Our first day in Raiatea we met the real Capt Jack Sparrow.
Actually he goes by PeeWee, but when drunk he refers to himself as Capt Jack
Sparrow. He is a small French man with dreads that lives on a raft in the lee
of a small motu (outer reef island). His raft is made out of 2 aluminum hulls
with bamboo and plywood, and any other salvaged materials, for the structure.
Half of it is covered, and this is where he sleeps and cooks, and the other
half is his beach. He has made a beach on his raft complete with sand, a table
and a BBQ, but the best part of the beach is that it is littered with black
pearls. The kids loved picking through the sand and comparing pearls they
found. PeeWee grafts pearls for a living and works in a tiny hut perched over
the reef about a 100 yards away from his raft. The first night we met him, an
English girl from another boat, Cal, and us, sat around and polished 2 bottles
of rum off in no time. He was on a roll and told us all sorts of stories. Mind
you Gary held his own on the story telling. After the first bottle of rum, we
invited him and Cal back to the boat and made dinner for everyone. The kids
were fascinated by him. The next day we
checked out the pearl grafting operation. His favorite saying is "voila"
and he was always showing us things. He showed us that you put a small,
perfectly round piece of shell from Louisiana oysters into the pearl along with
a little black piece of a local oyster meat so that the pearl that grows gets
the beautiful black color. Later on his raft, he showed us the mother ray that
lives near his raft and visits at dusk to see if he has any food. He showed us
a 22mm pearl, it was massive, not perfectly round, but very impressive. It is
people like this that we meet along the way that really make the trip so intriguing.
PeeWee's raft
Gary and PeeWee
On the raft beach
Pearls on the beach
The beach in front of
PeeWee's. I believe this is where the
wild things live.
Grafting pearls
Pearl shack on the reef