Category: North Pacific

s/v RAYNAD – Marshall Islands to Honolulu
March 16, 2012

We left Aur at about 2:00pm this afternoon and are briskly on our way to Midway. We had a wee toast of bourbon – compliments of Doug – which we shared with Neptune:) So far conditions are perfect and our current speeds are 7.5-8.5kts! It’s 6:30pm and our position is :08:39.405N and 170:53.079E on a course of 336. Once we get above Moelelap, we’ll turn as much east as possible. Doug’s in the kitchen cooking up pasta for dinner, John just finished a shower, and a beautiful sunset colors the horizon.

2012/03/16 ( 08-42.32N / 170-51.83E) COURSE: 337T, SPEED: 8.4
03/17/12
We’re doing fine, just bouncing along heeled over running 3hr night watches and 4hr day watches. It’s really nice to have Doug on board to share the schedule and also to help John with repairs and sail adjustments. Our drama yesterday was to have one of the strips for bracket holders in the refrigerator break free and cause all the stuff in the fridge to collapse. Much to my relief Doug and John were able to fix it.

2012/03/17 18:49 ( 12-11.58N / 171-32.77E) COURSE: 000T ,SPEED: 6.9

03/18/2012
It’s been a good day. For awhile we were making a bit of progress to the east, the seas have been much calmer and our boat speed mostly good. Doug caught a large MahiMahi this afternoon! That was exciting as everyone got involved in trying to get this large, thrashing fish landed on the boat. Looked like a crime scene after we were done! Great eating tonight – Doug cooked it with a bit of garlic – super yummy. We’ll have several meals off that one fish, so we are no longer at risk for starvation.
2012/03/18 06:40 ( 13-20.87N / 171-55.05E ) COURSE: 013T ; SPEED: 5.2

2012/03/19 05:53  (15-02.35N- 172-46.71E ) COURSE: 097T ; SPEED: 5.0
WIND_SPEED: 30;WIND_DIR: NE ; WAVE_HT: 4.0M ; SWELL_HT: 3.0M  Storm really kicked up – very rough

We are totally getting slammed right now with an unexpected storm. The forecasts all said light winds 10-15, but we are currently in 30-35 and big seas, not my favorite sailing. We have three reefs in the main and only the staysail, but are really pounding into it. Keep your fingers crossed for smoother seas ahead. Doug’s on watch now, so he’s the one getting drenched…I’m up next.

Position: 15:02.206 N / 172:47.654 E

03/19/2012
It was in fact a total surprise to get hit with such strong winds, they topped out at 45kts with the boat slamming into the waves. Fortunately after about 5hours of that, the winds began to lighten until we spent the night with mostly 15-20kts and now this morning have very light 5-10kt winds and the seas are much calmer.

03/20/2012
So today was high adventure on the fishing rod. First a fish hit the line and it gave such a battle that it took ALL of the line and snapped the final knot! All was lost. So Doug and I rigged up a whole new line and lures to try again. Second catch of the day was a sea bird!! Doug was on watch and saw the bird approach and then just dive for it and come up with a terrible shriek. Poor thing was terrified. We all hustled- Doug was finally able to safely get ahold of the squawking bird while John tried to take a photo and I tried to get the hook out with some pliers. The hook had gone through the cheek, just behind it’s beak. After much trying, including the bird angrily snapping at me, we finally got the hook out and with a gentle toss it took to flight and went as fast as possible away from our boat! I don’t think that bird will be trying again to catch food near boats. We’d been watching various birds come by and show intense interest in our lure bouncing on the water, but we really didn’t think that one would go for it. So, now we’ll reel it in if we see another one come towards the line. We get a lot of booby birds flying by and circling the boat, craning their necks to look at us – its’ very funny:)

2012/03/20 21:02 (15-08.46N /174-58.35E ) COURSE: 113T;SPEED: 6.3
Calmly rolling along w/ light winds

We’ve had a rather nice day of sailing, fairly light winds and not as much speed as Captain John would like, but we are making our way eastward which is great and I really like the calmer seas:)

After a couple of tacks last night, we are continuing to make easterly progress. The seas are calm with long, rather large rollers, however, we’re able to keep 6+kts of speed with only 12-15kts of wind. Current plans are to maintain our easterly course for about 200 miles, or as long as the winds are favorable, and then hopefully tack northward. It’s becoming less likely that we will achieve Midway so will either transit between the outer islands, or even make landfall in Kauai. All depends on the winds and currents. Fortunately, we have the time to alter our routing with the wind/sea conditions. For now, it’s very pleasant sailing along at this latitude:)

2012/03/22 02:27 ( 15-28.78N / 177-42.53E ) COURSE: 054T; SPEED: 5.2
Variable winds and speed.

John wrote:
4:58am and It is my watch as we motor through glassy seas under a starry sky and warm breezes too thin to use the sails. First time we have used the engine in eight days. The Big Dipper and the North Pole Star have kept me company showing the way home. Kris is asleep. The sky in the east shows faint shadows of clouds that in 90 minutes will be pink and fluffy but now are dark shapes against the earliest light of the dawn. We have 1200 miles to go of the 2000 miles that make up the first of the two legs of our trip to Seattle.

Kris and I always lose weight on a passage like this, but this time we have caught two huge MaiMai and also a seabird (Tropic Bird) that took our lure and had to be hauled aboard and de-hooked. It made its objections well known, pooped and squawked like there was no tomorrow and then when released, flew off and repeatedly shook its feathers, shook its head and screamed at the top of its lungs. Being so pissed off, we have not seen it since but the presumption is that it is fully recovered, I though of Kay and her skills nursing the budgies.

Only other vessel was a derelict Chinese fishing boat. We hailed them on the radio and got a clean clear Chinese voice back saying something unintelligible. We had briefly thought – ‘pirates’ and reviewed our on-board armaments (none) but they floated on across our bows looking even more derelict than ever – typical piece of junk that litters the sea beds around all the harbors here, blocking the access of other commercial traffic.

03/22/12

We’ve been motoring since about 3am when the winds dropped too much to sail, but the swell is still rolling by so we are at times really rocking back and forth. Looks like some clear skies for the morning. Yesterday we had some comfortable, fast sailing with mostly clear skies.  All is well onboard Raynad.

03/24/2012
We’ve had a lazy night and day with motoring all last night and some easy sailing today, but now we’re back to the motoring for tonight because the winds have dropped so much. We crossed the dateline last night, so are having our second Friday! At least we are able to continue going eastward which is usually what causes problems since the winds and currents are usually west setting. Looks like the trip will take us many more days than expected though. We’re already out over one week and still have about 1100 miles to go before getting to Hawaii. So, we just go with the winds and currents and see how we progress. Forecasts are for strengthening winds turning to the east and then northeast, so it’s to our advantage to continue going east before the winds force us to head north. Kind of nice to be out of the heavy storms that are happening north of Hawaii. Hopefully they’ll calm a bit before we get up there.

2012/03/24 22:25 (18-07.07N / 176-40.71W ) COURSE: 036T ; SPEED: 7.1
WIND_SPEED: 20 ; WIND_DIR: ENE ; WAVE_HT: 2.0M
Briskly sailing northward at 6.5-7.4kn with winds ave 20kt, heeled over with rougher seas, but ok. I did enjoy the calmer seas for a couple of days, the swell was still quite large, but still much easier than what we have now!

2012/03/25 19:34 (19-51.28N / 175-32.45W ) COURSE: 035T  ; SPEED: 5.7
WIND_SPEED: 30 ; WIND_DIR: NE ; WAVE_HT: 3.0M
Tempestuous seas
Winds here have picked up and the seas roughened – NOT my favorite sailing weather. Doesn’t look like we’ll make landfall in Hawaii but just pass through the outer island chain. Already dreaming of landing at the dock in Washington!?!?
2012/03/26 17:14 ( 21-23.83N / 174-59.86W) COURSE: 016T ; SPEED: 4.7
All is well, a bit rough, but the boat is coping much better than me! As the winds blow, it looks like we will neither stop in Midway or at any of the Hawaiian Islands. Disappointing for sure, but either stop would be significantly out of the way now since we are currently on course to go between Laysan and Lisianski Islands in the outer chain (or there abouts.) The winds have dropped a bit and the seas are slightly less, so we are making better progress. Last night was pretty boisterous, we hove-to for an hour in order to run the generator and watermaker, which was a pleasant reprieve. We’ll heave-to again tonight for an hour break. Really nice to stop bashing for awhile.

2012/03/27 05:38 (22-26.09N/ 174-33.41W) COURSE: 034T ;SPEED: 6.0
Lovely watching the Laysan Albetross

Woke up this morning to sunshine sparkling on the water, calmer although still rolling seas, and the prospect of making it through the outer islands sometime tomorrow, so progress is being made. We’re hoping to have the wind more behind us as we progress northward which will be a nice relief from the current pounding into the wind and waves. We hove-to last night at sunset just to give everyone a break from the pounding and allow us to run the watermaker and for everyone to have a shower:) Because we are so heeled over, the watermaker sucks in air and gets plugged if we try to run it while underway. We are all disappointed not to be able to make landfall anywhere along the Hawaiian chain without making a detour south. In order to get to Honolulu now, we would have to tack about 500miles.

2012/03/28 20:05 (25-12.20N / 172-53.62W ) COURSE: 010T ; SPEED: 4.3
Very light winds and calm seas
About midnight last night the winds dropped and now this morning we are sailing along at 4-5kts with light winds and nearly flat seas. We’re almost to Laysan Island which would be great fun to stop at, but unfortunately it is a nature reserve and the US Fish and Game may take a very dim, even aggressive view, of our stopping there especially since the rare Laysan Albatross are probably breeding there right now. We’ve seen a few of them, especially when the winds were stronger, as they soar by like giant glider planes. I’m hoping that we’ll spot more whales too, but so far only one last night. Doug is making buttermilk biscuits, John is walking the deck, all is very leisurely on board right now. We know this calm won’t last as the forecast is for us to be moving into some pretty strong weather systems in the next day or two. It’s getting cooler every night as we continue progressing into the north, just enough to need a polar fleece and a little cover for sleeping – still pretty warm and sunny during the day. Tomorrow we’ll likely get into rain.

2012/03/29 17:13 (26-11.27N / 171-30.20W) COURSE: 059T ; SPEED: 5.0
Booby Bird hitchhiking on the solar panel!
We have acquired a hitch-hiker on board Raynad….a booby bird landed on our solar panel last night during my 7-10pm watch and has taken up residence there it seems:) It’s really funny, it preens itself, tucks its head under its wing and sleeps, squawks a bit when the boat rocks too much, and this morning is still there just watching the other birds fly by! It’s really funny.  Not looking forward to cleaning up the bird poo but it’s sort of sweet to look back at our new companion seemingly quite happy to just go along for the ride.

 

We’ve been motoring all night, no winds, super flat, mirror-like water last night. It’s starting to pick up this morning, so I think we’ll be sailing shortly. We’ve passed through the Hawaiian chain of outer islands, including a pretty close pass to Laysan Island, but alas no stop-over since it’s not allowed. The sky was filled with birds at sunrise..lots and lots of Laysan Albatross, it was really magical.

So, feels like we’re on the second half of the voyage, although statistically we’re not quite half-way.

2012/03/30 06:31 (26-25.56N / 170-59.74W) COURSE: 181T ; SPEED: 1.8
WIND_SPEED: 35-45 ; WIND_DIR: NE ; WAVE_HT: 5.0M
Hove-to due to stormy seas
We are currently hove-to about 60 miles from Laysan Island. Winds are strong out of the NE so we were really pounding along. We’ll hope for a wind shift by morning. The sea birds LOVE this wind – so it’s at least been entertaining to watch them.

26-21.97N / 170-53.73W ; COURSE: 042T ; SPEED: 6.5
WIND_SPEED: 30 ; WIND_DIR: NE; WAVE_HT: 4.0M
Great seabirds! Sailing onward bashing away hard on the wind.  25-30kt winds making 6+kts with just the staysail and 3-reefs in the main! Pretty hazardous walking around the boat – I’m back to bed after sending these emails.We did hear the Yakwe net this morning, others came in loud and clear, but no one seemed to be able to hear us.

2012/03/31 20:02 (27-44.18N / 168-48.97W) COURSE: 057T ; SPEED: 8.1
Great sailing!After heaving-to we’ve now had a couple of days of brisk sailing, this morning being the best with sunshine and 8.2kts boat speed! Probably won’t last more than a day before the next front hits but we’ll sure appreciate it while it lasts. I think this trip will take much, much longer than we had estimated using the “trip planner.” At least Doug is flexible enough to stay with us, not that he’d have a choice now anyway!?!?

We are still being followed by one beautiful, large old Laysan Albatross. He’s really fun to watch gliding across the water pausing to take a look at whoever is in the cockpit when he passes. We’ve tried getting photos and even a video of the birds, but there is SO much motion in the boat it’s pretty impossible. The seabirds have been a real fascination. I can only imagine how cool it would have been to anchor near Laysan and watch them. Midway is supposed to have some unique wildlife too, including some special sea lions…oh well. I could say next time, but I’m not planning a repeat performance of this trip!

04/01/2012

Always changing is my description of this sail so far. Yesterday started out with great winds and speed, then the winds collapsed and kept switching so we got to endure the slamming sails, then the wind switched directions but gave us some decent sailing and now this morning we’re into the squalls and back to beating into the winds and waves. I’m doing ok, although only by using the patches – 1/2 over 3-days overlapping for 1 day. I don’t like the side-effects, but not using them is even worse (tried that.) We calculated 28-34 days for this trip, but we’re not even half way yet and are already on day 20. When I’m feeling good, I dream of food, otherwise I just dream of landing at a Q-dock!! Mostly, I try to keep my anxiety level under control since every time we look at the grib files we see new storm developments up ahead.

2012/04/01 19:30(28-39.89N /166-39.21W) COURSE: 074T; SPEED: 5.6  After a super day of sailing yesterday, we had a night of wind fluctuations – even motored through some calm, and yet at the moment we are hove-to again with 45kt winds and accompanying seas!

For all of our concerns about “easting”, now we’re struggling to get north and out of the edges and squash zones of the weather systems. Not fun – hoping it won’t last too long. Nonetheless, we are all fine just dreaming of some nice, consistent winds. We’re still rocking and bouncing around in tough weather and seas.

2012/04/03 05:14 (28-14.01N / 165-56.20W) COURSE: 134T ; SPEED: 6.4
Sailing SE – Back to squalls and beating
Big highs and big lows north of us, so we are kinda in the wrong area,and it has forced us to reconsider our plan to sail to Seattle.  The strong weather systems in the North Pacific so strongly on the nose, heading us such that our only angles on the wind are either a southeast course or a northwest course. We’ve chosen to take the SE and go ahead and stay below as much as possible. Statistically we should be getting into westerlies, but the weather has a different idea. Even on this course we are beating into the winds and waves so it’s quite a rough ride. We’re having a bruise counting competition! That is if you can manage to hold one position long enough to bother counting. Doug is doing great – strong and young, he isn’t bothered at all by sea-sickness and is coping amazingly well with us two old folks.

He’s happy to cook, which is good because he is doing most of the eating:) We really appreciate having him on crew, especially during the cold, rough weather. It’s definitely nice to share the watch schedule among three too, everyone is getting some decent sleep, all things considered.

2012/04/03 21:12 (27-17.48N / 164-46.63W) COURSE: 134T; SPEED: 5.6
Seems we’re on the edge of the storms with strong winds driving us SE

We were hove-to night before last for about 12 hours and unfortunately the winds and seas were so strong they actually pushed us backwards at 3kts! Consequently we basically had to regain our 30nm once we were sailing again, so it looks like we didn’t move much, although we did only in a repeat fashion!?! The weather isn’t great and the trip is taking much longer than expected. We aren’t even half-way yet and have used up 22 days.

2012/04/04 18:22 (26-01.78N /163-29.60W) COURSE: 177T; SPEED: 5.7
Due to the weather and sea conditions which have kept our mileage low and sailing rough, we have decided to head to Honolulu. I need to be in the USA by no later than May 1st to report for jury duty in Sitka (crazy, I know,but I’ve already postponed and reschedule), so I’ll fly to Sitka from Honolulu. John and Doug will rest a week or more, and then set out to complete the journey to the PacNW, hopefully to Alaska. Doug can visit his girlfriend in Hilo, John can fix a few things on the boat and we can get some fresh fruits and veges. Hopefully by then, the conditions will have settled a bit. At least John and Doug will have a more flexible schedule. I’ll be sorry not to make the entire trip, but I will also be very happy to get away from the storms.

2012/04/05 20:49 (24-52.47N /162-00.31W) COURSE: 160T; SPEED: 5.6
Making progress toward Honolulu. It’s about 580 miles from where we turned, so a passage in itself.

2012/04/06 18:48 (23-16.44N / 160-53.98W) COURSE: 138T ; SPEED: 5.3
Funny how even though we decided to drop down toward Honolulu, we’re STILL sailing. Seems like it’s taking forever – hard on the wind, heeled over, bouncing along…getting more bruises! Hopes are to arrive in a couple of days. In the meantime, we are continuing to try and eat up any fruits,veges, meats, etc that Hawaii might confiscate. Had a great pork BBQ last night.

Doug caught yet another MahiMahi yesterday! It was a large and beautifully colored fish. Always quite an ordeal to gaff and get safely on deck, then fillet – looked like a massacre on deck! Fortunately, Hawaii will allow us to keep any fish that was caught offshore, so the guys will have quite a lot of fish to eat through after I leave. Since Doug is a good cook, they will not survive on noodles and peanut butter alone.

04/07/2012
No land birds yet, but lots of seabirds. The tropical bird and shag were really checking out the boat as a landing craft! But, the winds are strong, the boat heeled over and bouncing, so they had to work incredibly hard to catch up with us and then I think they realized that they’d probably get thrown off if they tried to hitch a ride. The lovely albatross (both Laysan and a very striking brown ones) are still with us. Sometimes they fly by really close and even stall a bit to give us a super look. They are the highlights of this voyage. We have winds hard on the nose so we are sailing but it’s very hard going – my bruises are multiplying exponentially! Can’t wait to pull up to the dock and get a full night of sleep on the flat without interruptions for watches. We’re all looking forward to it now…funny because we have about 160 miles left which is a typical passage between islands, so I’m trying to view it that way and not get too impatient.

2012/04/07 17:41 (21-52.62N / 159-36.53W) COURSE: 119T ; SPEED: 3.1
Land-Ho Kuaui!!…. but sadly we must continue to Honolulu for check-in.
We are cruising along the coastline of Kauai, not able to stop yet because we must go into Honolulu first to check-in which is still 95miles away, so even though we are near land, we must continue for another day. Beautiful though to cruise along the coast and view the lovely green farms and villages. We’re motoring right now so we can have coffee, etc, but will raise the sails soon and try to sail as much as possible, although the wind is on the nose again. Seems we can’t get away from the close-reach/ beating into the winds.  All is well,  we have cellphone signals now!!

04/07/2012 ARRIVAL OAHU 4:30AM !!

Doug steered the good ship Raynad into the marina and we tied up to the dock.  All aboard were ecstatic at our arrival,     Kristy even kissed the dock!

 

Champagne toasts – lots of happiness and big hugs.

Now we are ALL ready for a good CALM sleep:)

 

04/14/2012

We came into Honolulu, went through all of the customs and immigration check-in procedures, but are staying here for awhile. Turns out that we need to complete the documentation to import Raynad,in fact the USA only gives us 2 weeks from our arrival at the first port of entry into the USA to submit the paperwork. It’s just as well that we have the time and also have the resources here in Honolulu to make that all happen. This involves using a broker and of course paying the import duty. I’ll leave next Thursday to fly to Denver and then to Portland on April 26th and on up to Sitka arriving April 30th. We’re at a really lovely marina and are enjoying exploring around the island, sunset walks and having access to great food:) John and Doug will go over to Kauai for a couple of days and then start their way up to Kodiak, Alaska!

 

Click here for –  Part TWO: Passage Hawaii to Alaska!

AILUK ATOLL – our favorite island

MAJURO

 

AUR ATOLL

 

Link to: Photos of Ailuk, Majuro & Aur Atolls

12/31/2011

TARAWA TO MAJURO PASSAGE ( 01-47.27N / 172-46.28E)
We can celebrate New Year’s Eve across the globe starting with us in Kiribati – where it happens first – we’re 20 hours ahead of the mainland USA, then DC is about 4 hours ahead of that, with Scotland 5 more hours ahead of that – LOTS of toasts!!!

Happy New Year 2012!    John and I clicked a toast into the New Year while at sea – appropriate I think. Resolutions??? We’re on route between Tarawa and Majuro, about a 3-day passage. Right now the seas are very calm and unfortunately the winds as well. Progress is really slow. Can’t complain though after some of the fast rides we’ve had on the other trips.

John wrote:  Happy New Year from Latitude 3′ 10″ N and Longitude 172′ 38″E.      Kristy and I popped a champagne bottle and shared the contents with Neptune under a spectacularly clear starry sky with the Plough showing low in the north to welcome us back from the Southern Hemisphere. The Pole Star made a brief appearance through the mist on the horizon. Even sang Auld Lang Syne which sounded pretty good though we missed Nana who, of course, knows all the verses and is an instant hit at these sorts of events. We had our brief function at the midnight change of watch and relished the fact that since the Republic of Kiribati is +12GMT and the only place I know of that does this, we were among the first people on the planet Earth to raise our glass and toast 2012. Ten minutes later the watch schedule resumed and Raynad continued swishing through inky black, eerily calm seas on a passage to the Marshall Islands and a little bit of America.

01/01/2012 – Just passing Butaritari – Happy New Year!

We’re so far having a very pleasant trip. Had thoughts of stopping into the north end of Butaritari for a break and to revisit the island family, however, it isn’t legal for us to do that and since the police boat left Betio ahead of us and because we are sailing well with good winds and seas, we’re continuing on. The entire trip is about 3 days/nights depending on our boat speed and what sort of currents we encounter closer to Majuro. We expect that the winds and seas will both increase, but the forecast at least is still good.

01/01/2012
Last night we paid for the easy sailing that we’d enjoyed earlier with non-stop squalls hitting us with winds that varied from 3-35knots/ Ne-E-Se. I wasn’t much help with those extremes and found it very frustrating in that John had to jump out and help so often, he finally just told me to go to sleep. Gimpy old lady I am. We’ll both be very glad to arrive in Majuro and are really hoping to do so tomorrow, but the winds are not cooperating in that between squalls we slow to only 3.5-4.5 speeds.

We’re now just passing by the island of Mili (6:05.831N / 171:38.640 E) clipping away at 6.9kts, on our way to Majuro. We’re hoping to arrive mid-morning, in fact the customs and immigration people won’t let us even enter the lagoon until 9am!! I guess if we’re early then we’ll just have heave-to and hang out!?!?
All is well, we’re keen to reach our destination and get a full night of rest:)
01/02/2012 ( 05-38.47N / 171-49.48E) COURSE: 346T, SPEED: 7.7
We fairly blasted our way along after my last update. With a reef in the main and only the small staysail, hard on the wind, we reached speeds up to 8kts/ave 7.4 so….now we’re trying to slow our progress as we sail with only the staysail (still going at 5kts) along the top of Majuro, rocking and rolling all the way, waiting for daylight to safely navigate through the pass and along inside the lagoon. Having another squall filled night has exhausted us both so we’re really looking forward to a shower and nap! We should be moored to a buoy by about 10am.

MAJURO- MARSHALL ISLANDS!!

Swinging on a buoy with lots of other cruising boats around:)

Unfortunately, the internet here is not very accessible and is also expensive ($0.10 per minute) so I will not be using it as freely as we enjoyed in Tarawa. Bummer really, I’d hoped to be able to have internet on the boat and enjoy talking with everyone on Skype. I have to take my computer to town and use public places like a restaurant or hotel lobby. We have a cellphone and I will get an international phone card which will also give us talking opportunities, but not as much as I’d like.

Majuro is a much calmer anchorage than others and we are tied to a mooring buoy which is rather carefree compared to anchoring. The winds can be strong, but because the water is so deep there are no waves like we had in Betio – those were incredible and a bit scary at times! Here it is just wind and since the temperatures are pretty hot, actually a welcome breeze blowing through the boat. We finally put up our ShadeTree yesterday and that’s brought the temp down in the boat alot, although the winds make it rattle alot. John has been working on boat repairs. He replaced the muffler on the engine and some parts on the refrigeration system. We have a refrigeration guy coming tonight to work on it with him. Hopefully we’ll have that up and working soon.

01/08/2012
We had a super blustery night which is continuing today with strong, gusty winds and torrential rains. Unfortunately, the ShadeTree is still up so lots of racket. As soon as the next calm happens, we’ll take it down. For now at least it keeps some of the rain out of the boat.

01/09/2012 John’s Birthday!
I made some double chocolate brownies which we ate mid-afternoon with some real ice cream!! yum! Since they were still warm it seemed silly to wait until after dinner when we’d be too full to enjoy the birthday cake:) We had pasta and a nice wine for dinner and will now watch one of our movies. All in all, not too bad.

01/10/2012
We had a fun dinner out with the other cruisers last night. We did pretty poorly on the “pop-quiz” (12/20) – but then the winner has to write the next quiz, so who really wants to win? Nonetheless, John was disappointed that we didn’t put on a “better show” – he IS competitive despite all he says!?!? It’s another sunny day here, at last the rain squalls seem to be done for awhile, so we’re going to head over to some mooring buoys at an island across the lagoon. Supposed to be some nice snorkeling, etc and it’d be really good to get away from the city.

Anemuwanet –  January 11, 2012 ( 07-07.73N / 171-18.52E )
It was a lovely day yesterday. We went ashore and walked around the entire island at low tide and then came back and snorkled over an old plane wreck. The other side is open ocean dramatically breaking on the reefs. Our side of the island is a calm bay, one of the best anchorages we’ve had in a long time. All of the Gilbert Island anchorages were quite rolly and bumpy and even in Majuro there is alot of wind across the mooring field. It’s also just nice and quiet here with clear water and some coral to snorkel around. It’s been pleasant and relaxing.
We’re sitting here this morning bobbing on a mooring buoy near a lovely island across the atoll from Majuro. It’s a favorite spot for cruisers to use to escape the dust and internet craze of the city and also for some snorkeling. Our plans are to leave in a couple of days and cruise to a few of the outer islands before returning to re-provision and pick up Doug, a friend of our daughters who will be helping us take the boat north on the long 4500nm passage to Seattle. We’ll leave here sometime around March 15 hoping to arrive into the PacNW by late April. I’ve only done one dive trip, this done while John was in Portland, Oregon and unfortunately the weather was rough so visibility wasn’t as superb for the pass dive as we’d hoped. I did manage to buy a used BCD from one of the other cruisers, so we have a complete set now, minus the depth gage, so it’s still only for emergency use or when diving with others. Your diving and exploring around the WWII buildings and wrecks sounds great! We walk alot to places in Majuro, but with max elevation of 3 meters, there’s not much hiking! Many of the buildings here are crumbling due to poor construction, especially those with concrete made from beach sand that wasn’t rinsed of the salt. Sad really.

02/14/2012 Valentine’s Day!
John wrote:
Happy Hour now as the sun has set. Tomorrow we sail for the tiny island of Ailuk that has run out of food. It is 200 miles north of here. We spent the day taking delivery of food from locals here in the capital and the boat is now STUFFED and listing with rice, flour, sugar. I bought a soccer ball, tennis balls, perfume, hair clasps and hair dye (black – women here hate grey hair) so that our arrival will be more Santa Like than Famine Relief type. Apparently the island is mostly young children because the teens go to boarding school in Woetche and many of the adults left to find work. They closed school early because the high tides at this time of year (King Tides) flood the causeways and so the school bus has rusted out and the water comes through the floorboards. So school stops one hour before high tide whenever that is

MAJURO to AILUK PASSAGE:

12/15/2012

12/16/2012 ( 08-15.88N / 170-47.22E) COURSE: 347T, SPEED: 6.9
Rough and squallly weather
Just a quick note typed on a slope to say that we’re doing well – a very brisk sail with lots of squally winds and rough seas. Not the most fun trip, we’ve had 25-35 knot winds all day with one squall after another. At least our speed is ok, but with the sea state that too isn’t as fast as we’d like it to be. Nonetheless we are moving along and doing fine. We’re both anxious to arrive, drop the anchor and sleep! I know that the villagers are hoping we arrive before dark today so they can offload their supplies.

ARRIVED AILUK!!

12/17/2012  6:56pm –  The good trader ship Raynad is safely anchored in the lovely lagoon by Ailuk island. All the food stuffs have been safely unloaded – none wet because we bagged it all in plastic before bringing it on the boat. We were met by the radio ham, “Pumpkin” and his wife who gave us the traditional welcome leis and shell ornaments, plus drinking coconuts:) Took some photos of the food piled on the dock and some local kids, the mayor and me to give the Majuro newspaper and also the Seven Seas Cruising newsletter. Now we’re back on board for happy hour at sunset….the winds and seas were rough getting here, but the result was a very fast passage- so we could deliver all of the food and still return to the boat for GTs !! Life is good:)

RAYNAD MAKES THE ISLAND NEWSPAPER!!

02/18/2012 AILUK ATOLL – Marshall Islands
We arrived into Ailuk yesterday afternoon loaded up with about 1500+kg of foodstuffs for the islanders. Turns out that the last two trader/supply boats never made it, and they haven’t received supplies since last September! So, prior to leaving Majuro, several family members of Ailuk residents brought down parcels of food, all nicely bundled and marked for us to load into Raynad and deliver up here. Must have been at least 30-20kg bags of rice, 10-15 10 kg bags of sugar, 10-15 20kg sacks of flour…..the boat was definitely hiding it’s waterline by the time we finished loading it all onto the starboard side so it would add ballast to our sail. Turned out that we had some very brisk winds (25-35kn gusting to 40) so even with the 3-4m seas, we averaged close to 7kn (two reefs in the main and only the staysail) and made the trip with only one overnight which made me very happy! We were greeted by our SSB radio ham friend, “Pumpkin” and his wife who bestowed upon us a traditional welcome of two fragrant flower leis and two handmade lovely shell necklaces with woven pendants. We’ll stay here and explore this beautiful lagoon for about a week and then probably head south to Woetje for a few days before continuing the trip, maybe via Moelelap, to Majuro. We’ll need to be back in Majuro by no later than March 5th to get ready for the next big voyage and Doug (our crew friend’s ) arrival on March 11th.

Ailuk is called the “island of the sails” and already this morning we’ve had five outrigger canoes sail past our boat – always calling out to us with glee as they are still distributing the foods we brought up to residents on some of the smaller islands around the lagoon. It really is lovely here, lots of small islands strung out along the reef with picturesque stands of palm trees, white sand beaches and turquoise waters. After a great night of rest, we’re now ready for some walk-abouts and snorkeling.

 

As written to s/v SEAL
As you know, we arrived into Ailuk on Friday evening loaded up with about 1500+kg of foodstuffs for the islanders. Turns out that the last two trader/supply boats never made it, and they haven’t received supplies since last September! So, prior to leaving Majuro, several family members of Ailuk residents brought down parcels of food, all nicely bundled and marked for us to load into Raynad and deliver up here. Must have been at least 30-20kg bags of rice, 10-15 10 kg bags of sugar, 10-15 20kg sacks of flour…. eventually we had to stop accepting more bags of rice…the boat was definitely hiding it’s waterline by the time we finished loading it all onto the starboard side so it would add ballast to our sail. Turned out that we had some very brisk winds (25-35kn gusting to 40) so even with the 3-4m seas, we averaged close to 7kn (two reefs in the main and only the staysail) and made the trip with only one overnight which made me very happy! We were greeted by our SSB radio ham friend, “Pumpkin” and his wife who bestowed upon us a traditional welcome of two fragrant flower leis and two handmade lovely shell necklaces with woven pendants, plus the sweetest drinking coconuts I’ve had yet. We’ll stay here and explore this beautiful lagoon for about a week and then probably head south to Woetje for a few days before continuing the trip, maybe via Moelelap, to Majuro.

Ailuk is truly the “island of the sails” and yesterday morning we’d had five outrigger canoes sail past our boat before we finished drinking our coffee- always calling out to us with glee as they are still distributing the foods we brought up out to residents on some of the smaller islands around the lagoon. It really is lovely here, lots of small islands strung out along the reef with picturesque stands of palm trees, white sand beaches and turquoise waters. After a great night of rest, we’re now ready for some walk-abouts and snorkeling.

We had a fun trip onto the island yesterday as we delivered a bag of school supplies and our last soccer ball. Even though school had been canceled due to the “famine” lots of kids were hanging around the school playing with an old basketball, so we were able to get a nice photo of the kids and the headmaster on the steps of their new school. As soon as the photo was over, the kids rushed out to the concrete pad and split up into teams for a lively soccer game! That was really great to see, this will be one very well used ball:)

Afterwards we walked a bit through the village and once again came upon a really great dog which John has fallen in love with – a cross between the usual yellow mutt with a bit of German shepherd?? He followed us all the way back to our dingy and then tried to swim out to the boat! Fortunately, he turned around just as your John was leaving to go rescue him. Everyone here has been really nice and given us lots of coconuts to drink/eat and even an entire breadfruit which is a precious commodity here. We enjoyed our usual happy hour at sunset while watching all of the canoes returning from their day. Instead of noisy outboards zooming close to the boat, we were thrilled by sailing outriggers swooshing by! They really are quite spectacular and they love to have us come out on the deck and cheer them by.

We’re off to church this morning. Our host, “Pumpkin”, is the preacher for the Church of Christ.

02/20/2012
We took our friends Aeneas(“Pumpkin,”) Emily and their three children out in the boat yesterday for the day. We’d really hoped to catch some fish, but unfortunately despite two lines in the water, changing lures, and trolling along for about 6-7 hours, no fish?!?! They weren’t all that surprised, but very disappointed, it seems that all of the island fishermen are also having a hard time catching any fish which only adds to the desperation of their current food situation. Since the trader boats aren’t coming here as expected, they are dependent on a subsistence diet primarily of fish, coconut, breadfruit (when in season which it’s not now), and pumpkin/squash (if they can manage to get it to grow which is difficult with the semi-salty well water and lack of rain.) It was small recompense for our poor luck fishing, that I gave them some of my frozen tuna that I’d bought in Majuro and a some packets of noodles. We had a fun day out nonetheless – the kids LOVED the boat. The two boys were all over the deck and really came to life when I gave them our walkie-talkie radios to mess around with. We ended up at the other end of the long lagoon at the village where Emily’s sister is the head teacher. Those radios were a total hit there with the kids all dividing up and racing around trying to talk with each other over the distances. We were greeted with lovely flower leis for our heads and more coconuts to drink. I put out snacks throughout the trip, so they enjoyed the new tastes of lemonade, oranges, carrots, cheese, crackers, cookies and popcorn:) It’s sweet that people want to give us something, but have so little that we’ve been over-run by drinking coconuts! I keep filling our drink containers, but can’t keep up with the overwhelming supply. John has become “Mr Fixit” with men asking him to fix their generators, solar panels, SSB radios, batteries, DVD players…….and each task completed is rewarded with a bag of coconuts! We’re going to take a day for ourselves now and doing some beachcombing along some of the many small islets. It’s incredibly scenic here, in that picturesque island, long white sands, coconut trees, turquoise waters way. We’ll snorkel too, but there aren’t many fish to see, just some lovely corals.

John wrote:
Raynad is swinging at anchor in the northernmost atoll in the Marshall Islands. 300 people live here, 50% under 12 . Each woman has seven kids on average. They go to another atoll for regional High School and so the Mums have the luxury of having their kids removed from the nest at age 13 so that they can focus on producing more of those likeable pre-pubertal kids. It like having puppies forever – no teenagers. What a good idea. What happens to the teenagers I do not know because they do not come back home. Home like this must be intolerable if you are an educated 17 year old, or worse a pregnant 17 year old. Of course the atoll is beautiful beyond belief but boring boring boring for a teenager. No internet, No movies, no drinking alcohol and no novelty value in the opposite sex. So – there is a huge Pacific Migration Council in the UN with gleaming white Land Cruisers with smoked glass windows ferrying diplomats from NZ, Aust, Hawaii and other destinations for those unemployed educated youth. Those behind smoked glass are assumed to K_N_O_W what to do about this and are dealing with the problems but not everyone is impressed that this is so.  I talked with the preachers wife. A lovely toothless Emma. She lost her teeth to her multiple pregnancies but her thick dark hair still falls across her shoulders in shocking waves and she carries herself like the queen, nodding her head in an understated deliberation as she acknowledges what you say.

02/22/2012
We said our farewells to “Pumpkin” (real name Anious) and his family today after collecting some items to take over to their kids in Woetje and some of the women’s handicrafts to transport into Majuro. Anious’ wife, Hemly gave us two more beautiful flower leis which she had made, and sang us a lovely farewell, goodwill sailing song. They really are very gracious and kind people, we will miss them. Their children Junior, Lazrus and Mila are lovely and we really enjoyed sharing some of the fun things on our boat – the real hit was our walkie-talkies. As we strolled down the beach to our dingy, all of the island children greeted us, seems we are now familiar to them all:) Ailuk really is the quintessential tropical island paradise – terrifically scenic with the many islets, coconut palms, striking white sands and turquoise waters. We will enjoy a few of the isolated islets for a couple of more days, feast on the lobster they just gave us, and then make an early start on Friday/Saturday with hopes of making a day passage to Woetje coming in the western pass and anchoring near Goat Island.

We found the cutest dog on the island and he totally fell in love with John (a mutual feeling:) He got so excited every time we came ashore and kept trying to swim out with the dingy – even tried to crawl into it. He was really, really sweet – thin but a great temperament and very attractive. Tough to leave behind, but we have no way to bring him along(:

02/23/12
John and I are still anchored out at some of the islets of Ailuk. The atoll consists of a string of small islands and sand banks all along the north side. It’s windy and sometimes rolly on the boat, but we have enjoyed a couple of beautiful beach walks at low tides. It’s been great to be so isolated with such long beaches to explore. No one else is around since most of the islanders live either on the northeast or northwest ends on two of the larger islands. It’s amazing the amount of junk that gets washed up on the shores, especially on the ocean side of the islands…lots and lots of plastic bottles, flip-flops, glass bottles and then boat stuff like big plastic floats and other fishing bits. We now have about 8 large plastic balls tied to our stanchions that we’ll take back to Majuro for a friend to use as mooring buoys. We’ve done some lovely snorkeling too, although just small areas where the reef comes up suddenly out of 100 feet of water – little isolated oasis for the fish:)

Life is good in paradise. We’ll likely move on tonight or tomorrow to go to Woetje another atoll south of here and about 12-16 hours of sailing.

02/24/2012

We decided to stay in the lovely atoll of Ailuk for one more day. It was a really gorgeous day yesterday – nearly totally clear blue skies, 10-15kt winds and after exploring the route that we’ll need to take out the pass early in the morning (we set our track on the navigation program so we’d be able to go before the visibility is tops which allows us more time to make it to our new destination where we’ll really need the better light,) we anchored near some new islets that are really enchantingly beautiful. Since most of the people in Ailuk live either on the northern most or southern most islands, all of the other islands are pretty deserted and so we have a wonderful feeling of being alone in a sort of island wilderness. We take long walks around the islands at low tide when the sandy beaches stretch out for miles and the surf pounds on the outside reef- it’s amazing how much plastic washes up on the beaches – sad to think of the world being overtaken by plastic drink bottles! It’s just fun to explore, watch the birds and enjoy the lovely scenery. Besides, as you know, there isn’t much exercise to be had on the boat so the walking feels great! It’s interesting here in that the waters of the lagoon are really quite deep, mostly 30-45 meters and yet it’s dotted with coral heads that rise up from these depths and break the surface at low tide! Quite a navigational hazard, but mostly visible in good light. It’s amazing though to think of the forces of nature involved in building such a tower of coral. We’ve snorkeled on a few of them and the coral are very pretty and there are lots of small fish, but not really very many large fish. So, we’ll leave at first light tomorrow morning and make our way to the atoll called Woetje. All of the Ailuk children in grades 8-12 go to school in Woetje and their parent’s have sent some parcels with us to deliver to their children.

We’ve enjoyed two extra days here over what we’d planned to spend because it’s just too beautiful to leave.
Yesterday, we went ashore at low tide to seek out the tern nests and we found some! It was very exciting and fun to explore in among the bushes and find the eggs and even new chicks. Funny how they really don’t nest, but just lay their eggs in the crook of a tree and in one case we found the newly hatched chick just sitting in the top of a broken tree stump – just at eye level. We have some good pictures of the eggs, the chicks and even a larger chick that I found nestled in the crook of a tree:)
He was so sweet and just sat there with his big eyes watching us. He stretched out his wings once – I suppose as a threatening move or maybe he had the thought of trying to flee??  Lovely soft downy feathers – so tempting to want to touch – but we only observed and took photos. Meanwhile the parents were circling and diving angrily above us. John got a couple of great pictures of the white terns against a striking blue sky.

After our shore excursion and some rest, we went snorkeling over a nearby coral reef and saw literally thousands of fish! It’s quite a spectacular little spot that rises up from the deep and supports an incredible array of fish and corals. We’ve definitely enjoyed our time here in this tranquil and scenic lagoon.

02/26/2012 Ailuk to Woetje

We’re off today from Ailuk to Woetje, about a 10-12 hour sail, so it’s early, (5:30am) as we wait for first light to set out. Onward!
Anchored at Goat Island, Wotje Atoll, MI
09-31.28N / 169-42.41E

02/27/12 WOETJE – We left at 7am this morning and made a fast crossing, averaging 7.0kts most of the trip, so now we’re anchored off Goat Island on the north end. We’ll stay here tonight, rest, explore and snorkel in the morning and then make our way 20 miles across the atoll to the main village where we’ll give some packages to the boarding students that are here from Ailuk. Rolling about now in our current anchorage, a lovely spot near some outlying islets, but as the tide has come in over the reef, we’re getting a fare amount of swell from the ocean

For all that we were unbearably hot in the Solomons, we miss the lovely calm anchorages, the availability of fresh produce, even the contact with some of the people. But, we do really appreciate the total safety of the Marshall Island atolls – we sleep with the companionway wide open again and really appreciate the breezes for sleeping, but the anchorages are rolly polly and the same constantly strong winds that make our sailing fast and furious, also get a bit tiring when going ashore or snorkeling. Everywhere has it’s advantages/disadvantages. I’m really looking forward to being back in the USA and Sitka with all the things I’ve been missing, but I know that I’ll long for these sandy beaches and warmth! I’ve been living non-stop on this boat now for over 14 months!?!? This is the longest time I’ve gone without taking a jet somewhere since I was 23 years old.

02/28/2012
We made it into Wotje last night and overnighted on the northwestern end of the atoll at Goat Island which was very rolly-polly, but at least we weren’t at sea. Got up and circumnavigated the island on foot, which turned out to be much bigger than expected, but fun and very interesting. Then we bucked our way back to the boat and made our way across the atoll against the wind and surge (about 21 miles) to the main town where we finally dropped anchor at 5pm. It’s much calmer here, we’ve had happy hour and dinner and will now shower and go to bed with plans to meet the mayor, visit the school, etc tomorrow and deliver the parcels we have from their parents for the Ailuk kids who are going to boarding school here.

02/29/12
We had three volunteer teachers from the high school over on the boat tonight – they came for happy hour and stayed until 11:30pm! I think they really enjoyed talking with some old folks about their parent’s ages. The two boys just graduated from Dartmouth and the girl from Univ of Washington. They are having quite an experience on Wotje and we learned some new things about the people and culture.

We set out at 10:30 this morning and are on route to Majuro – close hauled, fast pace 7+kts with expected travel time of about 24 hours.

03/01/2012 ( 09-17.52N / 170-09.63E)  COURSE: 145T,  SPEED: 6.9
Heeled over on close reach to Majuro

(08-01.37N/  170-50.45E)  COURSE: 150T, SPEED: 7.0      We’re nearly there, about 28 miles to go, but sometimes emails won’t send out after about 9am, so I just wanted to let you know that all is well so far. It’s been a pretty boisterous night so we sailed with two reefs in the main and only the staysail. We’ll both be glad to grab the mooring buoy, have some coffee, and relax:)

03/02/2012 BACK IN MAJURO!
We have arrived- sailing all the way because the engine wouldn’t start outside the pass!?!?

We had a real surprise yesterday just before entering the pass into Majuro – the engine would NOT start! We tacked away and sailed off back into open waters so we could recharge the start batteries and John could clean the battery leads, but it still would not start. So, we had to sail through the pass which fortunately was one we’d done 3 times already and gave us a decent angle on the wind. We then sailed up to the mooring and were very relieved to at least be secure. Turns out that the problem was that seawater had flooded in through the exhaust outlet and the entire exhaust system and manifold, etc were full or water! Great mechanic that John is,he was on the job and after lots of pumping and flushing got all of the water out and the engine is running fine now. He’ll continue servicing that and we’ll put a new flapper door on the exhaust pipe to keep that from happening again. Just really glad that it happened now and for this atoll pass during slack tide because some of the others are very tricky and full of tidal currents and bends. So, we’ve honed our sailing skills a bit more:)

 

What caused the flooding?? We’d tied a huge pile of buoys to the starboard stern, but neglected to secure the hatch underneath. Heeled over the entire trip, the water just flooded right in there and filled up the locker such that the exhaust outlet was flooded. We are sooo lucky that nothing worse happened. All is well now – the boat is flushed and dry and runs beautifully.

03/12/2012 NEW CREW: Doug Agnew has joined us for the trip to the Pacific NW!

 

 

 

03/14/2012 On route to Aur

We are on our way to Aur Atoll, a trip of about 78nm. Since our course is almost directly north, we have the wind on our nose and fairly strong seas, so with 25kt of wind, we’re only averaging 4-5kts of speed. That’s fine though since we don’t want to arrive at the pass into Aur earlier than about 8:00am. We left our anchorage at 5:00pm, so we have lots of time. All is well on board, a bit hot and stuffy, but Doug is trying to sleep so he can take the next watch. It’s a real luxury to have three people on board and be able to share the night watches.

 

 

3/15/2012 -08-18.45N / 171-09.1 W
Tabal – Aur Atoll anchorage
We just dropped anchor in Aur having arrived in a 30kt wind and rain squall.

 

We had a wonderful and restful night up at Aur last night and then sailed up to Tabal on the north end this afternoon. Doug went spear fishing on the reef while John and I went into town to deliver some food we’d brought for the health tech at the clinic. No luck hunting and gathering, so dinner was some old tuna cooked up as curry using some of the fresh coconuts that the islanders keep giving us. The rice cooked in coconut milk is really good. We scraped the soft inner coconut stuff out and used that in the curry. Not bad eating so far.

We may take off tomorrow to start our sail up to Midway.

 

 

 

 

3/16/2012 On route to Midway!! We left Aur at about 2:00pm this afternoon and are briskly on our way to Midway. We had a wee toast of bourbon – compliments of Doug – which we shared with Neptune:) So far conditions are perfect and our current speeds are 7.5-8.5kts! It’s 6:30pm and our position is :08:39.405N and 170:53.079E on a course of 336. Once we get above Moelelap, we’ll turn as much east as possible. Doug’s in the kitchen cooking up pasta for dinner, John just finished a shower, and a beautiful sunset radiates colors on the horizon.

Life is good!
Kristy, John and Doug
s/v Raynad

TARAWA

ABEMAMA

 

BUTARITARI

Click this link for:                                                                                                                       GILBERT ISLANDS GALLERY: Photos of Tarawa, Abemama, Butaritari

PASSAGE-MAKING JOURNAL – Solomon Islands to Kiribati/Gilbert Islands (10-days)

Having switched out the big Genoa sail and hoisted the Yankee, we are now ready to point close to the winds, providing we get some, and hopefully sail much of our way to Tarawa. It’ll be a battle with light winds, usually on the nose and some potentially hefty currents against us. Let’s hope we don’t run out of diesel!?!?

11/17/2011
We are really at sea now making our way from the Solomons to the Gilberts. Believe it or not, we shot through Kologlio Passage at 7kts! Great that we had gotten a paper chart from Jim and Tori on sv Eleyna- it made a real difference for the constant visual navigation since both of our electronic charts were a good 1-2 miles off – we had to just eye up the islands, reefs, etc and plot our course among them. A bit spooky since the boat was going fast and there wasn’t much we could do to stop it if we had to!?!? Seems we had about a 3 kn current behind us for most of the way, only encountered a little against us as we left the pass over the incoming swell. Now we’re navigating with good distance between us and a sudden ridge/pinnacle and some fish platforms/buoys that are ahead, but after about 40 miles, we should be clear of such obstacles. We’re currently managing about 4-6 kn of speed by sail, so that is great!

11/18/2011
We’re on route right now from Choiseul in the Solomons to Tarawa in the Gilberts. We’re making progress with some occasional gust and lots of wind shifts. John did most of the night shift due to the fickle conditions are needs for constant sail management. Hopefully I can now manage the early hours and give him several hours rest. Seas are pretty flat, so when the winds come, the going is smooth.We’re about 200 miles into the 1200 mile trip. We had some decent winds for the first 125 miles, but now the winds are nearly 0, the seas calm but rocking and we’re having to motor. Although this passage is notorious for a lack of wind and strong opposing currents.

11/20/2011
We’re slowly moving along, pretty much all alone out here since in the past 24 hours we’ve only seen one ship. The night was glassy calm so we had to motor, but it made for good speed on the correct course. We both enjoyed the clear parts of the night. There was no moon during my watch so the stars were brilliant. John started his watch with the rise of a crescent moon that looked quite dramatic and haunting as it rose through the dark and menacing clouds on the horizon. John and I split the night watch last night: me from 7pm-1:30am and John from 1:30am-7:30am, so we both had a good sleep. For the first time last night I took my computer into the cockpit and watched a movie which really helped the 6 hours pass more quickly. Only managed one movie though since I’d watch 10 mins then pause it and look out. I had one cargo ship on my watch, so that too kept me busy for about 45 mins. Tried a bit of sailing this morning, but the winds are just not cooperating, so we’re back to motor-sailing. Now we are both up managing the boat through the various rain/wind squalls and reading our books. All is well on board.
—
Lots of squalls today as we travel through the Convergence Zone – rain, lightening, thunder, but nothing too bad. When winds come they tend to be on the nose, but we’re trying to at least motor-sail as much as possible. Nonetheless it’s a lot of motoring and diesel to keep making progress. Hopefully we won’t run out!?!? We’re conserving water too by not using the fresh water toilet, only the master salt water one…only showering every other day and reusing wash water. We’re trying to save all of our diesel for running the engine rather than the generator. The watermaker only works on the generator – same with the air-conditioning, but the batteries get charged off the main engine and we can run the refrigerator off that power too.

(written by Capt John)
We are continuing to motor our 1100 miles to Tarawa against a one knot current , 10 knot winds and a 2 meter swell. Speed averages 4.5knt over the ground though the boat is doing 5.8kts through the water. If you think that’s good, then try walking that slow! Kristy and I read a book a day and sleep alternately for six hours through the night. No Happy Hours for four days now. Rained cats and dogs last night and dark as a tomb despite a half moon somewhere above it all. We are experiencing the ITCZ where the weather is all vertical and not horizontal so there is plenty of thunder and lightening to keep us amused – light a giant Son et Lumiere. Giant bolts on the horizon but no strikes close to the boat. If I could get it to hit my coffee mug in the AM it would save using the microwave. One of our three diesel tanks will draw its last drop some time today and we will be down to two which means we will probably make it even if we have to motor the whole way which seems likely. We are paying for our change of plans since this is a route no-one in their right mind uses but it puts us in line for a sail back to the US from the Marshall Islands where all the American boats will be over Christmas.

We are 100 miles from half way and will cross into the third parallel this afternoon. Kristy has some sticky substance in mind to paint me (tar and feather) when we get to the 0.0 parallel but I don’t think its chocolate. Everything is humming along in our bilges with our wonderful VM diesel going like a sewing machine. Bilges are dry as dust and we have not had to run the generator at all because we are using the rear marine toilet – salt water flushing so I am again in need of that pumping song Jodie was going to send to us!

11/21/2011 At SEA

We had a very dark, squally, rainy, lightening filled night with occasionally very strong winds, however we motored through the night because the winds kept shifting from port to starboard, about midnight they even swung behind us for about an hour! Being absolutely pitch black (the moon didn’t even come through last night,) safety was an issue since we really had little warning of sudden changes and with each tack we would have been sea-sawing our way up the course. Every time we try to catch the wind and sail we just end up going straight north or south and basically making very little progress for lots of time. I did the first watch: 7:00pm-1:00am and John did 1:00-7:00am. This seems to be working well because both of us are able to get 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep – makes the days much more pleasant. Today is glassy calm again with a rolling swell, but our speed is up pretty well despite a 1kt current against us.

11/22/2011
We’re continuing to motor along. We’ve had some really strong head winds – up to 25kts last night – but every time we try to turn off and sail we end up tacking back and forth like 5-10 miles north then south and only gaining about 2 nm of progress! It’s really frustrating. Now we just have to hope that our diesel makes it all the way to Betio in Tarawa – we’ll absolutely need the engine to get into the pass. Otherwise, all is well on board. We’re just splitting the night – I do 7:30-1:30 and your John does 1:30-7:30am. During the day we just casually switch – I tend to prefer being out in the cockpit when I’m awake.

11/23/2011
I am typing this at an angle because we are sailing!! Motor-sailing mind you, but the sails are up and filled with wind as we are heeled over in 20-25kn winds – still pretty close on the nose, but at least we’re able to pinch out a sail-able angel and throttle back to save some diesel. The boat speed is about 6kn but our speed over the ground is only 4.5 due to the current and seas. It’s pretty bouncy!

11/24/2011
A little tough typing right now as we are heeled way over sailing hard on the wind. Making progress at last, without the engine, but we are also sort of giving up hope at making it to Tarawa and are now looking at perhaps doing the additional 300 miles up to Majuro. The problem is that we are headed by strong northeast winds (just where we need to go) and having a bugger of a time getting a point of sail, even tacking back and forth to give us the direction we need. Added to that are currents of 1-2+ knots also against us. While working on the sails we had to turn and go the opposite direction and without even having the sails working, the boat was going 6kts!?!? Sort of explains our dilemma. Anyway, we are on a course of about 10 degrees headed north and are nearly to the Equator!
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This has been quite a trip so far with first no winds and now too much wind and from the wrong direction. Although the boat carries a lot of diesel, with the strong headwinds and opposing currents, we were burning far too much diesel to make just a little progress, so we’ve now headed off more to the north so we can sail, with thoughts that if we cannot eventually make more progress to the east, then we’ll just continue on up to Majuro. This particular passage has a reputation for being really difficult because of the west flowing currents and usually light winds, so the strong opposing winds that we’re getting are just adding to the challenge. At least we are now out of the ITCZ (convergence zone) which previously brought us so many lightening, thunder and rain squalls. In fact most of today was pretty cloudless. For tonight we are hard on the wind, heeled over and enjoying some good speed. Not very conducive to the roast chicken dinner that I was planning for our “Thanksgiving” -cooking and eating at this angle is pretty unpleasant – so we’ve decided to postpone our special meal until we either get calmer seas (not in the forecast) or make it safely to the next anchorage. We’ll be really ready for some celebrating when we finally arrive at port!

We are both doing well and with our schedule of splitting the nights, we are getting a good 5-6 hrs block of sleep during the night, with a couple of catnaps during the day, which is working out pretty well.

We’re nearly at the Equator – a time when boats traditionally hold a sort of Titan ceremony – we’ll come up with some sort of goofy fun in the morning since we’ll likely cross the 0:00:00 mark during the night.

–THANKSGIVING at sea
We passed the equator last night at about 4am – I went off watch at 1:30am, so was none the wiser. Kind of an anticlimactic moment – I woke up about a 45 mins before we were going to cross, but just could not rally myself to stay up and not get back to sleep. Since we are at a pretty extreme angle with 20-25kt winds and 2 meter seas….there will be no skinny dipping! Actually John is napping now, so maybe we’ll have some kind of late goofy celebration later. I’m afraid we don’t make the “Jodie factor scale” on this one!?!?

Happy Thanksgiving from the North Pacific! Yup, we crossed the equator at about 4am and are no longer in the South Pacific:) Not sure where we are going right now as we are on a course due north when we need to be about 200 miles east of here to make Tarawa!?!? Hard on the wind, we are at least sailing at a good clip.

Thinking of everyone who is enjoying feast of turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and pies – yum!!!! No such delights for us today – we’re on a pretty severe angle making everything difficult, so cooking is not a safe option. I think I’ll thaw out the chicken curry I made a while back and we’ll enjoy that warmed in the microwave. Could be worse:) All is well on board- tired and looking forward to making landfall – but that’s unlikely to happen for at least 4-5 more days.

11/25/2011
Winds change and so we are now back to motor-sailing on a northeast course with hopes of squeezing our way to Betio, the capital port of Tarawa. There is no moon tonight, literally 0 in the moon phase, but the sky is still alight with massive numbers of stars made more brilliant by the lack of any ambient city lights or moonlight. Most of the clouds have disappeared, so the stars stretch from horizon to horizon. It’s really quite lovely to look out over the ink black waters, our boat powering along and creating feathers of shining phosphorescence, the starlit sky above – we are all alone. Only thing that would make it nicer would be to be only powered by sail and listening to the hissing of the passing waters rather than the engine:) Nice to see the familiar constellations of the northern sky. We have the Plough ahead of us low in the sky – a sure sign of home in Alaska. We crossed the equator about 4:45am this morning and nearly tacked back to recross it again this evening but didn’t quite, so our passages are now firmly in the northern hemisphere.

—
SE winds are fantastic!! Yes, we started to get a shift in the winds from northeast to east and finally to southeast last night and this morning I awoke to John cranking the boat along hard on the wind at 7.8kn directly on course for Tarawa! Moods on Raynad are definitely more optimistic this morning:) We now have about 120 miles to go and are hoping that we can hold on to this wind angle and speeds between 5-7kn for another 20 hours.

11/26/2011 – Wind shifted again – totally headed!
We’re trying our best to power our way to Tarawa before tomorrow night – and tonight we’re realizing that the days are getting shorter on us – it’s only 6:00pm and already it’s pitch black out. We have only 87nm to go until we reach the entrance to the harbor, but when we’re only able to get 3.5-4.5kn of speed, it’s touch and go. The sails are down since the winds are totally on our nose, the engine is revved to 2000rpms, the 1-1.5kn current is against us and we’re rocking and rolling and getting tossed about in a cross swell. We’ll keep a watch schedule as before, but I’d be surprised if either of us gets much sleep in this washing machine. Neither of us fancy another night out, hove-to, waiting for daylight so it’d be super if the seas would calm a bit and the winds lessen so we can make good speed. We can’t wait to have a shower and a cold GT!!
—
The winds were dying a few hours ago, or so we thought, but they came back with a vengeance and now we are ploughing our way directly into 25-30 kn winds and still have 1-3 kn currents against us as well. About 9pm the winds started increasing and coming around a bit to the southeast so we put up the main and pulled out the staysail and motorsailed at 5kn for a couple of hours, but the past four hours have been crazy with the wind swinging back to the east and increasing to 30kn, regularly 25! Not fun at all, we’re taking short shifts of 2 hrs each to manage the night. We only have the main up, but will likely bring it down when it gets light again (it’s tough to keep it from flogging.) It’s still absolutely pitch black outside, so all you can see is the spray flying back from the bow and some of the white phosphorescence of the swirling ocean around us. It’s super rough – Raynad is such a strong boat and with 100 hp is still powering through it she takes it all on the nose and keeps going. We still owe Neptune, but it’s toooooooo scary to get outside the cockpit and we haven’t opened any gin yet. So much for what was supposed to be a windless trip!?!? I really, really can’t wait to arrive and drop anchor! Let’s just hope we can make enough headway to get in before dark (63 miles to go but we’re only progressing at about 3.1) – I really do not fancy another night out here.

11/27/2011
We have 10 miles to go until we enter the lagoon of Tarawa – it’s been a LONG and tedious journey! We waited until daylight to take down the mainsail because it was SO pitch black and the seas were so large and violent, it would have been too dangerous to take it down. So, we kept just enough wind in it to try and keep it from flogging even though that was not the exact course we wanted and then as soon as there was enough light, we took it down (safely) and altered our course to what we needed which is directly into the east wind. It actually built up to 35 knots and some huge mountain of sea water going for awhile – not fun.  –We’re still bumping and splashing along although the winds have calmed to 20kn and the seas are a bit better as we get closer to the island.

We MADE IT!!!!!!!!! Yes, we are anchored in the bay with a strong fetch coming across the lagoon, but it feels like heaven for us. Cold GTs being sipped with the sunset behind us.

It was a arduous trip with the last 73 miles taking us about 20 hours. It’s amazing really that this boat was able to take such a beating and especially that we were able to motor against the 35 knot winds and over the monstrous seas. We are both agreed though that this is a journey we will NOT repeat. Would be fun to go the opposite direction though, which is what is commonly done. We’re just relieved to be here and have several weeks ahead with no need for long passage-making:) We are a happy boat and ready for a good long sleep:)

11/28/2011
TARAWA- Gilbert Islands
We’ve just finished with the first round of immigration and quarantine officers and are waiting to hear from the customs officials. We’re anchored out in the bay near the capital city Betio and John has been ferrying the officers back and forth to the boat in our little inflatable dingy with a 20 knot wind blowing and kicking up quite a swell. They all arrive a bit wet and I’m sure will be even wetter after their return journey since that trip is into the waves! They’re all very nice and seemed more interested in drinking our coffee and eating our cookies than inquiring about things on board. The quarantine officer was a woman called Theresa who wants to maintain an email correspondence with me to practice her English. I gave her one of my novels called Plain Truth (by Jodi Pouliet) to read.

Last night, it was absolutely wonderful to have a shower and climb into a bed with fresh sheets – made even more so by the fact that the climate here cools a bit in the evening and with the winds blowing, for the first time in a long time we slept without profusely sweating! Slept a full 12-hours (7:30pm-7:30am.) The Solomon Islands were not only extremely hot and humid, but there was very little wind at night and it became almost unbearable. Really the only reason that we were able to sleep was that we’d bought a 12v fan in Luggenville that is a real powerhouse for turning out a breeze and since John wired it to plug into a 12v-lighter socket in our master suite, we can keep it running all night without draining our batteries.

A boat called Celcius – Claude and Jacqueline a French speaking couple from Canada, are already here, so we’re going to move the boat after all of the clearance is finished and meet up with them for dinner. We first met them while at the dock in Noumea, New Caledonia. Funny what a small world it is among cruisers. Our plans are to remain in the Gilbert Islands until after the holidays.

11/29/2011 – John wrote:

Seems like there is a hurricane in the N PAcific that was causing 2000 miles of weather disturbance and we got our share. Where we are right now has not had a hurricane for 100 years (which is why we are here right now) but it doesn’t stop you being affected by those that pass by.

Tarawa and the Republic of Kiribati (the other surrounding atolls) made headlines in 1942 as the first sight of the American assault on the Japanese invasion of the S Pacific but that glory has faded and been replaced by a more urgent drama. Today it is the center of the global warming debate. The ocean is rising and these people live 2 meters above high tide in long long strips of sand that ring the lagoons. You would think the risk to them is the wind, waves and storms but it is actually the salt. They grow their crops in holes dug in the ground to get close to fresh water table underneath – rainwater trapped in the hard coral. And the dig shallow wells to get the same water to drink. The problem is that with the sea level rising, their ground water is becoming salinated so that nothing will grow and it is undrinkable so everyone moves towards the same higher ground where the water is still pure. Not surprisingly, the highest ground is where the capital is and this amplifies the problem of urbanization where people relocate in the hope of employment, giving up traditional ways of life. So the population density of this little bump on the flat horizon of the central pacific is now higher than that of Singapore. You could easily sail right past this place and never know it was there. One long long road goes around maybe a third of the atoll joining the little sandy islets into a community but the road is ridiculously exposed with 5 miles of nothing but sand maybe 500 yards wide and lots of little bridges to let the ocean pass underneath.

Despite this the people are wonderful and cheerily live off a weekly freighter from Australia that brings them food, drums of diesel and the occasional luxury item. Its like a big famine relief camp – like Turkana in NW Kenya where it was a Hercules C130 from the States that kept them alive. All the remote islands live off cargo ships that fill the stores with things to keep the community alive. These ships are like rabbits. They appear on a high tide, unload containers without any dockside assistance, and leave on the next high tide – often doing all this in the dark in locations where we would not dare navigate at night because of the hazardous coral reefs and the total absence of any Navigation Aids. They seem to do it all at breakneck speed and must have some of the best masters at the helm. Lesser Masters add their vessels to the incredible collection of ships strewn all over the reefs, driven off their anchor by high winds, abandoned, cannibalized and then left to rust into grotesque shapes in various stages of decay, from purposeful vessels that still have a proud defiance of their predicament, then with their ribs sticking out and their decks fallen in , then their masts stick up through tangled metal balls and finally then engine block is all that is left and never seems to rust away becoming a new reef marker that is added to the navigation charts with the same black little sunken ship symbol. We hope Raynad knows better than to add us to that select group.

Funny thing is there is not a solar panel in sight in the townships , nor is there a wind generator. They have the perfect climate for simple infrastructure of their own but they just buy more diesel and keep running those generators. We make a lot of our own ships power that way but they have no need so long as there is aid money to solve their problems.

At last it is a little cooler here. The Solomon Islands was just unbearably hot and windless so that you woke up drenched in sweat and gasping for a cool breath. Now that we are one degree of latitude above the equator and it shows, we sleep cool under one thin cotton sheet and have dropped our daily consumption of cold water from 6 to 4 liters a day. The joke is that if we go much further north we may have to start peeing again !

Just to show you the daily things that happen, Kris left with a friend to explore while I worked on the boat. She took a radio and I was to pick her up in the dinghy when she called my boat radio but I got so wrapped up in what I was doing and forgot to switch the radio on. Result, Kris and friend waited 40 minutes, shouting and waving on the dock before Kris swam – fully clothed and with her shoes on – to the friends boat who then summoned me to my reckoning with two very angry women, one of whom was very very soggy. The friend had bought a frozen chicken which must surely have been melted by the time I got my act together. What a space cadet ! I say it will make a good Happy Hour story but Kris doesn’t yet see the humor in it.

We will stay here over Christmas and head off early January for Majuro in the Marshall Islands, north about 350 miles. Its an American Protectorate so they have all the goodies there and flight connections to the US instead of Australia like everywhere else down here. I will fly back to continue my US Residency status. I should really become a citizen (dual UK/US) and be done with this.

We are both well and seem to half enjoy this madness. We are still the junior cruisers and have only met ONE couple who have been cruising for a shorter time than us (two years), most of them have been out for a decade and have been all over the world.

Kris wrote about the same story:
We’re anchored over at Bairiki which is a town along the narrow island of Tarawa just northeast of Betio. The winds are continuing to blow so the anchorage is very much like those that we had at Ouvea – about 4 meters of sand – a good holding but also a bit bumpy. Yesterday I went into town with Jacqueline and took the walkie talkie so that John just dropped us off at the dock and he was supposed to pick us up when I called. BUT, he didn’t have the radio on!?!? So, Jacqueline and I were on the dock trying to call him, waving, shouting, making fools of ourselves much to the amusement of the local guys hanging out there – but although he was repeatedly walking back and forth along the deck of our boat, he never looked over and saw us. SO, I ended up swimming out in all of my clothes to Celcius since they were anchored closer to shore and then Claude called John on the VHF. Today we’re going to take the bus over to Bikinibeu with them. It’s a bit more of a touristy place, is where the parliament building is and a couple of decent restaurants where we’ll probably eat lunch.

12/01/2011
Bairiki, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands

We’ve been tramping around Betio and Bairiki today – lots of dust – lots of “China shops” – lots of heat….but we did manage to sort out our internet problems a bit – although it still won’t work on the boat where we are anchored. Also researched getting diesel for the boat since we burned nearly all of it getting here and need to refuel. It’s still really windy – about 15-20kts across the lagoon. The boat is holding well in the sand.  At least here we are not getting any thunder or lightening. A little rain which the island desperately needs, but no drama. It’s just really splashy getting to and from shore in the dingy. We had lunch with Claude and Jacqueline at one of the local restaurants – super cheap which was nice:)

Fueling in Betio – was CRAZY! We had to purchase it in advance and although they delivered it to the dock by fuel truck – the truck was nearly rusted through! In fact before they started transferring the diesel, they asked us for a bucket which they placed under the truck to catch the leaks – when they’d emptied what was in the truck, they gave us the buckets with the rest of the diesel! Needless to say, John took extra time to try and filter the diesel as it was being added to our tanks.

12/09/2011- on route to Abemama

We lifted anchor in Betio at about 1:30pm and are on our way to Abemama. Started out looking like a great sail, we’re still sailing, but once again the winds have decided to come around and head us, so we’re tacking back and forth trying to make our course. Lovely evening, should be a great sunset (dry happy hour though) and it’s nearly a full moon, so the night should be more visible. It’s an overnight passage with hopes of arriving in good daylight for navigating into and around the atoll.

—
After a full night of tacking back and forth trying to catch the winds and make progress toward our destination, we are once again powered up with the engine, first motorsailing, now just motoring. It’s a deja vu of our last trip as we pound directly into the 2+m seas that are acting a bit like a washing machine with winds that reached 32 knots last night and have settled on 20-25 this morning. You’d think that with that much wind, we could easily sail, but with the 2 knot current and sea-state, we cannot make good progress. Now we’re just hoping that we can manage to make enough speed to arrive at Abemama in time to enter the pass and navigate to the anchorage before it’s too dark! Neither of us fancies another night at sea. And to think that when we set off yesterday with 15kt winds, sun, rather calms seas and easily making speeds of 6+knots and we actually had about an hour where we thought we might arrive here too early this morning!?!??! The entire passage is only about 90 miles and should have been a simple overnight voyage. We have about 40 miles to go until the entrance and then another 10 once we’re in the lagoon before we get to the recommended anchorage. The boat is struggling to even get a stead 3-4kts of speed. Sun is shining though and John just gave me a wonderful cup of fresh brewed coffee – he’s a true magician with producing my morning coffee in even the bumpiest seas:) Surely it has nothing to do with my cranky attitude when I have to forgo my coffee!!? Once again we are thankful for a good, strong boat and powerful engine.
12/10/2011 ABEMAMA

We arrived safely and dropped anchor just as the sun was setting–GT’s in hand we saluted our arrival at Abemama:) Such an unexpectedly rough trip – there were no forecasts giving the strength of the winds, nor the direction of the winds that we encountered. We sailed (and motored some) 148 miles for what should have been an 85 mile trip! Now we’re here and so, so happy to relax and enjoy the peacefulness. The passage through the reef was a bit nail-biting with depths continuing at only 1-3 meters under our keel for nearly 2 miles! It’s wide, very shallow and long, just like the perimeter beaches inside the lagoon. We are anchored over 1 miles from shore, yet still only in 3-4 meters of water. Tomorrow we’ll go ashore and meet the police, some chiefs and community people and investigate a few snorkeling spots. We’ve heard nothing but positive comments about the people and the island. Abemama is another long, long strip of attached islands, barely above sea level, surrounding a mostly shallow lagoon (the pass into the lagoon shallowed out at only 1.5 meters under our keel – a bit too much excitement with 25kt winds still blasting our bow.)

12/11/2011
Abemama is a really pleasant change from the other places we’ve been. It’s a huge lagoon, in fact after we made the rather shallow entry (lowest depth was only 1.5m under our keel!) we still had to travel nearly 10 miles to the other side to anchor. The water is a lovely turquoise, the air fresh, it’s very lovely. There is a really long strip of island with a wide reef and long strip of white sand. It’s super peaceful here, very quiet and safe. Last night was the first night since our incident of getting boarded by pirates at 1am in Tulaghi Harbor, Solomons, that we have left windows/hatches open to let in fresh night breezes. It was wonderful to sleep with cooler, fresh air! We went ashore later this afternoon and walked along the dirt road which apparently goes from one end to the other. Our first encounters were of course a group of kids playing next to the church.  John immediately went into his “kid” mode – putting his hat and sunglasses on them, doing a “magic trick” with his thumbs, a clapping game, and then swinging them around like airplanes until all were dizzy, including him:) We were passed by lots of small motor bikes – it’s the perfect place to have a regular pedal bike or moped/motorcycle. We also met one of the headmasters from the Catholic secondary school, so learned a bit about the village. Tomorrow we’ll go the other way on the road toward the government buildings so we can “check-in” with the local authorities.

I’m also keen to find out if there are some Peace Corps volunteers here. The school is out on holiday, so we can’t visit that,but we looked around the empty classrooms. Pretty basic and stripped down. I think that we’ll be here until next weekend, or whenever the winds look good for sailing up to Butaritari.  We were not able to secure permission to visit Butaritari on our way to the Marshalls, so we’ll make a circle journey up to Butaritari for the holidays and then return to check out at Betio, Tarawa after Christmas.

12/13/2011
We’re still anchored in the lovely lagoon of Abemama. Had a few squally winds blast through last night, always made to sound worse because of the flapping from our ShadeTree. We’ve modified it to be up without the tent poles, so it’s much quieter and more secure in the winds, but it still makes a real flap in strong winds. Funny that both John and I had nightmares about our coming voyage between Majuro andthe USA!?!? Probably partially as a result of our having watched the movie “Amelia” last night. She was headed to Howard Island when she disappeared and it’s just next door to us(in relative Pacific Ocean terms.) We had a fun shore trip yesterday afternoon.

The shallow sandy reef comes out for about 200 meters so we can only make it in when the tides are up. We walked about 1-2 miles up the beach and then cut in to the road and walked another 1-2 before turning around and heading back with a road/beach combination walk. All along the way, batches of kids came screaming out to say hello. At one point, John went to the beach while I continued along the road and he came upon a group of kids swimming which he had fun teasing and taking pictures of. I came upon a group of teens playing volleyball and was invited to join, which I did for awhile. Always nice to have some real interactions.  
For the most part, the people just say a friendly hello and walk on. Conversations are a bit difficult to initiate. We’re enjoying the chance to really stretch our legs out and get some good walking in. This would be a great island for some long distance runs – if only I were still in condition for a run!?!

John discovered a second expansion valve for our refrigeration system so he fitted that yesterday. This freezer has been an ongoing, big project for him. Seems to be working so far, although he still has to nurse it along and hence has yet another project idea already brewing and gaining momentum this morning. That’s one thing about a boat…there is NO shortage of potential, or even urgent, projects for the mechanic/electrician/plumber…it’s a bit of heaven for John. Good thing he’s such a motivated, clever and capable guy.

12/16/2011
We’re still at Abemama. Yesterday was refrigeration day….the refrigeration system isn’t wanting to work properly so John was working on it all day, he’s been putting in lots and lots and lots of time over the past couple of weeks trying to keep it going. In the meantime, we’re trying to eat our good meats just in case it stops working. I’d really miss not having the refrigeration to keep things cold…it would definitely dull down our eating options to dried and canned foods. We didn’t go to shore yesterday either. We have to go at higher tides and yesterday that was either really early or really late and with the refrigeration work, I just ended up sitting in the cockpit reading all day- read an entire Tom Clancy novel!

It’s so odd to be out here in the Pacific and so far away from what “Christmas” at home would be. I’m trying to keep upbeat, but sometimes I get a bit mopey wishing that I were there rather than here. Nice to read that others back home are finding joy in hearing the carols and are busy with lots of lunches, potlucks, church functions and other festivities. If we were in Majuro, there would be a Christmas party, but out here we are all alone. We haven’t seen any other boats since we left Tarawa. There are surprisingly few local canoes or skiffs here considering that this is a small and isolated atoll surrounded by lagoon and ocean. Because we must anchor out so far from the shore, about a mile, we don’t get any visitors. Nice that it’s safe and quiet with a constant breeze, no bugs, so the night’s are much cooler. We’ve had some pretty strong winds at times, but no super swells like those that we had in Betio. Since we must time our shore excursions with the tides, we’re going to go over this morning and spend 2-3 hours walking around. It’d be fun if we could somehow hitch a ride, or borrow some bikes, to go all the way north to the airport area. That’s one part of the island that might be very interesting where we haven’t been yet. It’s about 5 miles north of us. With the winds, we’re reluctant to move the big boat because we can’t see obstacles through the water and it’s a bit far to go in the skiff. 

We’re thinking of leaving tomorrow morning, or Sunday, and making our way to Butaritari. It’s considered the “garden island” of this group because they get more rainfall, so we should at least be able to have some bananas! I bought some lovely imported mandarins in Betio which we’ve really enjoyed, plus some carrots, kiwis, apples, pears and potatoes. I’ve been portioning them out over the week.

12/16/2011
After spending all day yesterday on the boat, I was determined that we would get out early today while the tide was up and go ashore, if for no other reason than to get some exercise! Knowing the tide would soon be on it’s way out, we tied the dingy to a post in the water and then motored on into shore allowing the dingy to drift out after we were on the beach. Setting a brisk pace, we walked up to the road and toward the north waving, smiling and saying Mauri (hello) to everyone we passed. About 30 mins into the walk, we came to a shop and so I inquired as to whether or not there was a way for us to “borrow” a couple of pedal bikes or a motorcycle. To our great, unexpected good fortune, one of the customers took this task to heart and after disappearing for about 15 mins, came back and said that we could borrow the motorbike of his carpenter. Turns out this man is building a catholic church next to his house- he’s not a priest – he’s the “sponsor” and has been working on this project for about 20 years – it’s expected to be usable by next year when they have the roof finished. It’s pretty amazing, the church is primarily built of concrete blocks rising about 2 stories high with a steep roof that they’re now working on made from solid beams. We took off on the bike, John driving, me straddled on the rear rack – putting along (the bike has done 58,000km+ the speedometer cable has been disconnected so it’d probably done more than that!) and had lots of fun exploring further north along the dirt road for probably about 6-8 miles. Surprisingly, we actually took a wrong turn and ended up on a narrowing goat track, but were eventually corrected and lead on other goat tracks to where the airstrip is. A crowd of people were excitedly waiting for the plane to arrive, their baggage an assortment of small duffel bags and daypacks and lots of plastic containers full of dried fish, whole pumpkin/squash and other food stuffs. Clearly for the holiday season they were focused on taking island food to their families and friends on the crowded island of Tarawa. Refueling the bike was yet another adventure which entailed help navigating more goat tracks to a lovely newish compound (Canadian project) where a local women siphoned gasoline from a large drum into a 2 liter tin coffee pot and a small 1 liter pot then poured it through a funnel into the gas tank. A group of teens were busy helping with a community construction project by pulling on a long rope to try and topple over a large coconut tree while the leader was digging a hole around the base. Looked like they might be putting in a basketball court or something next to their community house/ “maneaba”. When we returned the bike and made a surprise donation to their church fund, we were invited to sit on the cool, shaded concrete floor of the open air maeaba and have a cup of coffee. They gave us an unusually smoky, sweet brew of watery coffee and milk. Everyone was keen that we should return this evening for their Karaoke night, 8-10 pm Christmas carols and then regular music until the wee hours. Would be fun, but we had to decline because it’s dark then and we have enough of a challenge getting to and from our boat in the daylight!

All the more emphasized when we returned to our dingy which was totally in the muddy muck and which we had to drag out for about a mile over the sucking goo before we got into a bit of water to pole our way and then finally motor to our boat.  

I have before and after pictures just to show how significant the tidal changes are here.

The winds blowing past our boat out in the lagoon are howling at 20-25kts which the wind generator loves and is happily spinning away making loads of power along with the solar panel since it’s a clear sunny day. We feel replete having enjoyed a great day ashore, meeting people and once again finding unexpected and thoughtful generosity which really opened the island for us and enriched our experience.

ABEMAMA to BUTARITARI- Gilbert Islands

12/16/2011 Night passage to Butaritari- we’ve left Abemama and are now on our way to Butaritari. 15-18 kt winds, 7-8kts boat speed!

12/17/2011 We’re making good time on our passage north to Butaritari from Abemama. Had a few brisk squalls last night, but mostly the winds have been 15-20kts out of the east and we’ve been averaging about 7.5nt speed.
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We dropped anchor at 11am after a 24hr40min sail with ave speeds of 7.4knts and a max speed of 10.4!! A few snarly squalls so had a reef in the main all night, but still made speeds of 7-9kts! Glad to be here. Up with the ShadeTree – out with the GTs:)

12/18/2011 BUTARTARI  

So the competition continues! I might add that the 10.4 kn speed was on MY watch!! Although by that time, we were both working the cockpit since the wind shifts and squalls that produced that speed were keeping us concerned and on alert demanding duel energies, so John would likely argue that it was his watch!! Nonetheless we both had several moments in the 9-9.5 range, the boat was really cruising and leaving a fish tail behind it. We’d like to think our superb seamanship was the key, but I think it’s most likely that the 9-10 speed was achieved with the help of a 1-2kt current in our favor this time. Amazing the difference between this trip up from Abemama compared to the trip down to Abemema from Tarawa, or the trip into Tarawa – the currents and the winds were against us on those. We needed a good sail, it’s been too long since we were actually able to sail for all of a passage.

We’re off this morning to go ashore and check out the island. We were so exhausted yesterday that after straightening up the boat, having a shower and 1-2 GTs – and the weather switching to wind and rain – neither of us could keep our eyes open and we ended up napping 3-4hrs. We had several power boats/skiffs/canoes come speeding past, all too close, to just “check us out” I think. It still feels safer here, so we’re back to leaving a couple of hatches open and the slider into the cockpit to get nighttime ventilation.

12/20/2011
Butaritari is the “green” island of Kiribati and is a fresh change from the dry dustiness of both Tarawa and Abemama. They’re known for their bananas which are transported to all of the other islands, so we of course had to buy a big bunch right away. Odd story though in that our bananas were purchased from the Chief of Police!

The STORY:  We were so exhausted on arrival Sunday, we just cleaned up and started happy hour and were asleep by 3pm, so had planned to go ashore on Monday morning. Well about 8:30am, Monday the police boat arrived and they came aboard to inspect our paperwork.

We had been told by customs and immigration in Tarawa that as long as we had valid visas and had checked in with them (not checked out) we were okay to travel to ANY of the islands of Kiribati. Well this police chief was determined that we must produce a letter of authorization to visit Butaritari, which we could not. So, we had to go ashore to the police station and buy a $10 phone card so that he could call Tarawa on our behalf, the result of which was his telling us that we had to leave and go back to Tarawa and get this piece of paper!?!? I was NOT a happy camper:( We settled on our walking about for the lunch hour and returning to try and sort it out at 1:30 with my calling Immigration in Tarawa. When we returned, he had suddenly changed his tone and said that he must make all calls on our behalf,so now, after a $30Aus purchase of his bananas, plus $10 transport fee….we will meet him at 4pm today and he will let us know the outcome, but of course he’ll also come aboard for a beer!?!? Odd, perplexing and frustrating. Since the winds have turned to the south, we couldn’t sail back to Tarawa now even if we wanted to, so we are truly hoping that we can stay until about Dec 26th. The people on the island are really friendly and we had several lovely interactions with people as we walked around yesterday, plus it’s pretty here, more attractive than either Abemama or Tarawa…..

…..Well the Kiribati saga continues….John left in the pouring rain to meet the officer, only to find the office shut, so he went to his house and his wife said that he was planning to visit our yacht. So, John went to the Kava Bar and did not find the officer, but met the Mayor, who already knew about us and REALLY wanted us to stay! John came back to the boat, soaking wet and who should come zooming up in another boat, but the police officer! He came with “some very bad news…you have to leave”….but he still wanted to come aboard and have beer! Our conversations developed where I said that I’d researched it a bit and that regulations had changed and we were legal to visit the outer islands as long as we had checked in and not checked out yet….so tomorrow we meet again at 8:30am to call immigrations – argh!! Nonetheless, the police chief and his boat driver had 2 beers each, crackers and cheese, AND the PC took a “beer for the road” when he left. It’s all leaving a rather sour taste with me – made more so by the steep banana/delivery fee purchase yesterday followed by the beers aboard today! We were invited to come to the kava bar tonight and karaoke, but neither of us feel up to it….and the story continues……. 12/21/2011 -Off we flew this morning across the waves, 25kt winds in our face, but we were to meet the police chief at 8:30am. After about 45 mins of searching, he was found by the Telecom lady and we bought another $10 phone card so he could call Immigration in Tarawa. Lots of chatter in Kiribass, shaking of his head…..and then alas he hung up the phone and gave us the thumbs up! We were fine, it was ok, of course we would have to go back to Tarawa to check-out (which was always our intent) and yes, it was ok because we had not checked out and we were not going to Majuro (all of which we’d said and reinforced repeatedly) and we were “legal” because we had visas and had not checked out, this was a new regulation. So…with no more than a smile and a handshake (not you numb-skill that’s what we’ve always been trying to say…etc…etc….) we blessedly went on our way to take a walk and try to explore the island now in the happy knowledge that we were not to be evicted.

GOOD TIMES:  We met and walked with four Mormon Mission kids to the airport since they were taking the flight to Betio (one is a great kid from Kotzebue that we’d met 3 days ago and made friends with…really fun kid “Taylor” who’s parents were both teachers in Kotzebue and his dad was the XC coach – small world!) I chatted with a couple of local guys and we scored a terrific motorcycle to tour the island in for the day!!!

The rest of the day was a total blast..this is truly the best motorcycle on the island and the guy just had John take him back into town and said we could use it all day…
so we went east about 12kil to a causeway between the little islands and it was really beautiful, great rural villages, a real island experience.

After a cold Coke break at the local kava bar (owned by the mayor) we went west to the other end and left our tobacco (as required) at the local shrine. It has turned out to be a super day! Our motorcycle friend is coming for happy hour on the boat tomorrow night.

We also spoke with the local priest and have the Christmas schedule of events for Dec 24,25,26.

Everything is looking much happier, it really is a lovely island with super friendly people.

 

 

12/22/2011
So, we have met with Super Mario!! Hah- not the game, but a handsome young Italian with a 52’boat called Super Mario who is anchored across the lagoon from us:) He and his current sailing companion, a young woman called Ola from Poland, zoomed up this morning in their “superyacht-like” dingy to say hello.   We’d been following news of this boat a bit for the past couple of weeks and thought they’d gone to Majuro, but they had boat problems and ended up here in Butaritari instead having to explain to the same policeman why they are here even though they’d checked out of Tarawa…..anyway, all is well for them too and I had a lively discussion with both of them this evening in the cockpit while your John had a lively conversation with Paul and Kofo – the men who loaned us the motorcycle – inside the salon. Sad that we ended up separated like that but there were just too many accents and too much going on….fun all the same. We’re going to lift anchor and motor across the 6-8miles to join Paulo on Super Mari on the other side for a night or two and then come back to make sure that we get the Christmas celebrations here in town. He has a pretty fancy boat, excessively big for a “single-hander” complete with all the toys: kite surfing, surf board, windsurfer, dive gear, compressor….and a super-dingy! I’m going to find out why the boat is called Super Mario:)

12/23/2011
It’s Christmas Eve, Dec 24th, here and I’m of course missing my family and wishing that we were together. Hopefully the kids will have a cozy time there together and exchange a few gifts with each other, enjoy good food and wine and Taz, the chocolate lab:) We moved Raynad across the lagoon yesterday morning to join Super Mario – an Italian boat. Fantastically fun and lively couple, but the weather turned absolutely miserable just as we were arriving and only got worse. Fortunately, they came out in their dingy and helped us navigate the coral heads through the rain squalls. We arrived soaking wet and just ended up hunkering down with books and tea – then John tore up the boat with a washing machine project – just getting things back together in time for us to go over and have happy hour on the other boat – complete with Italian prosciutto. They then they came to our boat for a dinner of chicken curry. A super fun and lively evening, our new friends are bring joy into the holiday. We’re going to try and go back across to town today (about 12 miles) but the weather is still cranky this morning, so we’ll hope it settles a bit by the afternoon. The Catholic Church has several activities going on that we want to join.

12/24/2011
Despite waking to winds and rain again, we had a rather incredible day here with Paolo and Ola. He is a crazy, fun Italian with a super dingy (like those on some of the big yachts), so he picked us up this morning and took us through the reefs and around all of the bommies at break-neck speed for about 4 miles- some amazing and rather crazy driving- we DID actually hit two coral heads, but fortunately no damage! Once there, we waded ashore about another mile since the tide was out! Onshore is a family that they had befriended who we spent the day with …. lots of fun and such lovely generous people.  

They killed two chickens to feed us, plus fish, squash, about 35 small crabs, taro, and about 20 drinking coconuts.   Really special and we so wished that our kids, Scott and Jodie could have been there too.

 

 

 

 

The trip back to our boats was equally thrilling, but this time because of the 25kt winds and waves and our boat extra loaded with two big bunches of bananas, coconuts and more, there wasn’t enough room on the boat – I had to sit behind Paolo and hold tight to keep from sliding off the back! We’ve decided to just stay here for Christmas Eve and hopefully have clear weather for snorkeling in the morning before we make our way back to the main town.

11/25/2011 John wrote:
Yesterday we had a traditional Christmas Dinner with a village family ashore. Only 100 people and kids in this village at the very tip of the Atoll. They killed two chickens for us and harvested a dozen crabs off the beach boiled the whole seething mass and served unadulterated. Then steamed some tarro root and fried some breadfruit slices to make potato chips – Kiribati style. Drinks were of coconut milk in the nut and a glass of tree sap collected in a bottle from a wound created in the tree flower bud and collected drop by drop over weeks like maple syrup. Funny thing was that 7- 10 year old kids could not be restrained from fighting over who was to behead the chickens by holding their heads and swinging them around the kids head like a Hoola-Hoop and the kill the crabs by snapping off their claws and legs combined while the crabs actively resisted their attempts by climbing legless out of the boiling water (well, maybe one leg left). My sister Kay will be amused that I was immediately concerned about the classroom management implications of this behavior.  I slunk away and made friends with the pigs much to the amusement of the gathering who don’t see pigs as pets, but I got along really well with them and I think they appreciated the Taz Lover in me. Mealtime was a happy collection of toothless smiles from our hosts and much gesticulating from us since language was something that we didn’t have in common. A good time was had by all but especially the house flies that seemed to have an annual convention scheduled at the same place and at the same time as our meal. We hosted millions of them who silently participated in our scrumpous repas and then left without a word of thanks.

11/26/2011
Today was filled with wonderful local dancing at the Catholic Community House. Villagers from all over the island came to compete – dancing started at 9am and was still going strong when we left at 3:30pm!  The men all sat around a large square box drum, the women behind them and they broke into very strong, multi-harmony song as the dancers came out, first small groups of women in traditional grass skirts, headdress and other decor, then men, then mixed, then young men, boy, girls….. we must have seen at least 30 different performances. This illustrated more than anything the strong sense of community here. Yesterday was the choir competition, which I’m sorry that we missed. 

Dec 26, 2011  Just leaving Butaritari for Tarawa ( 03-04.65N / 172-46.98E)

Dec 27, 2011  Good sailing with a sunset ( 02-28.24N / 172-42.60E)      We’re sailing along, a few squalls earlier, so reef in main and used staysail until about 30 mins ago, now back to Yankee. It’s very dark, no moon, but occasionally some nice patches of stars. These night trips are always exhausting for us old folks. We’ll likely drop anchor around 7am with a full day ahead of us, but will be difficult not to go straight to sleep. 

John wrote:
Arriving at night is never planned, it is the result of going faster or slower than your planned average so it just comes upon you as the winds, tides and seas change. I have to wake up Kris in an hour and we will decide if we will take down the sails and motor through the gap in the reef, cross the lagoon and anchor in the dark, or ‘heave to’ by crossing the sails into the wind and waiting for the dawn. You would think that decision is obvious but by dawn the rising sun will be right in our eyes and we will be unable to see the shallows and the ‘occasional stick’ that marks the hazards. Additionally, a record tide will be ebbing against us so the longer we wait for sunrise the more difficult it will be to motor against the sometimes eight knot outgoing tide coming through the pass as these huge lagoons empty. I am inclined to motor in now and pick our way the two miles within the lagoon through sandbanks, coral heads, anchor bouys and ships using the ambient starlight. These villages do not glow at night like the US cities because there is little power and the lights are all extinguished at night. Helpful will be our GPS which gives us our latitude and longitude. We record that every sixteen seconds wherever we go and so when we return somewhere, we can call up our track on the navigation computer and follow it in the dark.  It works well for clear waterways but does not account for anchored ships swinging at anchor etc so you can still hit some very large hard objects doing this.

12/28/2011 ARRIVED safely back in Betio, Tarawa
We got our visas extended until Jan 1st for free! Nice “Christmas” gift from immigration:) Also met Teritia, my Betio friend from the Ministry of Health and we’re going to have lunch tomorrow with her and her 4yr old daughter. Also met the couple from the other sailboat, Tom and Julie, whom we’d been chatting on the SSB radio with. He works in Majuro with wind power – trying to promote conversion to that rather than diesel in the islands. We’ll get together with them for happy hour tomorrow…so busy day ahead.

12/29/2011
Our boat friends, Tom and Julie, made it over last night they were just late and we had a great evening together. I’d made up some BBQ with all of the remaining beef – tenderloin, scotch filet, NY steaks, schnitzel…and it turned out really, really delicious!! They enjoyed it a lot too so we ate the entire pot! They are really interesting people with a business in solar/wind power systems that they’re trying to install on the islands together with water-makers. Sadly, they get alot of local opposition to their efforts from the fuel oil/diesel companies – no surprise but very frustrating.

12/31/2011 New Year’s Eve – AT SEA!!
We’re on our way to Majuro having left Betio, Tarawa at about 11:30am. Very light winds, full sails and only making 4-4.5kts speed. Will be a long but easy trip at this rate. No guarantees on that though. The forecast is for light winds, but the Marshall Islands have a real reputation for busters. Really enjoyed talking with everyone. We should have internet again in Majuro, so hopefully more Skype! We’ll be bringing in the New Year at sea, so will try to do something wild and festive:)

Happy New Year!! ( 01-30.38N/ 172-52.30E)
COURSE: 340T – SPEED: 3.7,  Floating along full sail almost no wind