JJEM Adventures

To Funafuti,Tuvalu:

The passage from Tabiteuea North, Kiribati to Funafuti, Tuvalu was pretty challenging, it took us 5 days and 2 hr to cover about 600 nautical miles. We were beating into a fluky wind for most of the time, and many things broke down --The generator off switch broke, the charger fan died, a dangerous sparking short showed up in the AC circuits under the master cabin, leaks galore, the refrigerator decided to spew it's contents onto the cabin sole – as if they had a timer, most of these disasters occurred in the middle of the night! We were so happy to drop anchor outside the main dock in Funafuti, Tuvalu at 3:40 pm on Friday, July 18! It was too late for us to check in that day, so we just stayed onboard, cleaned up the mess, repaired some of the damage and waited until Monday to check in.

Funafuti, Tuvalu:
Monday morning first thing I headed in to the big freighter dock to pick up the Customs and Immigrations officers. They'd agreed over VHF to be waiting at the ramp when I arrived. As I approached, I saw two ladies waiting at the ramp. One was Tuvuluan, one clearly wasn't. In fact, New Zealand came out strongly the moment the second one spoke. However, I'd learned my lesson in Tarawa not to assume Customs and Immigration would be beefy male types. I apologized for the smallness of our boat and helped them get in. They said they'd been waiting for a while which surprised me. As I left the dock heading to Hai Yun I asked "So who's Customs and who's Immigration". That drew some strange stares!! After a little conversation it turned out they were a pair of tourists who had been waiting for a ride to the local naval college island to write a story about it. Back to the dock - laughter all round! Real Customs and Immigration did turn out to be the beefy male types. However, unlike the brave lady ersatz officers, they took one look at our dinghy Osprey and the big waves in the bay; and agreed to conduct the interview entirely in their office.
We stayed in Funafuti for only 8 days, mostly doing repair work on Hai Yun and kids schooling. The Tuvalu government doesn’t allow cruisers to go to outer islands - not even the uninhabited islets in the Funafuti lagoon. We were told this was a result of some cruisers who were involved in things such as drugs and child pornography. We went to shore for a couple of times to buy some groceries, eat some ice cream, and visit the weather station and Mr. Lee’s vegetable garden. The streets in Funafuti are lot more formal and cleaner than those in the MRI or Kiribati. Many fewer flies zooming around, but people are as friendly as the other Pacific islanders. Mr. Lee is from Taiwan, he has been in Funafuti for many years researching the best way to grow various vegetables that are suitable for the climate here. We have not seen so many different kinds of vegetables since we left Hawaii. What a delight to see (or even better to eat some of these vegetables)! They sell the small amount of experimental vegetables only on Friday morning, the line is huge, and you need to get on line at 5:00 am in order to secure your purchase starting at 7:00 am. The chance for us to get up that early and stay on line for two hours was very slim, so we did not even try. Jingli went there twice during the day, hoping to have a chat with Mr. Lee (it would be fun to speak Chinese for a change). Unfortunately, Mr. Lee was not there. Jingli chatted with one lady from the outer islands who was there doing her three-month vegetable garden training with Mr. Lee; she will start a vegetable garden on her own island when she returns.
One great thing that happened to us in Funafuti was meeting Tom and Julia on sv Vanessa. They have been cruising around the Pacific Ocean for over 11 years, have tremendous knowledge of the culture, people, and cruising routes. We are so grateful for the time and experience they shared with us. They have done the passage between Funafuti and Fiji at least 20 times. Only three or four times have they had bad weather (wind up to 40 knots) - most passages were easy. At that time they had also done the passage between Fiji and New Zealand three times: one trip was really bad - 2 boats lost out of 5 boats leaving Fiji together - one lady died. Vanessa was fine because she ran as fast as she could when they heard the news of a storm coming. From this and other experiences we were nervous about long voyages, particularly the one from Fiji to New Zealand. If we could get enough crew members, Erik and Jingli would like to take an airplane there. However, the Fiji to New Zealand voyage will be 3 to 4 month later, so let’s not worry for now, and concentrate on the passage from Funafuti to Fiji first. Luckily, Vanessa was also going to Fiji soon. We had decided to follow as fast on her transom as we could. This turned out to be the smart thing to do; we had a very smooth and fast passage to Lautoka, Fiji.

Back to Betio Harbor, Tarawa Atoll, Republic of Kiribati:

We’ve been in talking to Customs and Immigration in Tarawa. The difficulty in visiting the outer islands of Kiribati is the distance involved – and the easterly trade winds will guarantee that one direction (there or back) will undoubtedly be upwind. Since you only get a one month visa, you need to be back in Tarawa in less than a month. This makes it pretty much impossible to visit the islands far from Tarawa. For instance, to visit the island of Arorae you need to make a passage of roughly 300 miles to get there and 300 miles to get back. For all that work you’d get a maximum of two weeks there!

The Republic of Kiribati used to allow cruisers to visit outer islands on the way out of the country provided you checked in with the Police chief on each island and did not violate your allowed time period. Unfortunately, we’ve been told that things have recently become much less lenient. Both Customs and Immigration blamed it on a cruiser couple on a yacht called “Atlantis” which visited Kiribati about a month before us. I believe you can still see the details on Noonsite. Like most other countries, Kiribati doesn't let you visit any outer islands until you check in at the main city - Tarawa. A month or two ago a southbound couple announced on the Rag of the Air (8173.0 SSB) that they were going to Butaritari without going to Tarawa. Apparently, they’d already annoyed Kiribati officials on their northbound passage. When they arrived in Butaritari, the fed-up officials arrested them, confiscated their German ID cards, told them to go immediately to Tarawa, and requested Australia to send the judge to try them. The couple got to Tarawa then apparently absconded still in possession of their EU passports. (Note - everything here is second or third hand information - might want to check the web for the real deal). At some point this couple launched a $50k lawsuit against Kiribati. So, the Customs and Immigration officials are pretty steamed right now. The big boss at Immigration (Burebure) who is deciding our permission was the Immigration official who went to Butaritari to arrest the German couple. The main thing that seems to sway them in our favour is meeting the kids - so we have hope that we will get permission.

Unfortunately, after a great deal of trouble and wrangling, our request to visit the outer islands was rejected. We were quite upbeat at first. We had worked out a plan with Immigration that made everyone happy. They would allow us to spend one week in Abemama, two weeks in Tabiteuea and two weeks in Arorae. We would pay for the big bosses’ second-in-command (Ioane) to fly to Arorae the week we planned to leave Kiribati. He would check us out and fly back. Since his family lived there, he would have no problem staying there a week between planes (there is only one flight per week). We would pay only his airfare, no per diem and no living costs as he would live with his family. It was a great plan – we would have lots of time and he would get a free trip home for a holiday.

We even got as far as buying the plane tickets! Then we went to Customs. They pretty much rejected the plan outright. At first they wanted us to carry one of their personnel onboard the whole way to Arorae, paying a substantial per diem ($40 US per day) and fly him back to Tarawa. Then they decided we could only fly one of their personnel there but we would need to pay per diem and expenses for a week. Their personnel would need to stay in the counsel lodging, which would be another charge. As we were discussing this possibility with one of the Customs officers, the chief customs officer called us into her office. She stated that we could only checkout in Tarawa, that three days and three islands was the maximum she would agree to after checking out and last, that since she was from Tabiteuea herself she could guarantee us there was nothing worth seeing or doing on any of the outer islands !!! She also commented we could find everything about Kiribati culture on the web site, as she does, instead of sailing there in person!!! So, after all that trouble we have three days at each of Abemama, Tabiteuea and Arorae. There is an allowance for extra time in the case of bad weather or broken equipment. We had no choice but went with the restrictions.

To Abemama Atoll, Republic of Kiribati:

The passage from Tarawa to Abemama was pretty easy. Very little wind with tons of rain- we motored part of the night. About midnight the wind came in East 10-12knots so we put up sail. We entered the North pass at 10am with good light.

The Abemama lagoon is fairly deep: 30 to 70 feet. We had confirmation from several large coral heads (bommies) that the chart matched reality well. So, after coming through the pass under power we put sail up again to beat up the lagoon to the village.

Erik found a nice squid that had washed onto the deck during the night. He decided to add it to Granddad's pink squid lure we were dragging. As he let out the modified lure with it's raw squid he got an immediate heavy strike that almost pulled Erik overboard! Together we pulled in the fish: it was a Giant Trevally - thirty pounds with the biggest, ugliest head we've ever seen.

We got so caught up in butchering our recent capture we nearly crashed into a bommie!! Luckily, Jingli happened to take a look around while she was filming the catch and James (who was at the helm) did a quick tack to avoid the crash. This bommie was very clearly marked on the chart and, as a matter of fact, was the only bommie in the entire lagoon with a prominent warning buoy sitting on it! Imagine how embarrassing it could have been!!

On arrival, we took half the fish in to give to the police chief. He was very nice, accepted the fish and asked us to come back the next day as the police station was closed.

That night we barbequed the Trevally head - by itself it made a full meal for four with some left over! Absolutely delicious! We took a walk in the village the next day; the temperature on shore was very high, and we were still nervous about Dengue fever although there were no reported cases in Abemama. We met a friendly woman named Mary who invited us to have a drink of delicious coconut syrup tea in the unique buya. Buya is an outdoor hut with raised mat and coconut leaf roof, but without wall. During a hot day, nowhere is more comfortable than sitting or resting here to enjoy the breeze from the sea. Mary also took us for a tour of the village, the newly built Woman’s Club, and the counsel lodging where she works. The traditional style lodging is built entirely with coconut trees, with no nails; all fastened together by lines made from coconut tree husk. We spent most of the time in Abemama doing school work and working on the boat.

To Tabiteuea North Atoll, Republic of Kiribati
We crossed the equator on the way from Abemama to Tabiteuea North. Jingli had crossed the equator at sea before (in the Galapagos) but none of the rest of us had. We'd read of the grisly ceremony that was recommended: dressing up as Neptune, Davey Jones and Lord Nelson; ugly purple or green potions poured over heads; mock trials and executions. All very exciting but we felt we lacked the crew and the energy for such goings on. So we poured out a shot of rum each which we sent to Neptune and James asked Neptune's permission to enter his southern realm. We've had good weather since so perhaps Neptune didn't miss the ceremonial antics (and it was good rum too!!)

The other significant event on the voyage was a near miss. It was around 11:00 pm and we were about six miles due west of Nonouti Island, when, Jingli (who was on watch at the time) spotted an odd set of lights ahead and to port. There were three white lights forming a triangle. At first Jingli thought it might be a lighthouse of some sort. However, the lights suddenly began to approach us very rapidly. Jingli yelled for Max to wake up and at the same time altered course 90 degrees to starboard to avoid the collision. Jingli was very thankful to Charlie (our autopilot) who responded to her shaking finger and altered course accordingly. She also felt lucky to be turning down wind – otherwise, a sudden tack would have taken place. By the time Max got on deck they were about two hundred feet off the port beam. It was a small freighter heaped high with bags of copra. They had a single white light on the mast and two white deck lights on either side. There was no sign of a red or green light at all. It was obvious that they had purposely altered course to take a look at us. Shortly after passing us they turned starboard back to a course for Tarawa (we tracked them on radar). We were all a bit shaken by the incident.

Finding an anchorage in Tabiteuea North was not as easy as we expected. Tabiteuea North is quite different from the atolls we have been getting used to. It is a long island with an extensive broken reef system west of it. Tabiteuea South has a more-or-less enclosed lagoon and is connected to Tabiteuea North by a series of small islets. The paper chart for Tabiteuea North has little detail. The electronic chart is a poor copy of the paper chart ! Several anchorages are listed on the paper chart but they are all about four miles from shore. This is also where the only soundings are. Between these anchorages and shore lies a broken reef and (on the chart) endless shallow light blue with no soundings at all! We had hoped to find a way through the broken reef and get closer to shore. When we found ourselves in only fifty feet of water four miles from shore we weren't certain it would be possible. The prospect of anchoring in the rolly ocean swell four miles from land didn't seem too appealing. However, we threaded our way through the coral and after some time managed to get inside the reef and within a half mile of shore. We finally anchored in sand with about 30 feet of water. Between us and shore the depth rapidly decreases and most of the distance is large sand flat. When the tide is high a slight roll gets through the reef to us.

Kiribati is very different from the Marshalls in that there is lots of sand here. The sand gets stirred up and makes the water murky. This prevents the coral growing well. Outside, near the broken reef, there are many large bommies almost reaching the surface. Here, in the sandy water, there are large stretches of open sand with only occasional low bommies. The color of the water is such a gorgeous light green; the amazing green water reflects off the clouds and they also become green! This was the first time we have ever seen green clouds. There are many gracious white tropical birds zooming around, their bellies reflecting the color of the water below; green in the shallows or blue in the deep water.

A few minutes after anchoring, a motorboat roared up with Tabuki Rake and two friends of his aboard. Tabuki Rake has excellent English and we have very much enjoyed his company since. We invited him and his friends aboard for some cold lemonade and cookies. A few minutes more and the police sergeant with his party of four also arrived. Sam (the police sergeant) was a little peeved at first that we had allowed Tabuki aboard as the police are supposed to be first. We apologized and Sam said it was not a problem. It was a bit overwhelming - just the four of us for so long and suddenly we had eight others aboard!! Sam took a look at our papers and we gave tours of Hai Yun to anyone who was interested.

The next morning we went in to shore to see Tabuki Rake. Tabuki Rake was a school teacher until he retired at fifty (he is 53 now). He traveled a great deal for the education system. At one point, he was sent to Geneva to address a United Nations group on education. Now that he's retired he seems to really miss travel and meeting people of different backgrounds.

Tabuki Rake gave us the biggest lobster we had ever seen. The meat and yolk in the head were enough of a meal for Erik and Jingli. Max ate only one third of the tail and we froze the rest of the tail for later. Tabuki Rake and his wife run a small shop. His wife has diabetes and she's in Tarawa right now for treatment. Kiribati has a very good health care system. Not only are all the doctor visits and hospitalization free, but the airfares to Tarawa from the outer islands are also free for the patient and one companion! There is a big new hospital in Tabiteuea North that is almost finished. It is the second biggest hospital in the country (the biggest one is in Tarawa) and it was financed by a Taiwanese company. The communications with Tarawa are currently down so Tabuki Rake has had no information about his wife after she left two weeks ago. He's very worried about her - he tried to get on the last plane for Tarawa but it was canceled. We tried to get hold of a yacht in Tarawa on the SSB to pass some news, but were not successful.

Luckily, Tabuki Rake’s wife came back the next day. We enjoyed very much several delicious meals in Tabuki Rake’s house. Erik loved the home made dried pork and tuna, Jingli liked the baked eel, sashimi and vegetable salad, Max enjoyed the fresh fish, chicken and salad; even picky eater James found something delicious to his taste. We invited Tabuki Rake’s family for dinner on Hai Yun. That night Tabuki Rake, his wife, two of their daughters, their grandson, and one of their daughter’s friend came over. We had a lot of fun - their grandson Tabu (one year old) really liked Hai Yun. Everybody liked the Chinese sausage fried with egg. Jingli gave Tabuki Rake’s wife the last package of the Chinese sausage we had aboard.


We've found the people here incredibly friendly, generous and gracious. Everywhere we went, people greeted us with big smiles. We were often invited to have a rest in their buya, to have a drink of fresh coconut. Jingli was given a Kiribati traditional blouse when she admired Sam’s sister-in-law hand-making one.

The most treasured memory was the vegetable gift we received. Tabiteuea North has had a very bad drought --no rain for almost one year. The heavy rain we had on the way here was the first since last September; even their well water has turned salty. People get their limited drinking water from the new hospital’s water maker. Imagine how difficult it is to maintain a garden without enough fresh water. The Police Chief’s garden was ten rice sacks filled with soil and the lettuce growing inside the sacks. To our astonishment, his wife wanted to give us half of her garden – five lettuce heads! Max insisted on only accepting one, the battle ended with him taking two back to Hai Yun. We felt so inadequate in returning their generosity. The Police Chief (Tabuki – same first name as Tabuki Rake), the Police Sergeant (Sam) and their families went out of their way to make us feel at home despite the fact that our presence meant much extra work for them. The only thing we can do in return is to invite as many people as we can to come onboard Hai Yun to have dinner, or to have a tour and a cold drink.

Most of the local people who visit Hai Yun have never set foot on a cruising sail boat, so it is a big event for them. They come well dressed and are very excited to see all the daily essentials onboard our small sail boat world. The last batch of visitors came aboard 1 hr before we left for Tuvalu. The children books we brought from Hawaii libraries were also welcomed by the school kids. Jingli was very happy to find out people like to have their pictures taken; she got so many great shots!

We were so lucky to be at the right place at the right time. The limited time we stopped at Tabiteuea North happened to be their Independent Day holiday! What a wonderful celebration we observed! It took place in the village’s Maneaba. A maneaba is a large open building with a thatched A-frame roof probably 30' tall. There’s a gap under all four sides about 5 feet high and usually a concrete floor. Pillars inside hold the roof up. Everything is made of coconut tree trunks held together with coconut husk twine and thatched with woven coconut fronds. Each village has one – there are lots of taboos concerning them – you need to be careful where you walk, when you talk, which way your feet point etc....Tabuki Rake took us in after he spoke to the organizers, we were seated on the mat in the front. The dancers were local school kids and some young villagers. Their exquisite costumes were mostly made with coconut or pandanas leaves. The music and dance were a little like Hawaii style, but the performers were so involved in what they are doing. It was very hot, but the devoted dancers were completely engaged in the music. One girl was crying the whole time when she was dancing - we asked Tabuki if there was something wrong - he explained she was just too moved by the music and could not control her emotion. Jingli particularly liked the music box they performed with. It was a table-like box with drums under. A group of men sat around the table, hitting the beat with their hands on the table. Everybody in the maneaba (except us) sang with the beats; it was so impressive how great they sounded! Everyone was totally enthused with the music, as if nothing else existed in the whole world. The conductor, a sixty some years old man, was so filled with enthusiasm, his face was streaming with sweat, and his red sulu (skirt for man) kept falling off as he pumped his arms excitedly. During the free dance time, both Jingli and Max were invited by an old man and an old woman to join them, we were very happy to participate!

One adventure we had here was to take a tour to the islets between North and South Tabiteuea - it turned out to be quite a saga. We had pre-arranged with the police chief (Tabuki), the police sergeant (Sam) and Sam's brother-in-law to go by aluminum boat to the police chief Tabuki's islets further south. We wanted to pay for the gas but they were going to get it. Probably out of politeness, they hadn’t bought quite enough gas. By the time we'd found some more gas the tide was starting to fall. Tabuki's islets are almost ten miles south of the main village. At first we blasted along the inside of the reef at great speed. It was so wonderful zipping through such picturesque water, gorgeous green painted with dark reefs - it was stunning. Soon, however, our progress became slower and slower as large patches of coral came closer and closer to the surface. Finally, we were forced to give up before reaching his islets. We camped at a small island for lunch, walked around for a while, snorkeled in the afternoon then left for home again when the tide rose a bit. Since the moon was new, the tides were weak. Sam's brother-in-law had a terrible time trying to get back through the exposed coral heads. Over and over again he backed and turned trying to find a passage through. Finally he gave up and headed directly out for the reef. After some walking and pushing we made it the three miles out to the fringing reef. He headed out through a break in the reef and almost a mile further out to sea. At this point, Jingli and I were getting very nervous. The sun was almost down, a storm cloud was approaching, we were in a small aluminum outboard running out of gas, five miles from land in the open sea! No radio, no GPS, no extra water, no anchor - I was certain this was the beginning of a horror story. However, the gas lasted. And, after several false tries, they succeeded in finding the pass through the reef in the dark. It took a little longer to find Hai Yun but luckily we had forgotten to turn off the anchor light in the morning - sloth does have advantages! A scary experience we’ll hopefully prepare for next time but everything came out ok in the end. I think Sam's brother (who was navigating) was very used to being in exactly that situation - he didn't seem at all nervous.

No matter how much we wished we could stay longer in Kiribati, we had to leave. We'd had a most wonderful visit - the people here are fantastic!! It was hard to say goodbye to our friends in Tabiteuea North - we hope we will meet again someday somewhere.
Once again, we headed out into the big sea, bound for Funafuti, Tuvalu. 500 nautical miles away…

To Tarawa, Republic of Kirbati:
While we had really enjoyed the Marshall Islands, it was time to continue on south to Kiribati. The four hundred miles from Majuro to Tarawa would normally have been an easy reach, but, with the ITCZ directly overhead it proved to be a particularly unpleasant passage. Our first email to the grandparents went like this:

Dear Dad,
Sorry, missed an email yesterday. It's now 6:30am MHT Friday June 6th. Our posiition is Lat: 04 10.87' N Long: 172 50.33' E. 166nm to Tarawa

We had pretty good weather leaving Majuro. A light 10-15kt NE breeze and good sailing to get up to the East end of Majuro Atoll. That night it got stormy and the wind turned SE. We spent most of the time motorsailing with the main up.

Yesterday morning was ok - a bit of NE breeze. But by noon things got very frustrating. The NE breeze built up to 25+ - two reefs in the main - then flat. Glassy seas. Pouring rain ! Yuchh!!! Then a fluky 10 kt breeze anywhere from NE to SE all afternoon.

No wind overnight. Now a light SE building. We've never worked so hard for so few miles !!!! But we're all doing well. We knew it was going to be a tough passage. We should be through the ITCZ by tonight.


Tarawa:
We arrived in Tarawa almost exactly three days after leaving Majuro on June 4th.
I was warned about this harbor (Betio Harbor on Tarawa). It's filled with wrecks - I think some left from the WWII assault but others clearly much newer. With the exception of ourselves and our friends Holokai the rest of the boats in the harbor looked only a little better than the wrecks. The only real difference was they were sort-of-floating. A post from the next day:

We had a scary squall this morning at 6am. The wind only got up to 30 knots but this anchorage iis terrible. We're downwind of the whole lagoon with no wave break whatsoever. After ten minutes of squall we had three foot waves rolling past ! You can certainly see where all the wrecks come from !!!

Luckily the Rocna didn't give an inch - but, I'll be putting your Fortress out for extra insurance. The only good thing about the anchorage is the waves and wind are aligned - so we don't roll much at all.



Checking in involved the whole set of officers: Customs, Immigration, Health, and Quaranteen. We ferried each group out to Hai Yun in our small dinghy. So, when we were informed over VHF 16 that the Customs party was waiting for us, I headed for shore expecting to meet the “customs guy”. After a while waiting, two young ladies approached me and asked who I was waiting for. I said "customs" and at the same time noticed the older one was wearing an official blue uniform with a "Customs" label. It was a refreshing change. She was very nice - the other women was the apprentice for her job - I guess she didn’t rate the uniform yet.

Erik wrote a poem while we were waiting in Tarawa and unable to go ashore:

In a crevice the moray slept,
after a meal of Tang flesh.

A wrass, a cleaner, ventured
inside the hole
awaking the moray in his dreamy state
ate the fish right away

The fish's toxins killed the eel
for what cruel deed it did
It should have eaten veal
for its' meal....

Abaiang, Kiribati:

We finished checking in at Tarawa. We didn't like Tarawa - very dusty, dirty and smelly. The people were great, of course. But the anchorage at Betio was horrible.

After checking in, we sailed back north about 20 miles to the atoll of Abaiang. It was a great sail over from Tarawa – started off as a beam reach with about 20 knots wind. Hai Yun was making 9-10 knots along the reef edge - only a few hundred feet from the reef but in over 1000 feet of water. After passing the Tarawa atoll we came up to about 60 degrees apparent and put in a reef. Hai Yun was still making 7.5knots - that's the problem with the fun sailing - it's usually over too quick.

We came through the pass at Abaiang around 3pm and were anchored off the main village by 4pm. The government structure in Kiribati is different than the Marshalls. Here we needed to visit the police chief to get permission to stay. So, shortly after 4pm the whole family set off in Osprey to visit a police chief named "Corporal".

Almost immediately we ran aground on extensive sand flats and realized that visiting the village at low tide would involve a rather long slog and the chance of stranding the dinghy. So, James and Erik stayed in the dinghy in deeper water and Jingli and I slogged in to the village. By the time we got there it was past 4:15pm (government closing time in Kiribati) - so, even though we did find "Corporal" at his house, he couldn't check us in. "Come back tomorrow morning at high tide" he said.

In the morning I went in again. At high tide it was easy - also, I brought the kayak this time. But it wasn't so easy finding the police station. The first person I spoke to pointed into the village and said "police station". So I walked into the village. At the first little store I came to she pointed out of the village and said "police". Back out of the village, only to be pointed in again !!

So I went to "Corporal"'s house and asked where he would be. "Up" said his wife. By this point I was getting rather frustrated with strange directions but I looked "up" and sure enough, Corporal was up a coconut tree beside the house.

Once down, he explained that some of the villagers were correctly giving me directions to the police station inside the village whereas the others were giving me directions to the "police", namely Corporal's house, which is just outside the village !

Corporal's wife led me to the police station and we successfully checked in with the assistant.

On a more serious note, we'd heard that Kiribati was going through an outbreak of Dengue fever. A young man we met said that two cases had been confirmed in Abaiang and more were suspected. We knew very little about this disease except the following: it's transmitted by mosquitos, symptoms don't start for a week after the bite, and as Spike on Holokai said "it doesn't usually kill you but you'll wish you died".

Teireo Island, Abaiang Atoll, Republic of Kiribati:

The day after we checked in at Abaiang with “Corporal” it became flat calm and very, very hot. So we left the village and drifted straight across the lagoon to Teireo Island (on the western edge of the atoll). There is a narrow pass north of the island and we'd been told the snorkeling was fantastic.

We certainly confirmed that ! After anchoring, we headed out towards the outer pass in the dinghy. At first we anchored the dinghy part way into the lagoon near the pass edge. The current was strong except very near the edge. Erik speared a grouper (5lbs) in a hole and it took a lot of work to get him out. During the melee, my hat drifted off. So it was back to the dinghy and out to sea looking for the hat. We'd just given up when sharp eyed James spotted the hat. Erik was happy with his grouper but I was far happier to still have my hat !!! We speared a total of seven fish - five by Erik with the sling spear.

As it was still calm, we decided to do a drift dive - along the pass edge, out into the ocean and up the outer reef edge. This was the best of all. The coral was in distinct ridges heading out to sea with amazing formations and fish everywhere. As Jingli put it "in the Marshalls we saw the coral gardens, here is the coral forest".

About 3:30pm I put my head up and saw a huge dark cloud on the eastern horizon. A mad rush to get back in the dinghy and a race back to Hai Yun. The cloud beat us by a minute or so. Drenching downpour with some strong wind gusts. It was a painful but free shower !!


We stayed at Terio Island for about two weeks. Towards the end the ITCZ moved down on top of us. Here’s a post towards when we left:

We had quite a blow last night. Came in about 8pm with gusts up to 41.4 knots (James was watching the wind sensor) and lots of rain. We'd gotten a little lulled into complacency by the beautiful weather so this was a bit of a shock - we ran around like frantic mice for a while getting the decks cleared. The wind continued above 30 knots for about an hour. As it was from the NE, the waves had about 4 miles of almost uninterrupted fetch and got scary quick.

We have the Rocna and your Fortress set at about a 45 degree angle off the bow with the Rocna south of east and the Fortress north of east. The Rocna is on 200 feet of chain; the Fortress is on your 250 foot piece of 5/8's nylon with 50 feet of chain. Both are in 25 feet of water. Your piece of nylon has a fender tied to it part way down that keeps it out of the coral (It reduces the effective scope but when the wind gets up the fender sinks and we're back to the original scope.) With the wind from the NE most of the stress was on the Fortress with the nylon. This worked really well in the big waves (well - maybe 3 foot maximum - they looked very big !!) - the nylon stretched nicely and kept the overall force and pounding to a minimum. Hai Yun is surprisingly comfortable in such conditions if you can forget the fact you're on a lee shore.

After an hour, the wind dropped to 20-25 kts then gradually dropped to about 15kts at midnight.

A stressful night but we came through fine.

We heard from a cruiser (Vanessa with Tom and Julie aboard) in Betio (Tarawa). They had a very scary time as the wind gusted over 45 knots: one fishing vessel came completely loose and nearly went on the reef, the container ship directly upwind of them dragged and needed a second anchor and a freighter at the dock broke all it's lines but one !! That harbour is definitely not a good place in a storm.


A couple of days later we headed back to Tarawa.

(To be continued ….)

Meeting Earthrace

Earthrace is a 24m (78ft) tri-hull wavepiercer that has been designed and built specifically to get the record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe. It uses biodiesel fuel.
While we were at Majuro getting ready for our trip to Kiribati, we were very excited to hear Earthrace would be stopping at Majuro for fuel in the next couple of days. On May 27, 2008, a typical Majuro rainy day, Earthrace showed up around noon. Her extremely unique appearance made a whopping impression for those of us who had never seen a picture of her before. Almost all the sailboats at Majuro sent their dinghies to “help” her dock at the fuel wharf, our dinghy Osprey was one of them. After they docked, we all had a chance to get on board to take a look and helped with loading water and food. She is a very cool racing boat, goes 22 knots all day on average. It took her only 5 days to travel from Hawaii to Majuro (it took us 19 days to sail the same distance).
We learned later, Earthrace indeed broke the world record circumnavigaton of the globe by 14 days (it took her 60 days 23 hours 49 min)! She is currently on market for sale at $1.5 million.

Visiting The Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI)

We checked in with the customs and immigration offices at Majuro, the capital of RMI, on April 7, 2008. Everything went well. The only trick was to learn how to drive and dock Osprey, our dinghy, with the 3.5hp outboard motor attached. We had been using the oars for short distance rides until then. All three boys on board Hai Yun learned quickly - I was happy to be driven around by my choice of chauffeur. I will have to learn how to drive Osprey someday because the dinghy is like a family car; it’s essential for getting to and from the shore wherever we are anchored or moored.

Majuro is a relatively developed island with one road connecting everything. From the road you can see the open ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other side. The things I like most about staying here are meeting friendly cruisers, the internet access (even if it is not so reliable from the boat), the laundry service, and the supermarkets. However, this island is not exactly what we sailed over 5,000 nautical miles for. As soon as we picked up Marjorie, Max’s mother, we left. She had flown to Majuro from Vancouver Island on April 11th. We left Majuro headed to the outer atolls on April 12th.

Aur Atoll, April 13 to April 21, 2008
Aur Atoll is about 60 nautical miles north of Majuro Atoll; we did the sail across at night and entered the lagoon when the sun got high enough (around 8am). The weather was good - we sailed far too fast and had to wait, tacking back and forth, at the atoll entrance.

The atoll itself is beautiful - the water colours are amazing; from gorgeous purple blue in the deeps to turquoise and light blue close to the beach. The almost black colored underwater coral heads dramatically dot the light blue water making it like an oil painting. The off-white sand beach and lush green coconut trees on the island make a spectacular streak between the blue sky and the ocean. This is paradise! We’re finally here !

On the island, kids of all ages were everywhere - and all very excited and curious to see cruisers - especially the only kid cruisers: James and Erik. The sunny smiles and bright big eyes with extremely long eyelashes made them very photogenic. Most of them loved to have their photos taken.

The houses were built either of concrete blocks or sticks with tin roofs. All the roofs are slanted into large plastic catchment tubs for collecting rain water. One of the major sources of income for the local families is the woven handicrafts women make with pandanus and coconut leaves. They are beautiful! Marjorie bought many. I only had a hat made for me - it takes 3 days for a skilled woman to make a hat and it costs $15 when finished. The man of the family makes a living by preparing copra (dried coconut meat) and fishing.

There were six sailing vessels including Hai Yun anchored at Tabal Island. (There are two big islands in Aur Atoll: Aur Island and Tabal Island. ) We were all there to attend the Aur Atoll Independence ceremony which was being held at Tabal this year. The ceremony celebrates Independence from the Americans (and also, the Japanese).

The celebration took place about 10am in the morning. At the celebration, the cruisers (15 total) were seated outside the church in the shade on the front steps. In a little while, a procession of about 11 men dressed in blue uniforms (policemen ) marched up to the square with the guard on the side calling "left right left right". Most of the kids in the village followed them. They stopped in front of the church steps in the open sun.
A long wait of ten minutes (we were in the shade), then the priest finally stepped forward to start the proceedings. After an ecclesiastically short sermon, the guards and people began to sing as they raised the Marshalls flag on the flagpole. That was followed by speeches from the Mayor, the grandson of the IroijLapLap (chief of all the Ratak chain), the Iroij (chief of Tabal Island) and the Marshallese Interior Minister - all in Marshallese. The Iroij is a very dignified older man with white hair. He then thanked the cruisers for their participation in elegant good English. The priest said a short blessing and we were done - time for the games to begin !!

There's a big competition between the two major islands in Aur atoll: Tobal Island (where we were) and Aur Island. Aur islanders wore red, Tabal islanders wore blue. So, of course, we wore blue. They started with running races, then had running-with-a-coconut-between-your-legs races. Then a big tug of war between the girls's teams. For some reason the boys didn't compete. The girl's softball game started and we were served food.

The food came in woven basket bowls: the food contributed by cruisers (fried rice was my contribution) combined with local food (chicken, turtle meat, turtle egg and a
big ball of coconut rice). Drink was fresh drinking coconuts - very tasty. We all ate with our hands – yummy…

During lunch we met Tarry, a local teacher with good English. He was very friendly - he took us on a tour down to the south end of the island to see his house and eventually all the way to the airport. Tarry is also a very keen fisherman. We were very happy to accept his offer of taking us to his island, Boknejmaan Island. It's about four islands West from Tabal Island.

It took us about one hour to sail to Boknejmaan. Tarry and his 10 year old son Raymond were on board Hai Yun and went with us. It's an absolutely beautiful, peaceful place. Tarry has a big island (about 5 acres) and a much smaller island (about 1 acre). Between them is a mini-lagoon. His big island has lots of coconuts and some pandanus trees. The little island has tons of hermit crabs as James, Erik and Raymond found out when they were sent to collect fishing bait. The colours of the water, the variety of fish and coral - incredible. Right out of the travel brochure. There are gigantic fan corals that look oh so delicate. And huge numbers of fish. Tarry joked that you have to push the fish away to see the coral and he wasn't far off !! The boys on board Hai Yun were fishing and snorkeling all day (trolling, jigging and spear fishing), but had no luck. There are tons of fish on the corals, but they’re hard to get with a spear gun. Tarry and Raymond caught some beautiful conches. Marjorie and I kayaked to shore, took a walk on the beach, picked up some beautiful shells, and enjoyed the picture perfect paradise.

That night, I prepared a Chinese style dinner consisting of fried Chinese sausage with eggs, stir fried vegetable mix (since we didn’t have many fresh vegetables, I had to use dried bean curd, dried mushroom etc), potato with green pepper, BBQ sausage and rice. After dinner, Tarry and Max went out lobstering while all three kids watched a movie.
It's an amazing thing to be out walking on the coral reef in the moonlight. The top of the reef is nearly flat with a minimum depth of about 1 foot and gradually shelving toward the ocean and toward the lagoon. To catch the lobster you shine a bright flashlight around. If it shines on a lobster he'll look directly at you. At that point his eyes reflect the light just like cat's eyes. As long as you keep him mesmerized with the light he won't move. But once released, they skitter along fast! Well, Max saw a lobster - but he saw Max too and he was a lot faster than Max. So Max didn't catch anything. But, Tarry was incredible! He caught eight ! He seemed to know exactly where they were. He was complaining that there were usually a lot more.

We stayed the night. The next day we took life fairly easy (except for Tarry - he got up early to go fishing, but had no luck) and sailed back to Tabal Island in the afternoon. That night we feasted on the delicious spiny lobsters for dinner. We have never tasted lobster as good - very tender and lots of flavour.

The day before we left Aur Atoll, all the cruisers were invited by the women of Tabal to a thank-you ceremony. It was very beautiful and moving. They sat us down in the Chief's house (the Iroij in Marshallese). Then, the Chief's wife (Tarry’s sister) came in playing the ukulele with about 30 women behind her singing. Most of the women in the village (perhaps all - I don't know) were outside the house, also singing. After singing for 20 minutes or so, the village women formed a long line like we have after a wedding ceremony and everyone shook hands or hugged with cruisers. A few of the younger kids snuck into the line too. The women put a necklace on each of us - I received several and a tiara as well. They also piled many gifts from each household in front of us: papayas, coconuts, breadfruit and squash along with – lots of handicrafts - stars, fish, baskets, necklaces, mats - all made of pandanus leaf with many little shells.

The Chief's wife started to make a speech but got frustrated by her own English. So - she called Tarry over to translate. But Tarry, as a man, was not allowed inside. So he stood just outside the back door and translated from there. The Chief's wife thanked us for coming to the village and attending their independence celebration. She also thanked the cruisers for repairing the village generators, motors and radio. After that, each of the cruiser men were expected to get up and say something (again, Tarry translated from the back door). To the amusement of the village women, once the men were done several of the cruiser women got up too! Marjorie, as the oldest on the island, also got up and thanked them. She said she had never seen such welcoming, friendly and generous people anywhere else in the world during her 15 years of cruising life! When we were invited to the ceremony we expected an American type ceremony - long on speeches and bored faces. The Tabal women’s ceremony stunned us - these women actually meant "thank you” and they said it!

Later, we met Tarry again. He had caught some fish and traded them for a large octopus. He handed us a bucket with a grouper, a red snapper and the big octopus !! The octopus was far too big for us to eat alone so I cooked it and shared with the other cruisers. We all enjoyed the delicious flavour, but it was a bit too tough to chew.

For the first time since we started to live aboard, James and Erik had a chance to play with kids their own age! They played Frisbee on shore, then took some boys to Hai Yun to play. Erik had a “sword fight” with Raymond. As we were leaving, many kids accompanied us to the shore as usual. One kid named Junior said to me that he had promised James and Erik he would see them again. I gave him Hai Yun’s name card and really hope we can see him again somewhere sometime !

The first week of our outer atoll visit went by too quickly. We were deeply moved by the generosity and friendship we received. In return, the small gifts (nail polish, hair clips, hat, backpack, popcorn) we brought to them seem inadequate. As if we had not received enough from Aur Atoll, we caught two big yellow-fin Ahi Tuna (20 and 22 lb) right outside of lagoon on the way to the next outer atoll - Wotje!

Wotje Atoll, April 22 to May 1st
Wotje is very different from Aur. Everywhere are the remains of the Japanese occupation – concrete bunker buildings, huge concrete slabs, large iron tanks. The church bell is a huge abandoned bomb and there is an old 4" naval gun sitting beside it. However, our first day we had sashimi and seared BBQ Ahi for dinner - yummy!!

There is an elementary school and a high school on Wotje Island. The high school is quite big as it gets students from all the outer islands in the Ratak chain. They have dormitories for all 280 students. It’s free for all the students who passed the exam to come here. One thing that bothered Marjorie a great deal was that in the high school dorm, the female students wash clothes for the male students.

We met most of the volunteer teachers from the US (about six total). We had a good talk with the teachers but unfortunately were quite a distraction for their students. We went back to the elementary school the next day with our computer. James and Erik did a good job on a short powerpoint presentation about Hai Yun. The students were very interested. Later, we were invited to have dinner with some of the volunteer teachers; they all enjoyed the sashimi tuna I prepared. A couple of days later, some of the teachers visited Hai Yun, we had a good lunch onboard, and they picked out some books for their students from our book donation box. We really like these young, enthusiastic, devoted, and hard working teachers. They are making a huge and valuable contribution to Marshallese education.

We've been very lucky on this trip. First, at Aur, we were able to go just when they had their independence ceremony. Here in Wotje, we got to see the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands !

The day after we arrived, an airplane arrived. After talking to the flight crew, we were surprised to learn that this was the first plane to fly to Wotje in seven months! The first three months they were waiting for parts to arrive. Then, their pilot went to find employment elsewhere and they had to wait for a new pilot to be hired!!

The new president who was sworn into office in November is from Wotje. He's been waiting for the airplane so he could make an official trip here to celebrate with his family and friends. So, a few days after the first flight arrived, another flight arrived with the President on it.

They had a big long ceremony in the church with some good singing followed by a feast with some dancing. While sitting in the church, the mayor's wife came over to put flower tiaras on Jingli and Mom's heads. The handmade flowers in Wotje are very detailed and beautiful. They are the special handicraft from Wotje Atoll (each atoll has its special handicraft).

After the ceremony, the IroijLapLap (chief of the entire Ratik chain) gave Max the most beautiful turtle carved from coconut with a white flower bouquet on top. After the feast we were presented with a huge basket of food including two smoked red snapper, two whole cooked lobsters, a large piece of smoked turtle meat, chicken, pandanus bread, plantain, breadfruit and various other yummy things we couldn't identify.
The president left Wotje three days later in a huge motor boat (a coast guard rescue boat) because the airplane was broken again.

We felt very lucky to be at Wotje at the right time to attend the big celebration. However, we also needed to have some quiet time to catch up with the home schooling. We decided to go anchor off an uninhabited island in the Atoll. But, every island is owned by someone and you don’t just drop in uninvited. So we picked an island on the chart, found out who owned it and then went to see the owner (Tonge) to ask permission to anchor near his island, (Kaijen Island, also called Goat Island on Max’s chart). Tonge is elderly man with excellent English. He was surprised at our request, but was very happy to grant us the permission. He said “You can go to my islands (he owns several islands in a row) anytime and do anything you want there”! He also said “You will come back. Come to my house when you are back”. To this comment, we were kind of puzzled. In honesty, we were not planning to come back to Wotje, but, out of politeness, we said “Thank you, thank you very much. We will visit you again (if ) we come back”. Maybe Tonge has a special ability of seeing the future: ten days later, we came back to Wotje to wait for good weather to sail back to Majuro. We visited Tonge again as we promised and gave him a big steak of wahoo tuna we caught. This time, luckily, he did not predict we would come back again !
We had two fantastic nights near Tonge’s island Kaijen. It was a gorgeous location. The water had that lovely light blue colour. Great snorkeling in all directions. When James and Erik jumped in the water to verify Hai Yun’s position relative to coral heads, almost immediately they saw a small (5ft) white tip reef shark cruising around. These small sharks are supposedly not dangerous to humans if you don’t bother them. I don't think any of us have ever felt as completely isolated as we were those nights. No lights, no sounds but the surf crashing on the other side of the island. And stars, stars, stars...
The next day in the morning we explored Kaijen. Erik and Max found a
path through to the ocean side then climbed a coconut tree for some drinking coconuts. Max was about one-quarter of the way through using a small rigging knife to open one when Erik re-appeared with a half-open coconut saying - "Don't you know how the Marshallese open them ???" They use a stake in the ground and alternatively whack and twist to peel them. Erik had found a stake set up for just this purpose. Made much quicker work !!!

James and I walked on the beach around the island. Everywhere looked like a perfect picture. However, I didn't like the mosquito’s preference for Chinese food! That afternoon we all went snorkeling in the coral gardens around the boat. The water was very warm, higher than 85 degree. The boys and Max tried spear fishing – whenever they found some large fish the white tips showed up and scared them off.

That night around 8:00 pm the boys and Max headed for the island in the dark looking for coconut crabs and lobster. Max got two lobsters in fairly short order. The boys had a tangle with two coconut crabs: a very large one that got away and a smaller one that bit Erik on his thumb but succumbed to their combined efforts at bagging him. They returned to Hai Yun victorious

Ailuk Atoll, May 2 to May 11, 2008
The sailing from Wotje to Ailuk was treacherous but blessed. We were able to get out of the coral maze near Kaijen Island with lots of shouting but no damage to Hai Yun. After leaving Wotje Atoll, the wind was not exactly in our favor and we arrived at Ailuk later than expected. To make up time we decided to attempt the very narrow Enije Pass rather than the wider commonly used pass ten miles north. The alternative was to spend a night outside the pass tacking back and forth waiting for day light. We were all pretty pleased with ourselves when we made it in and anchored.

However, there was barely time for half a celebratory drink and the Mayor of Ailuk arrived to greet us! For the previous atolls, we had gone to shore to meet the mayor, handed him the permission form we obtained from Majuro and paid our fee ($25 or 50). What a great start to meeting another island full of incredibly friendly Marshallese folk!

Ailuk Island itself is spectacular. We're getting a bit jaded about coral islands but Ailuk is special. Two islands at the head of the bay close off a small lagoon of light blue. Ailuk island joins them running south and around the corner of the atoll like a big comma. The bay is deeper blue with a few dark coral heads. The sand everywhere is a perfect white/beige color and as fine as flour. To add interest, there's a wrecked freighter due west about a mile away on the outside of the reef. We found out later, it was a Chinese fishing vessel that ran aground about 5 years ago.

Ailuk is different for other reasons as well. We've been surprised in Aur and Wotje at how few boats we see whizzing around. Here in Ailuk they've resisted the switch to outboards (small motor boats). They have numerous sailing canoes - a central hull, a small outrigger and a sail of about 100 square feet - and they're fast !!! The other atolls relying on outboards have been crippled by the high cost of gas. Not here - and they're very proud of that. Also, the atoll is nearly perfectly for sailing - the islands are almost exactly perpendicular to the prevailing wind - making any island just a beam reach away. And the atoll is narrow east to west so the western passes are not far downwind.

Perhaps easy transportation helps Ailuk Atoll in other ways. The village lookes better built than other atolls: beautiful church, many big brick houses, some semi-fenced gardens and most pigs were in their pens. Other places they were wandering around freely with the chickens.

The next day, three boys invited James and Erik to go sailing on their outrigger - they had a great time. After sailing, we invited the boys aboard Hai Yun, had some snacks. The three boys were very polite but a little shy to speak some English. James and Erik were invited to play baseball on the airport runway with most of the island boys and the volunteer American teacher every afternoon while we were anchored at Ailuk island.
In Ailuk island, we made good friends with the pastor Anious and his wife Emily. Anious is a keen radio operator. Max and he had long discussions on single side band and VHF and took him to Hai Yun for a tour. Emily is a slim woman with good English. She is mother of seven children aged from 3 to 20. She invited us to her home and fed us delicious coconut drinks (it’s a Marshallese custom to give guests coconut drink) and pandanus candy she made herself. We brought her a big piece of frozen Ahi Tuna and she was very happy to accept. I also asked her to do some laundry for us since we had not had heavy rain for a while (I usually collect rain water to wash clothes onboard). She agreed without hesitation. I paid her $10 for the hard work; she was surprised by the pay but happy. For handicraft work, they earn only $3 to 5 a day. Marjorie bought more pandanus leaf and sea shell handicrafts from Emily and her friends. I bought a lidded basket. It’s not a good ideal to have beautiful handicrafts onboard, but it’s so hard to resist buying them.

We had the mayor and his wife, the school principal, out to visit Hai Yun. It was the first time for the mayor’s wife to be onboard a yacht. She is very interested in the living arrangements. She also brought us some delicious food: coconut, pandanus, fried breadfruit. The mayor was very happy to be given a pair of spare oarlocks to try on his boat.
Seeking again for a more isolated place to do some home schooling, we got permission from the mayor to anchor in front of one of his islands, Kabok or Kabbo, for a couple of days. Before we left Ailuk island, Max accidentally pulled the main halyard completely out of the mast. Luckily Erik, the bosun, is a little monkey and with the help of a fishing weight and some monofilament we soon had it led through again. We arrived at Kabok Island around 4pm.

Another paradise! Amazing snorkeling! We have never seen so many different kinds of corals and fishes. The bright blue, green, purple, brown, pink giant clams decorated the coral tops to make them very colorful. James told us that the beautiful colors on the giant clam lips are algae and there are 8 species of giant clams in the world and 7 of them are found only in the Marshall Island. We also saw giant rays, small reef sharks, small lion fish, moray eels, and many other tropical fish. Erik and Max caught several fish with the spear gun. Erik also caught a small (about 2 to 3 lb) octopus with the spear gun. However, the fishermen were most proud of the great success of the lobster hunting they ventured out on that night. They called themselves “the Great White Hunters” after that! This is a beautiful spot. Home schooling in the morning, snorkeling in the afternoon. The boys have been sailing Osprey a bit. They've also rigged a sail on Wilderness (the kayak) with a blue tarp held up by hand.

No matter how much we enjoyed this isolated paradise, we had to go back to Majuro since we must move on to Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji and New Zealand. We set out unwillingly from Kabbok Island, Ailuk Atoll, on May 11th at about 9:15am. Wind was 15-20kts NE. The Marok pass was easy as expected. After clearing the westmost island of Ailuk Atoll (Agulue Island) we came up to about 60 degrees apparent under main and staysail heading for the eastern-most point of Wotje atoll.

Wotje Again…, May 12 to 14, 2008
About halfway to Wotje we caught a huge (40+ lb) wahoo. It stretched completely across the cockpit behind the wheel. Chopping it into steaks and cramming them in the freezer made Max a bit seasick. I was not keen on going down below to get the camera to take a picture of the beautiful fish for the fear of seasickness myself. We arrived off Wotje around 8pm. Then the wind headed us terribly - coming around to due East. We were forced to tack away from Wotje and almost back along our track. We came up hard on the wind.

By now we were getting gusts up to 25kts and the waves were getting big. After rounding Wotje, things looked a little better. We were able to bear off 10 degrees and could just lay Majuro on port tack. Wind had calmed a bit although it was raining cats, dogs and the occasional elephant. Around 11pm, however, the wind came round further to ESE. Majuro was now a straight beat into the scary white teeth of 20kts gusting to 25kts. So, we dropped the main, turned tail and ran for the south entrance to Wotje, about 14nm miles away. Shortly after, we got some big gusts up to 32kts from the SE – good thing we’d run ! We came into Wotje atoll without problems following the waypoints made by our cruiser friend Ken from Moonbird. By then, the wind was absolute flat calm. Not enough to even pull the anchor chain out !! This was the 2nd time we’ve changed our course due to the weather (the Neah Bay hideout was the 1st time), but, we were glad we did it. We stayed at Wotje for two nights then headed back to Majuro smoothly.
During our 2nd time stay at Wotje, we went to the shore to visited Tonge as we promised. We also tried the only restaurant on the island which was located right next to the president’s house. The food was ok; the best was no dishes to wash that night!

Majuro
Grandma Marjorie went back to Vancouver on May 17. We all had enjoyed her stay on Hai Yun for the past month. While enjoying and visiting the outer atolls, she was a capable and stoic crew and she worked hard on helping with home schooling, baking delicious bread and making cookies. We all miss her very much! But we were not able to hold her hostage any longer for fear of Grandpa Jim in Parksville starving.