Robyn Joynes made me a cuppa, then recounted a day 25 years ago, when she sited the upturned 6.5-tonne yacht Rose-Noelle.
It was to be a fairly unsanitised account of this famous survival story.
Robyn had gone to check on the house belonging to her ex-husband and good friend John Scimgeour, who was working off-island at the time.
Robyn noticed a strange-looking object out at sea, likely the first time anyone had sited the trimaran after it turned-turtle during a voyage to Tonga, 119 days previously.
After drifting an estimated 3000 km, the Rose-Noelle was cast up on to a reef off Little Waterfall Bay.
Inside the upturned vessel, skipper John Glennie and Jim Nalepka, Phillip Hofman and Rick Hellreigel, were just skin and bone.
For months they'd huddled together in an area the size of a queen-sized bed in the partially flooded upturned cabin, living off meagre stores, fishing and catching rainwater.
The adventure became one of the world's great maritime survival tales.
It has been the subject of at least two books, a stage play and a television documentary, while yet another movie project begins in filming March.
The dramatised production, to be called "Abandoned", will be centred at Orama Oasis, Karaka Bay, at the north end of Great Barrier, with additional filming at Tutukaka.
The two-hour feature for TV One, is to be produced by James Heyward, whose previous work includes Shackleton's Captain.
NZ on Air has contributed $2.6 million to the project, which is expected to be hugely challenging to shoot. NZ On Air communications manager Allanah Kalafatelis confirmed funding and the dates, but Mr Heyward didn't want to be interviewed.
The remarkable story qualifies as a mystery many times over, though of the original crew only Glennie and Nalepka are alive today to tell it.
Unusual winds and currents drove the boat back toward New Zealand rather than, as expected, toward the South American Coast.
When the Rose-Noelle eventually washed up, hitting "a narrow window" between high cliffs enabled the crew to avoid drowning or being smashed amid pounding surf and giant rocks.
Perhaps another mystery is how the crew survived the feast at the first house they broke into. Starved castaways can apparently die after stuffing weakened bodies with food.
Being far from the shops, it was Mr Scimgeour's habit to note down items in his cupboards, so food and drinks the men consumed can be quantified.
"At the time some people thought they made the story up about being 119 days at sea, but I never did," said Mr Scrimegour. "I could see they'd gone straight for carb-loading items and left fancy canned seafoods alone."
Alternately eating and vomiting, the castaways gobbled 3kg of sugar, two tins of condensed milk, a large jar of honey and about 30 cans, including beans, corn, tomatoes, asparagus, pineapple and stew. They ate a bag of rice, condiments, crackers, spreads, numerous cooking ingredients, packets of snack and breakfast foods, "and used 10 miles of toilet paper".
The binge feed was washed down with a bottle of whisky, a bottle of gin, other spirits, four bottles of claret and eight bottles of beer.
Mr Scimgeour learned of the visit when Robyn Joynes phoned, saying: "look at the four guys in the Herald this morning, wearing your clothes".
Sailing identity Penny Whiting (who later hosted Glennie) washed, ironed and returned the clothes, but none of the men bothered to contact the Barrier resident whose home they'd ransacked.
Robyn and John put in hours cleaning up the mess, including remains of pots blackened by burnt boil-ups.
Mr Scimgeour says he later made contact with Glennie, whose mental health he assessed as precarious in the months following his ordeal.
Tensions among the survivors have never been fully revealed in books or documentaries, he said.
Though photographed arm in arm following their ordeal, the four were never to reunite after leaving the island. (Hellreigel died two years after coming ashore and Hofman died in March, this year, 2014).
So what does the involuntary host of the Rose-Noelle survivors make of his experience 25 years on?
"I was happy for those desperate men to break into my holiday home for that was salvation and emotional release from the terrible trauma they had endured. I learned they were emotionally fragile and really very desperate being physically and emotionally shattered," he says.
"John Glennie later told me he believed that if they had not made it ashore that day he would have been killed by the other three. I had hoped that over time they would remember their journey and thank the many who provided succour and support.
"But it was disappointing to know from yachting friends that they all talked of the Barrier Island sojourn but never considered, or could be bothered, to say 'Thank-you' for property damage done, food consumed, or items borrowed.
"It was only by chance, that John Glennie and I later met and shared reminisces."
Paul Charman's Mini was supplied by BMW NZ and his trip to Great Barrier Island was courtesy of Sealink and Great Barrier Lodge.
