How To Open a Coconut

One of the fun things about having a boat is taking people out who would otherwise be stuck on land. Exhibit A - our neighbor's kids. To the left here, we have Angel, who I will go easy on and only call him a chatterbox. Angel is in 6th grade and if you've ever seen the TV show Modern Family, picture Manny and you've got our neighbor. He's a lot of talk... and completely terrified of just about everything under water.

 And to the right, we have Raul, the super quiet, hardworking but pretty shy high school sophomore who wants to go to the Naval Academy. Not long ago Raul came over one evening to interview Nick for a high school paper (cute!) about what he should do in high school to help his chances of getting into the Academy. And just last week, his JROTC class showed up at Nick's work, and Nick took them on a tour of their command, which to these guys was pretty much the coolest. thing. ever.

Angel & Raul were really excited when we spontaneously invited them to come out on our boat. We took them to usual snorkeling spots around Pete's Reef & Alutom Island (which we recently learned isn't really called that, but since I've called it that for nine months, I'm just going to go with it). We then sped over to the awesome beachfront of Sella Bay for a late afternoon snack. And here, my friends, begins the tutorial you've all been waiting for: How to open a coconut. Take good notes. You may need to know this one day if you are ever stranded on a deserted island.

 Step 1: Knock the perfect coconut down from a tree. It can't be too green or it won't be ripe enough. It can't be too brown or it may have started to grow into a tree already (some of the seeds start growing into palms before they even fall off the tree!). And any that have fallen off on their own are either already trees or have been devoured by a coconut crab.

 One way to get a coconut down is to throw a rock or another coconut at it.

Over.

And over.

And over again until it falls down.

And if you can't get it down by throwing rocks, stick a buddy on your shoulders and try to poke it down with a long piece of driftwood.

Poke...

poke...

poke!

So close!

Some might say that getting a coconut down from the tree is the hardest part. Nick even tried climbing it, but his buddy may have freaked out a little once he got too high.

After much determination, we got the fresh one we were throwing stuff at and poking to fall of the tree. Woohoo!

 Step 2 - Wow! We are only on step 2?

Now that we have the coconut, we need to bust into that hairy, thick outer shell. One way to do that is to bash the coconut repeatedly against a pointy rock.

 And bash it some more.

And bash it some more.

Step 2 is pretty exhausting too. I was exhausted just watching and taking all these pictures.

Good thing coconuts are usually located near rocks.

I had to enlarge this one so you could fully appreciate the strength it takes to conquer Step 2. Go Nick!

He may even be enjoying himself out there! Go step 2!

Angel stepped into help with the rest of, yes, Step 2. We are still on Step 2, trying to free the seed from its casing. 

After some more rock bashing, we had success! The coconut seed was free from its casing.

Step 3: Nick broke into the seed (using yet another rock), and we gnawed at the freshest coconut you will ever eat. Definitely something to try when you make your way out to visit (ahem... you know who you are). Yum!