filled the provided laundry basket and left it out for the staff.
We slathered up with sunscreen and enjoyed a cup of tea on the terrace before heading down to the pool for breakfast. We were the first folk down and were impressed by the breakfast spread (of which we pretty much tried everything); cereal, croissants, peanut butter and jam on toast, fresh fruit, tea, coffee, orange juice and a special Valentine’s Day cake! Valentine’s Day is even more insignificant than usual when you are staying with your loved one in a luxury villa in the South Pacific – but I do like cake!
We then pushed a couple of the kayaks out onto the lagoon off Etu Moana. The water was very shallow and it was some work to avoid clipping the corals. The corals were generally quite bleacjed, but the fish wer plentiful and the blue starfish for which the resort is named were easily spotted. There were a lot of sea cucumber type carcasses (”sea turds”) but this seems to be common.
It was a little cloudy, which was perfect for a long spell of paddling around in the heat.
Back to the villa to top on on tea and coffee and to tend each other’s mosquito bites – again we were glad to have packed antihistamine cream. Laura then had a nap while I cycled to the local shop (3km south) to collect dinner and those lovely Tim Tams. I was fine whilst on the bike, but when I stopped at the shop I became ridiculously hot and sweaty, to the point that I was quite embarrassed to deal with the shop staff!
When I got back I was pleased to use the refreshing outdoor shower and sat on the day bed on the terrace and read. Laura got up after three hours of napping – although much of this had been disturbed by solid strimming by the ground staff. The noise went on for hours which was a bit annoying!
Time for more tea, coffee and Tim Tams and then down to watch a ‘coconut demonstration’ put on for the guests. It was surprisingly entertaining and we learnt:
- how to make shoes to climb the coconut tree
- how to open the coconut husk
- how to crack the coconut
- how to get the ‘meat’ out
- how to make coconut cream by sieving through the ‘material’ of the coconut leaves
- the different stages of a coconut – did you know that a two month old coconut is like mousse inside. Yum!
- in young coconuts the water is fizzy like Andrew’s liver salts!
- coconut shoots are tasty
- how to make a plate from banana leaves
As you can tell, we were a-m-a-z-e-d by coconuts. During this we sipped on a couple of free cocktails – a gorgeous pina colada and a midori and lemonade. We also munched our way through more than our fair share of free quiche…
After this we made eis, attaching hundreds of beautiful fresh flowers to a head band. I was the only man in the group to participate but it was great fun. In the end mine weighed an absolute tonne… maybe I should have spaced them out? Laura’s was perfect.
We chatted with the older couples for a while and then wandered down to the beach to take some photographs as the Sun set. The honesty bar was really well priced, so we had a couple of glasses of wine and then back to the villa where I cheffed up another classic dish: spaghetti, sardines in tomato sauce, olives and cheese. It was great!
We didn’t stay up much later and thankfully slept a lot better.
