Steven

While in town at Atuona on a Saturday we were looking for a restaurant to have lunch, and Tim and Steve met a friendly Marquesan guy named Steve while they were trying to check out a food truck.  Steven was drinking beers and he explained that on Saturdays he doesn’t eat, he only drinks.  Everyone knows this, they know that Steven only drinks on Saturday.  He told us where we might be able to get lunch at a pizza place on the way back to town.

Somehow, I’m not sure when or how, Tim and Steve ran into Steven again near the harbor, and he offered to guide them in one of our dinghies over to some villages where we could trade items for many different fruits, and he would also take them spear fishing.  Of course, they accepted right away, and they were all three gone the better part of a day.  I hope that at some point Tim or Steve write about their experience that day, because for me to write about it could never do it justice, so I won’t even try.

That evening we were planning a potluck on Exodus with Lady Carolina, True Blue V, Chara, and a young couple on s/v Eleutheria that I had met in town that day.  Tim, Steve, and Steven arrived and in a flurry of activity they offloaded an enormous amount of fruit onto Exodus and onloaded several beers into the dinghy.  They said they were getting meat and cooking breadfruit on shore, and did I mention it was a flurry.  We were all like, “what?”  Following a few more beer runs, they returned with breadfruit for everyone and about a half of a goat or sheep, we aren’t quite sure.

Then, they proceeded to turn my kitchen upside down.  A Marquesan dinner was prepared in my galley, and the rest of us just drank and watched.  At one point he passed around some meat and we were all to taste it, and it was basically just gristle, we all just chewed and chewed.  That meant it wasn’t done enough.  We all took turns grating coconut and then they pressed it through one of my kitchen rags (I hope it was a clean one).  I inferred from my interaction with Steven that in the Marquesas cooking was a blue job (that is, for the men to do.  As opposed to a pink job.)  I was usually bustled out of the kitchen, which was fine by me, I just sat in the salon, watched, laughed, and drank.  It was all good fun, and I was loving the experience of having Steven among us.

Then, the plastic top that regulates flow on the rum bottle came off.  Well, it didn’t come off.  The guys removed it, at Steven’s urging, and they started passing it around.  Shortly after, Steven switched from your friendly neighborhood Polynesian to a drunken obnoxious, possibly dangerous Polynesian man. 

I need to stress here that he never was actually dangerous.  But at the time, my awareness became heightened, because I wasn’t really sure the direction he was going to go here.  It went far downhill when our Australian friend, Craig from True Blue V, did some native New Zealand chanting in response to some of Steven’s Marquesan chanting.  That really didn’t go over well.  It was as if Craig inadvertently challenged Steven’s manhood.  Steven continually called him “Australia Man” and fluctuated between being frighteningly aggressive and then friendly towards him.  I was really worried Steven was going to try to fight him.  Maybe that was because Steven kept saying he wanted to fight him.  Luckily Craig, aka Australia Man, is a very good-natured fellow, and his response was always a very humorous, “I don’t want to fight you, man…”

I guess the guys kept “trying” to get the rum away from Steven, but finally I had had enough.  They were all sitting int he cockpit, and I stood over them and said in a very stern voice, “Give me the rum.  That’s my rum.”  Steven obliged without any hesitation or question.  But then he remembered that they were going to go midnight fishing.  That was all the rumble, “Steven, Tim, Fishing!!!”  Carolina and I had a little conference and we decided there was no way all these drunk men were going midnight fishing.  So, she and the four boys went to Lady Carolina, and they took ALL the dinghies.  We basically made it impossible, so that Steve and Tim didn’t have to say no to Steven.  A little while later Kyle came back to give Craig and Steve rides home, and then that left, Tim, me, and Steven.  Tim was the Polynesian whisperer that night and he was able to coax Steven to sleep in the cockpit, I have no idea how.  Tim slept out in the cockpit with Steven until it started raining, and since Tim was on the outside bench, he was getting soaked, so he moved into the salon.  Steven didn’t budge. 

In the morning Steven went for a swim, drank coffee with us, and then showed Tim how to pan fry up the leftover breadfruit, and I have to say, this was amazing.  Like French fries, but maybe a little better since you don’t usually let yourself indulge in something as yummy as French fries for breakfast.  Curiously, when it came to pouring the coffee, Steven would not let Tim pour it for him.  That was apparently a pink job.  Tim cooked the breadfruit, and I poured the coffee.  We wonder if that’s why Steven so easily gave up the rum to me the night before.  Maybe women are in charge of drinks.  Anyway, then he started asking for beer or wine.  He yelled over to Lady Carolina, “Steven, give me a beer!!!”  He also kept asking me which boat belonged to “Australia Man,” and he said that with a somewhat negative jeer.  So, I was noncommittal, saying, “it’s that one over there,” while waving my arm in no particular direction. 

We had an island tour arranged that morning, and we needed to be on shore by 9am.  Steven came along, insisting that he would go with us.  Once on shore both Sandra and Marie Jo (the lady giving us the tour) asked us if we really wanted Steven to come, and if not, they would tell him he could not come.  Sadly, we took this route.  There really wasn’t room in the truck, and we weren’t sure how his behavior would impact our day.  He wanted wine, Steve gave him wine, and he went away.  We learned later from Marie Jo that they’ve had to call the Gendarme to remove Steven from yachts in the past.

I recently asked Alex and Brenden what they remember of Steven.  Brenden said that Steven taught him how to say hello in Marquesan, “Ka Oha Nuie.”  He would tell Brenden to repeat, but it wasn’t loud enough, so Steven would yell, “KA OHA NUIE!”  I guess this went on for a while, until Brenden achieved an acceptable decibel level.  Alex remembered in the morning he and Brenden were in the dinghy and Steven tossed them a mango and told them to eat it.  They were confused, because typically, we peel mangoes, so they hesitated.  He yelled to eat it, and then he grabbed one himself and bit right through the skin.  They laughed, but they never did bite the mango, they just drove away.

In hindsight, Steven was a lot of fun.  We understood that he was one among many, and we continued to have many varied experiences with the local throughout French Polynesia.

One last note… we didn’t actually cook all the meat the Steven gave us that night.  There was another half of the animal left, and thankfully, True Blue V volunteered to keep it in their freezer until we got to an anchorage where we could have a proper beach cookout.  Spoiler alert: we had an amazing Marquesan cookout on the next island we would visit.