I cycle over, and ask if I can buy some diesel. "You need to phone Tahiti and place your order". I try that, but the Tahiti office requires me to pay at the local Post Office - they are very sorry but they can't do card payments over the phone.
We are wise to this game. We already had a post office queue number as we learnt that lesson yesterday. We naively arrived at the post office as it opened for the afternoon (1pm 'til 3pm), took a number and waited. We were the last people seen that day.
Earlier I had picked up number 97. The queue was at 57 when I did so. Eek! Do we have time for lunch I wonder? Probably. By lunchtime the queue had made it to number 62. An hour before closing for the day it had reached 65. You can see where this is going. Will the post office queue beat the arrival of the next ship? The queue number was promulgated on the VHF often as we are not the only cruisers in the queue - the brigantine Silverlands are trying to collect their replacement radar screen.
Did I mention that the queue will roll into tomorrow, but being Friday it's half-day opening?
Then I asked about petrol. "At the magasin", I'm confidently told. But of course it's not that simple. You can buy it at the shop, that much is true. But it's actually delivered 2 miles out of town. At 7am. No, I'm am not kidding.
Fortunately the very kind Madame Bubu has offered to take me there tomorrow morning in her "car". She took me out there today to show me where and just kept saying "not by bicycle, with a fuel can. Oh no". She's probably correct but I did fear that the passenger door was about to fall off as it dropped 6 inches on opening....
I dread to think what is involved with changing an LPG cylinder. Can it really, possibly be as easy as turning up with the empty, paying a fee and taking a full replacement?