James is the groundskeeper/garderner of Marina Cay. Among his duties of the island, he entertains selected boaters (like Karen and I) with his prowess as a coconut getter. I am so humbled with my efforts after seeing his technique. He steps into a 2' diameter loop of nylon line, jumps up onto the tree with the line wrapped around his shoes, and proceeds to shimmy up the tree like a monkey. My most recent efforts involved rotten coconuts thrown up into the tree in a almost-failing attempt to knock some down. Needless to say, I was keeping a keen eye on his actions.
After watching James open the coconuts, my embarrasment was complete. He held them in his hand while whittling away with a machete that I'm sure was much sharper than mine. Whack, whack and voila! We were treated with fresh coconut milk and jelly coconut. We have always gone after the dried, brown coconuts and I most certainly never held them in one hand while chopping at it with the other. The locals consider the dried coconuts as rejects...the green ones are fresher, the meat isn't hard yet and the milk is sweeter. The texture of the meat in a green one is like jello that's almost set.
One of his whacks shaved off a sliver of the husk that he used to scrape the coconut jelly out of the shell. Karen and I agreed that we prefer the coconut meat that is firmer, although the jelly coconut is tasty...and it would probably make a much better ingredient than hard coconut in a blended drink. Hopefully, a future blog will talk about our success at getting coconuts rather than the cuts and bruises from the attempt.
YUK!!!!!
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