JJEM Adventures

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.