We spent Christmas in Abemama, and we did our traditional family personal pizza baking on Christmas Eve. Back home making homemade pizza was a novelty, since we basically did it once a year, and it was so easy to just call up and order a pizza any time we wanted pizza. But now on the boat we make it all the time, including homemade sauce, so it’s a little more routine. Well, I guess making personal pizzas with topping choices is still a little different and special enough to remain our Christmas Eve tradition.
Christmas Day started out with an hour sail across the lagoon in order to be in a more protected spot when the wind was supposed to shift. The weather seemed to not care that it was Christmas and that we just wanted to sit, relax, eat and drink. Later, EOS II came over for our Christmas party, and they brought their Christmas tree with them to give Exodus a more festive vibe. And by Christmas tree I of course mean a palm frond wrapped in purple boas, what were you expecting? Our feast consisted of beef and papaya stew, lasagna, cous cous, boxed mashed potatoes, canned green beans, and homemade dinner rolls. Brenden referred to these as “fluffy clouds of yumminess,” which made my day!
The only gifts exchanged on Exodus this year were with EOS II, and all gifts were either a funny gag gift or something found on the boat or made (like the lego butterfly Brenden made for the girls, complete with movable wings). We had an early meal and then lounged around on the net up front until the sun went down.
Merry Christmas!
Fluffy clouds of yumminess (I was too slow taking the picture)
The whole “gift-free” Christmas thing was partly out of necessity, because it’s not like there were ample shopping opportunities around. But it it also just seemed to be the logical conclusion to the trajectory we had been on since we left home. Every year the gifts would become more sparse as we focused more on where we were and who we were with and less and less on gifts and stuff. So, this being our last Christmas cruising we got rid of the gifts altogether. I told the boys that we would have Christmas like that from now on and they responded like the time I told them we weren’t going to have any furniture when we got home, just a big woven mat in the living room. Haha, mom is so cute.
Most of the Northbound fleet was planning to head to Abiang, the atoll just to the north of Tarawa, for Christmas. However, after reading about our various options, we decided we would go our own way and head south to Abemama instead. We wanted to get just a little more off the beaten path and we wanted something a little more low key for Christmas. Abemama looked like it had a lot of options for anchoring near villages and passes that could be easily accessed for spearfishing. Once again, a quick conversation with True Blue V revealed that we were on the same page, and they actually departed for Abemama a couple days before us. Even though we were consciously deciding not to follow the pack, it was nice to know we wouldn’t be alone on Christmas.
Abemama is about 90 miles SE of Tarawa, so we made an overnight passage out of it. We were able to sail most of the way, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of sailing where you can just set the sails and forget about them. There were numerous squalls and wind shifts. In fact, I think we sailed at almost every point of sail during that short passage. We had an easy entry through the western pass and hung a left in order to anchor next to True Blue V near the village of Tabiang.
Satellite image of Abemama
Almost immediately after dropping anchor we were visited by a young man in an outrigger canoe. His name was Tanro, and we invited him aboard and showed him around Exodus, and he invited us to come see the village, so the next morning we went to shore with True Blue V. We met some nice people and sat and drank coconuts with a man called Karakaua who spent time on a commercial fishing vessel as a young man, so his English was impeccable and he had an interest in travel and asked questions about own experiences. Tanro gave us a tour of the village including a peak at the airfield and the ocean side of the island. Of course, Tim wanted to scout the potential for lobsters. We tried to find the local police officer in Tabiang in order to check in with him rather than wait until we visited the main village, but we never did find him. I remember that Tim asked Tanro if the police are busy and what sort of things people get in trouble with the police for, and he said, “oh you know, when you don’t have your pig tied up.”
Tanro and Tim (and a large pig) – Photo by True Blue V
One of the things immediately apparent about this village, compared with most others we had visited, is that the structures were much more traditionally constructed. There was very little concrete and corrugated metal, the exception being the churches and the large fales, that serve as town halls. It’s easy to have a first impression that they must be much poorer, but I suppose that depends on your definition of wealth. If you think about it, this island is pretty much on the equator. It’s hot and humid and they are not at risk for cyclone, so really the structures are exactly what they need, and they are made from materials readily available on the island. Self-sufficient certainly doesn’t mean poor.
Traditional thatched roofs in the village of Tabiang
Another observation was that for the most part, with the exception of the man who spent time on the commercial fishing boat, the English of the people of the village was far less developed than say, Nanumea, an outer island of Tuvalu.
After a couple of days the wind died down a bit and we moved the three boats, Exodus, True Blue V, and EOS II (they arrived the day after us), down to anchor off the small island of Bike. It wasn’t the flattest of all places to anchor, especially at high tide, but it gave Tim and Slade easy access to the south pass for spearfishing, and they came back with a dogtooth tuna. Lahnee, the girls, and I went ashore in the mighty EOS dinghy and walked along the beach. We met a small, extended family who were living there, but they didn’t speak any English, so we weren’t able to get their story. One of the women had a very young baby, probably not more than a couple weeks old. They gave us coconuts to drink, and later Lahnee returned to give her some nappies (that’s Australian for diapers.)
Kiani at Bike Island
While we were anchored at Bike, True Blue V dropped a bomb on us that they were changing their plans and leaving Abemama and heading back to Tarawa to clear out before Christmas and then head to Majuro. Since they arrived in Tarawa before us they had less time left on their visas and they were getting concerned about getting back in time and also about government holidays between Christmas and New Years. It all happened so fast that it felt like I was standing there with my mouth hanging open as they pulled out of the anchorage. It was disappointing not to be with them on Christmas, but so goes the life of a cruiser… so many things can impact your decision making. So, it was just us and The Mighty EOS II for Christmas, but more about that later.
When we finally got around to going to the main village, we were visited by the local policeman, so we finally officially checked into Abemama. We invited him on board and showed him our letters from customs and immigration that documented our permission to be there. We were granted permission for only a 10 day stay, but with some heavy weather expected we asked him if we would be able to stay longer, and he said no problem. (In the end we didn’t test this since the weather cleared and we left before our 10 days were up.) When the weather came it was strong winds from the north, so we spent our final days in Abemama back up in the northern part of the atoll.
In Kiribati, the immigration office seems to have the lead on this process, and we submitted our letter requesting permission to visit a bunch of islands when we cleared in. In Kiribati we were requesting islands south of Tarawa, so we did not request to stop outbound but rather we planned to come back to Tarawa to check out. A couple days later we went back to the immigration office and picked up our approval letter, and then we took it to the customs office near the wharf, so that they could prepare their own approval letters, which we picked up the next day. We requested to stay up to 14 days at each island, but we were granted only 10 days. We requested several islands, and it seems like the ones who only requested a single island were granted the requested 14 days.
When Lauri and I went to immigration to pick up or letters, we asked if we could pick up for all the boats, which would save everyone another ride out to Bairiki. However, I guess we had in mind that all the letters would be prepared already, and we’d just pick them up and go. Instead, we waited about 2 hours while they prepared each letter, answering questions about gender of different people and helping the immigration officer decipher some of the handwriting. Unfortunately, they didn’t do our letters first, because if so we might have just bailed. Lauri is a really nice person, so she probably never would have suggested it, but I pretty much just put it out there that once we got our letters we should just go. It turns out she was on board with that. On the bright side, our time sitting there gave us a chance to get to know each other a little better. So, after that she knew that I’m the bitch that didn’t want to wait for everyone’s letters. And she was OK with that.
We took the bus to the egg farm and then decided to walk back from there. At one point we were standing in some shade having a rest, and we must have looked lost, because two women in a car stopped to give us a ride. We quickly accepted and escaped the heat with a quick ride back. Lauri gave them some flip-flops as a thank you.
One of the other cruisers met a local guy who said he would arrange to hire a van for us and would take us to some vegetable and egg farms. So, the day after clearing in, several of us headed to shore with high hopes to meet the guy at his house and then spend the day getting all those fresh things we hadn’t had in a while. He had told us he lived near the police station, so when we found the police station, we just went in and asked if they knew where he lived. Sure enough, they pointed us in the right direction. When we got to his house, he wasn’t there, because he was at work. Now, my memory is a little fuzzy on this, but I think someone gave us a ride to the government building where the guy worked as it was quite a ways away and I don’t recall walking out there. Anyway, when we got to the government building, we talked to the guy, and it turned out we would need to do it another day. Bummer. Well, no problem, we had directions to an “egg farm” that wasn’t too far from there, so we walked to check it out.
The little egg farm was actually one of the highlights of Tarawa for me, and it’s kind of ironic with all the negative opinions about Tarawa that it was here that we found the absolute freshest eggs we have ever found anywhere. Here is an email I wrote about the place:
I would like to say something positive about Tarawa, so I will mention the small egg farm we found where we could get fresh eggs, and by fresh, I mean gathered right out from under the hens. They had what looked like newly constructed, very sturdy chicken coops with a total of about 85 chickens. It was very clean and the chickens all looked healthy. The feed troughs were tires sliced in half sideways and suspended from the ceiling, so the feed was always up off the ground. One of the women we spoke to there is educated as a lawyer and her English was very good and she was able to give us a few more tips about shopping in Betio. The hens lay about 60 eggs/day and curiously, most of their customers are Chinese. We went 3 days in a row to buy all we could and share amongst all the cruising boats. It was a nice little family business, and I really hope they continue to have success.
The egg farm in Tarawa
The only thing about the egg farm is that you never knew if you’d be able to actually get eggs or not. That first day we went they only had 5 eggs, but they let us place an order for picking up the next day. I suggested that we let Birgitta from Ariel IV take the 5 eggs, because they were leaving Tarawa for Majuro, and the rest of us would be getting eggs the next day, because, you know, we placed an order. This was good logic when needing to adjudicate what to do with 5 eggs when there were 6 women there wanting eggs.
After the egg farm we decided we would go check out the various grocery stores. We were a ways from town, but some of us felt like walking so we set off while Lahnee (with the two girls) and another person planned to take a bus. So, the rest of us walked a little ways and then made a stop at a grocery store, where they had cold crispy green apples that only cost you your right hand. After scouting the place out I walked outside to stand in the shade and have a drink, and off in the distance I see Lahnee walking with Ahia in her arms and Kiani at her side. I walked over to meet her and found out that the other person had taken the last seat on a bus and left them standing on the side of the rode. Oh my god I almost died, I mean, who does that? Lahnee, as usual, had a good sense of humor about it.
We spent the rest of the day walking all the way back to Betio and scouting out three more grocery stores with no fresh veggies to be found other than moldy onions and cabbage. I think the best part about the whole day was when Amanda bought a bag of donuts and shared them with all of us. And they weren’t even really donuts, just balls of dough with a little bit of sweetness. But they hit the spot, especially for those of us like me and Kiani who get grouchy when we’re hungry.
Walking around Tarawa looking for eggs and veggies
Back to the eggs…even though we placed an order, it turned out to be not quite that simple. The next day when Lauri (Free Spirit) and I went to pick up our order they only had 11 eggs for us. In the meantime, Lauri had given all the eggs she already had to True Blue V, because they were leaving for Abemama, and Lauri assumed she’d be getting more eggs. So, I insisted she take these 11 eggs, since I still had a few from Funafuti, and we’d just keep going every day to hopefully get enough eggs for all of us.
I went by myself the next day and hit the jackpot and scored a grand total of 43 eggs. But by the time I divided them among the other boats I think we got 8 of them. Only a cruiser would devote this much time in a blog to the effort expended to acquire a few eggs. (Spoiler alert: just wait until we get to Aranuka and I go on and on about Pumpkin.)
Upon entering the atoll, we hailed Tarawa Radio on VHF channel 16. We were arriving on the weekend, so I made it clear that we were happy to remain on board until Monday morning for clearing in. (If you clear in during off hours you usually have to pay overtime fees.) She told us that would be fine, but if the clearance officers were at the wharf clearing in any other boats, then she would call us. We didn’t hear from her until Monday morning, when she called us to arrange for us to pick up the boarding party at the wharf. Three officials came on board: Customs, Bio-Security, and The Police. They said Immigration would come later and that we could not leave the boat until immigration came. However, hours later we received a radio call from Tarawa radio with instructions to proceed to the immigration office in Bairiki to complete clearance.
Bairiki is about a 30-minute bus ride from Betio (you can see it on the satellite image in this post). We were a big group, five boats in all, so someone in our group organized for us to ride in the back of a big pick-up truck. At the immigration office we completed our clearing in paperwork and also submitted our letters to request permission to visit outer islands. You get a one month visa free of charge, and we were told you can extend for a fee, but we did not do this.
Piled in the back of a truck heading to Immigration
Kiribati is an island nation that covers a huge geographic area of the Pacific Ocean. There are three island groups, which are: The Line Islands (furthest east), The Phoenix Islands (in the middle), and the Gilbert Islands (furthest west). It was the Gilbert Island chain that we visited as it lies in between Tuvalu and The Marshall Islands.
The island nation of Kiribati
The total population of Kiribati of over 105,000 with most of the people living in The Gilbert Islands, and most of those people living in the capital of Tarawa. Continuing on, most of those people live on the island of Betio which has a population density of 10,000 people per square km. (Spoiler alert: I thought this was dense until we got to Ebeye in The Marshalls). For reference, the city of Los Angeles has a populatoin density of just over 3,000 per square km. The map below shows the layout of The Gilbert Island chain and the location of Tarawa within it. It also highlights the other islands we visited: Abemama, Aranuka, and Marakei. (Spoiler alter: we would also visit the island of Onotoa on our eventual way south.)
Before I go any further I’d like to point out the correct pronunciation of “Kiribati” and “Betio.” The Gilbertese language does not have the letter “s.” Instead, the letter combination of “ti” makes the sound of the letter “s.” So, Kiribati is pronounced “Kiribass” and Betio is pronounced, “Besso.” Also, the letter “r” is pronounced more like it is in Spanish (or Scottish English), so Kiribati is prounouced with a little flick of the tongue on the letter “r.
The Gilbert Island chain highlighting the islands that we visited
Everything we had read about Tarawa and Betio were negative. In fact, there’s a book out there called Sex Lives of Cannibals about a guy from the U.S. who went to live in Tarawa for awhile, and from everything I’ve heard, it’s a pretty negative account of the place (although also quite humorous). Even though everyone asks me if I’ve read the book, at this point I have not. I made a conscious decision not to read it before we went there because after reading some Amazon reviews, I decided I didn’t want to be tainted by someone else’s negative views of the place first. (Spoiler alert: I still haven’t read the book. Too many blog posts to make…)
There is only one pass at Tarawa, located on the west side. On our first entry, we were happy to arrive before the sun went down, but we had previous intel from our friends on Ariel IV that it is a reasonable pass to navigate at night. It is wide, well lit, and current is negligible. We did not follow the shipping line on the navionics chart to the Betio anchorage, rather we cut a more direct route to the west of the shipping line.
The main anchorage in Tarawa is off the densely populated island of Betio in the southwest corner of the atoll. This is where the main commercial wharf is located and also where the customs office is located. Unfortunately, the anchorage is totally exposed to the north and northwest, so it would get rather lively at times. There are other places to anchor within the lagoon, but we were never in Tarawa long enough to bother moving from Betio.
Satellite image of the southern end of Tarawa
Overall, I am sad to say that Tarawa, and specifically Betio, was the most depressing place we have visited in the Pacific. It’s smelly, dirty, and way too crowded. The infrastructure is completely run down and the roads are mostly dirt which means they alternate between being a dry dusty mess and being a sticky muddy mess. Our first time there, there wasn’t a fresh vegetable to be found, only some moldy onions and cabbage. And it was the very first place we’ve been in the South Pacific where I have felt a little uncomfortable walking around at night. Nothing specific happened, so perhaps it was in my head. Or perhaps it’s just because of how crowded it was. One of the first things Dr. Eric (Ariel IV) told us when we got there was don’t even think about swimming in the harbor, and certainly don’t think about running your watermaker. Luckily, it rained enough while we were there that we could catch enough to fill our water tank plus do about 50 loads of laundry. And last but not least, it seems that the beaches are considered to be the public toilets. This approach may work when you are in a village with a few hundred people but think about what this means where there are 50,000 people on a small island. Pretty gross.
All that being said, I did find things to enjoy about Tarawa, and I am probably the least negative on of the place of all the cruisers we went through there with. Even though the streets were either dusty or muddy, I enjoyed walking around, checking out every little shop and interacting with people. There’s also the egg farm that was a huge highlight for me, but I’ll get to that a little bit later. I find you can make the most of any place you are, and dwelling on the negative can have somewhat of a snowball effect. Obviously, I found a lot of negative things about this place, but I didn’t dwell on them, and I think that’s why I didn’t hate this place as much as everyone else.
On Sunday morning EOS II arrived in Tarawa. We kicked their asses in the race to Tarawa AND the fishing competition. But we were good sports and invited them over for their own safe arrival drinks on Exodus, and what better morning drinks are there than Bloody Marys? Except Lahnee learned that she doesn’t really like Bloody Marys, so I had to make her some sissy la la drink.
Here are a series of emails I sent out during this passage:
Day 1
We sadly left Nanumea yesterday afternoon with high slack water, and the pass exit was far less dramatic than the entrance. So far on passage we have sailed really fast in the wrong direction and now we are motor sailing slowly in the right direction. We don’t have enough diesel to motor too much, so hopefully the wind fills in today.
Yesterday during some bumpiness we lost our big plastic tub overboard (yes, the one Tim recently rescued at Funafuti) and we had a hatch left open so there is sea water in our bed. Sheesh! You’d think we just started cruising last week with hatches left open and things not tied down.
Anyway, one other boat left Nanumea with us yesterday and I think everyone else is leaving today. It’s looking like those who waited made the right call since it really hasn’t been that great out here.
Day 2
Right now we are sailing slowly, and I seriously mean slowly. Under 2 kts. But Tim used that as an opportunity to rig a bit of a sling attached to the pulley we use for the dingy engine, and he had Brenden him lower him into the water to go for a swim. Well, I thought it was just to go for a swim, but what he really wanted to do was look under the boat and see what kind of fish keep triggering our depth sounder. Too bad it was just little fish, if it were tuna, I’m sure he would have asked for his spear gun. Although the winds are light our spirits are still high, because at least none of us are seasick. The boys are passing time eradicating Exodus of all the flies from Nanumea. We don’t want to import any to Kiribati
Day 3
Forget the naked tuna dance, someone needs to do the naked wind dance! We can’t even get a squall to come over us. We are baking in a 95 deg F oven called our salon, and the only fish we’ve caught was a tiny Mahi Mahi, so we released it. Other than all that whining, things aren’t too bad. It’s hard to complain about a comfortable, flat sea, and we are even going to BBQ chicken tonight, since we don’t have to worry about the wind blowing the grill out!
Perhaps we’ll make it to Tarawa by Christmas.
Day 4
It seems that shortly after I sent the email last night the wind picked up and we’ve been sailing ever since. So, someone out there must have done the naked wind dance for us, and for that, we thank you.
Oh, and it must have been a two for one, naked wind AND tuna dance, because we caught a yellow fin tuna today. Well, we actually hooked 3, but one got away and one was too small to keep. And the boys will tell you that the one that got away was my fault, but don’t you believe them for a second.
It is peaceful, even if slow, sailing, and we are enjoying it.
Day 5
So, lack of wind is no longer a problem, so I’ll just share a couple of tidbits unique to this passage so far…
I always have the early morning watch, so I have grown accustomed to peacefully enjoying the sunset by myself in the mornings. For almost 3 years, this has consistently been one of my highlights while on passage. I usually count down until the sun comes up and the shroud of deep black darkness is slowly replaced with colorful brightness.
Well, not any more. Now, I loathe when the sun comes up because my comfortably cool cockpit, where I can doze in my underwear without being too hot or too cold, turns into a furnace with a laser piercing heat source that will burn holes in your skin if you stay in one place too long. No, sunrise is no longer a happy time.
We figured out how to send inReach to inReach texts that don’t count towards the monthly limit, and there are two other boats out here who also have them. So, we are constantly texting back and forth, and it feels so normal to be checking my phone for texts (my iPhone is paired to the inReach) and laughing and sending something back. I’m just out here in the middle of the pacific ocean sending texts on my iPhone… nothing strange about that!
We are about to cross the equator again and re-join the northern hemisphere after over a year and a half. We don’t have anything big planned but there may be haircuts involved again. And pizza. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.
Anchor down Tarawa
This morning I was sure there was no chance we would make it before dark, but this afternoon the wind picked up and shifted to a good direction just enough that we made anchors down just at dusk. We had some our worst conditions the entire passage as we approached the island as there were squalls all around us, but now we are anchored safely right next to True Blue V again, and all is good. We have a new safe arrival tradition of playing a game as a family as we drink our safe arrival drinks, and I’m really enjoying that time with the boys.
Now, it’s time for a full night sleep without someone waking me at 3am to stand watch.P.S. I slept through the equator crossing last night. The boys toasted to Neptune and ate popcorn. Everyone still has their hair.
Based on everything we had read and heard we had low hopes for Kiribati and tended to look at it as simply a stepping stone in between Tuvalu and The Marshalls. However, there were some surprise gems, and in the end we can’t imagine having spent Christmas and New Year’s anywhere else!
Route Recap
After a month in Tuvalu we continued north even further off the beaten path up to the island nation of Kiribati. We departed Nanumea, Tuvalu in the early afternoon on Monday, 7 Dec. It was just over a 5 day passage before we arrived in Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati, just after dusk on a Saturday. We turned around our time in Tarawa as quickly as we could, and after 5 days we made an overnight passage to the southeast to the atoll of Abemama. Christmas in Abemama was one to remember, but before we knew it it was New Year’s Eve and we were off to the nearby atoll of Aranuka. After 10 days in Aranuka we bashed back to Tarawa in order to provision and clear out.
After we cleared out we spent a few more days in the bouncy Tarawa anchorage trying to decide when we should leave, and finally we decided to go hide out in the atoll just to the north, called Abiang. However, as we approached Abiang we changed our minds to just keep on going with the passage all the way to Majuro (Marshall Islands). This plan was altered later that day when we rescued a small boat and three fishermen who were lost and low on gas. We gave them a ride and towed their boat to their home island of Marakei, and we stayed there anchored on the outside of the lagoon for 2 nights before finally, for good this time, departing for Majuro on the morning of 18 January.
Next up you will hear about our adventures across the equator in Kiribati, including Christmas with my mini-shes and a little white boy dancing in Aranuka.
Next time find out what the locals think of Tim’s moves
Gresham Family Exodus 