On board, eating well isn’t a luxury, it’s a navigation strategy. What if Pacific Puddle Jump sailors also made stops in Polynesian culinary traditions? Cooking then becomes a true bridge to the inhabitants of the Fenua.

From a practical standpoint, cooking on board means keeping things simple, efficient, and adaptable in a limited space, with restricted equipment and a boat in motion.

Choose simple and quick recipes that favor preparations with few steps, few ingredients, and minimal dishes: fish en papillote with canned vegetables, raw fish, or fish grilled in a pan at anchor.

The famous fāfaru

In French Polynesia, there’s an emblematic dish: Tahitian raw fish. Easy to prepare, light and nourishing, it can even become the trigger for a moment of exchange with locals during an anchorage stop. A direct and warm way to create connections around a knife, a lime, and know-how. Fish here is an institution: raw, cooked, marinated, grilled, skewered, or as sashimi—it comes in every variation. The seasonings make you travel: vanilla, lemon, ginger, curry, coconut milk… To this are added more unexpected taste treasures, like fāfaru, a surprising local specialty made from fish fermented in seawater and freshwater shrimp heads. The smell is formidable, the flavor complex and addictive for initiated palates.

To succeed with Tahitian raw fish, Maeva Shelton, renowned cook and cookbook author, recommends the following ingredients for six people: 500g of tuna (yellowfin or albacore), 4 limes, 1 tomato, 1 carrot, half a cucumber, 1 small onion, 1 handful of chopped parsley, and the milk from one grated coconut.

First, finely dice the onion in a large salad bowl, then add the fish and tomato cut into small cubes. Grate the carrot and slice the cucumber into half-rounds without skin or seeds. Keep the bowl cool if needed.

Ten minutes before serving, pour the lime juice into the preparation and mix well. Let it rest a few minutes, stirring from time to time so the fish becomes whitish. We say it “cooks.” Add the coconut milk at the last moment. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately with rice.

Another typical Fenua recipe is ‘uru or breadfruit, cooked whole over coals in its skin. Once blackened, the skin easily peels off with a tablespoon, revealing tender and nourishing flesh. At anchor or on a barbecue suspended at the boat’s stern, it’s the perfect opportunity to let the crew taste a piece of local culture… with their fingers.

By learning to prepare a local dish, we discover products, gestures, and sensibilities. We make ourselves available to others. While the Pacific Puddle Jump unites sailors on the ocean, Polynesian cuisine sets them a table on land.

And sometimes, it takes just a drizzle of lime on raw fish for adventure to become encounter.