Category: Uncategorized

It Takes a Village

Although The Marshalls is generally considered an alternative for cyclone season, it’s not like cyclones don’t go there. Yes, it’s rare, certainly more rare than somewhere like Fiji, but they still happen. In fact, the analysis presented at this website (http://thegiddyupplan.blogspot.com/2014/10/typhoons-el-nino-and-republic-of.html) concluded that it’s more risky to go to The Marshalls than to French Polynesia or The Cook Islands and only slightly less risky than Samoa. So, what the hell were we doing?

Well, the fallacy in the conclusion from the website is that it doesn’t consider the fact that you don’t have to go straight to RMI from Fiji (or wherever) in October or November as you bail in advance of cyclone season in the southern hemisphere. (I submitted a comment on their website pointing this out, but they didn’t post it. Go figure.)

You see, the worst months for cyclones (they call them typhoons up there) in RMI are Nov-Jan. So, if you went straight there in October or November, then yes, your risk of encountering a cyclone might be on par with Samoa. However, what most people do is leisurely cruise Tuvalu and Kiribati and then arrive in Majuro at the right time for them based on their own risk tolerance. For us that meant late January/Early February. We were a little more conservative than some, but the data also showed that the risk of a cyclone in RMI during an El Nino event was MUCH higher, and since we were smack dab in the middle of an El Nino event, we played it safe. And it should be noted that our departure from Kiribati was actually delayed by a cyclone that formed near the equator (cyclone Pali) and was at one point forecast to go right over Majuro (though, in the end it didn’t).

So, as long as we timed our departure from Fiji and our arrival in Majuro appropriately, we would have a much lower risk than staying anywhere in the South Pacific (especially since in an El Nino year the Eastern region, such as French Polynesia, has higher cyclone risk than normal.)

OK, with that resolved, what about the dreaded westerlies I kept hearing about? For some reason it took me a little while to figure out that the “westerlies” were just long-range effects of cyclones. Both Tuvalu and RMI, and to a lesser extent Kiribati, are subject to strong westerlies when there is a cyclone present to the south or north, respectively. In the southern hemisphere cyclones spin clockwise, so the wind direction north of the eye comes from the west. In fact, we experienced a bit of this phenomenon when we were in Tuvalu as a result of one of the first low pressures of the season. We were in Nanumea and had great protection, but some of our friends in Funafuti had a rougher ride. Likewise, in the northern hemisphere cyclones spin counterclockwise, so the wind direction south of the eye comes from the west.

RMI had a pretty rough season with regards to westerlies, and we could see the evidence of it when we arrived. There were boats washed up on shore as well as trash piled up. People who had been there during the entire season told stories of 50 knot winds, which means getting pummeled by miles of fetch from across the lagoon, and The Shoreline dinghy dock had been destroyed. It wasn’t much fun at all. But based on the timing of our arrival to RMI, we didn’t have to worry about any of this. We pretty much had 18-25 knot tradewinds from the ENE the *entire* time we were there. Seriously, passage planning all of a sudden became easy again as there were no fronts or troughs to watch out for and no periods of light wind. But while passage *planning* was easy, the actual *passage* to Ailuk wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, because once again we found ourselves bashing to weather.

Evidence of previous strong Westerlies in Majuro

Getting to Majuro was sort of the beginning of the end. Way back in Fiji we had decided that once we got to Majuro, we would begin the task of getting Exodus listed and ready to sell. It had always been this nebulous task out there in the distant future, but now it was time.

And we hated it. We ended up spending two weeks being grouchy and not getting much done.

Obviously, for many reasons we couldn’t languish indefinitely in Majuro; the most pressing of those reasons being we still wanted to cruise some of the outer islands of RMI, and the longer we stayed in Majuro, the less time we had to explore. So, we put our project management hats on, made a list, assigned actions, and declared, “Go team!” I can’t say that the grumpiness subsided*, since putting Exodus up for sale represented the near end of our travels, but at least we had a plan to get the hell out of Majuro. (*Except for Alex. He was ready to back to California, for sure!)

We did a ton of cleaning, and the boys did the bulk of the work topsides. I used the favorable light of the evening sun to snap photos of sections of the boat I decluttered each day, and Tim and I went back and forth writing the text for the website and editing each other’s stuff.

There was one major repair project which had to do with the galley sink. Tim enlisted the help of another cruiser, and they spent several days repairing the counter around the sink. They had to be creative in their solution, since we weren’t exactly in an ideal yacht services location, but it ended up turning out really good. Tim is always so meticulous in the work that he does, and this project was no exception.

Repair to the galley sink

Our website went live on Feb 20, and we had Exodus listed on 5 or 6 yacht sales website by the end of the next day. We were hopeful we’d have an offer soon, so all the was left was provisioning and passage planning and then we were on our way.

Link to our website: https://lagooncatamaran4sale.wordpress.com/

It’s really a shame I don’t have any photos for this story, so I guess I’ll have to do my best describing the whole horrible ordeal.

There’s a coin operated laundry facility near the dinghy dock, and they also have a service where you can just leave your laundry and pay the ladies there to do it for you. This is what I did almost every time, because even though I haven’t worked in years I still somehow convince myself that my time is still quite valuable. One day I bucked the norm and decided to wash our salon cushion covers myself, because for some reason I had this idea that I could do a better job. After running them once through a wash cycle, they were still pretty dirty, and I remembered that in New Zealand I spot treated them with detergent and that seemed to work pretty well, so I gave that a try. These were high efficiency front loading machines that warned about using too much detergent, so I tried to compensate for the added detergent used in spot treating by putting less in the cup for the wash cycle. Unfortunately, I misjudged this by an order of magnitude.

When the second cycle was done, all you could see through the door was solid white and when I opened the door (huge mistake!) suds just started to pour out uncontrollably all over the floor. Seriously, it was like something out of a TV show. I was so embarrassed and I had nothing to even attempt to try to clean it up. The Marshallese ladies there were very kind to me about it but of course I couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other! They helped me with the cleanup operation, and I told them that from now on I will ask them to do the laundry for me. Sorry, no photos. I was too busy being appalled.

It all started when Tim told the boys they had to use their internet access to learn something. Brenden watched a TED talk having something to do with artificial limbs (honestly, I can’t remember all the details), and Alex watched one about how it’s possible to learn anything in 20 hours. Inspired by that, he dusted off Andrew’s old guitar that we’d been carting around the Pacific for three years and decided he was going to learn to play. So, using YouTube videos for instruction he was quickly able to play his first song on my birthday: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

After that, he was hooked. He looked up other songs he likes and pretty soon he was playing Hey There Delilah (Plain White T’s), Time of Your Life (Green Day), and basically everything by Passenger. It was awesome to see him so committed and passionate about something. So, now when Tim and Brenden are gone for hours spearfishing Alex picks up his guitar and applies himself to learning something new. He’s always loved music, and so it’s especially fun for him to play the songs he likes. And this may come as a surprise to some (but others know all too well) that I love singing along!

Alex finds a passion

Two years ago, we were in Mexico for the Superbowl, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t even watch it. Last year we were in New Zealand, and we had a great time with some of our American cruiser friends at a roadside pub. This year we took a taxi down to Marshall Islands Resort (MIR) to eat pizza, drink beer, and watch the game with the tuna boat fleet. It was fun, but I’ll just let my Facebook posts from that day tell the story:

• Superbowl Monday
• Clearly tuna boat skippers like broncos more than panthers
• Sadly we are watching via satellite feed so we won’t get to see the NG stealth fighter ad. Just ESPN basketball and motor cross ads. Boo.
• (After a friend posted the stealth fighter add on FB for me…) Oh yeah. Almost makes me want to come back to work
• I basically came to watch Peyton and I’m still hoping he’ll show up
• (Referring back to the tuna boat skippers) They also like beer more than Coldplay
• (In response to my friend who was watching the game and let me know that Mexicans like Beyonce) The Mexicans know what’s up. Tuna boat skippers think Beyoncé has a big butt.

Sometimes you just feel the need to get out of the big city of Majuro and feel like you’re cruising again. So, we joined the Meico Beach Yacht Club in order to use their moorings in a couple other places in the atoll. Our first weekend getaway was out to the islet of Eneko (labeled Enigu on Open CPN charts) and the main reason for heading out there was to make water. Long gone were the days near the equator when we could count on periodic downpours to fill our water tanks, so we had to rely on our watermaker once again. So, we headed out to Eneko to make water near inlets in the reef on a rising tide. It turned out that we were unknowingly on the same page as True Blue V and we converged on the moorings at Eneko and ended up having a couple of fun days out there together.

Eneko is about 6 miles from Majuro back towards the pass. There are 3 moorings there, but one of them was taken up by a half sunken boat, which somehow seemed kind of appropriate. While we were there, Tim went out Spearfishing outside the pass with some local guys, and he came back with a *monster* dogtooth tuna, which filled our freezer and fed the anchorage once we got back to Majuro.

Exodus, True Blue V, and a half sunken boat on the moorings at Eneko

A huge dogtooth tuna speared near the pass in Majuro

The yacht club also has 5 or 6 moorings at Anemomet, which is closer to Majuro than Eneko. We headed out there a couple times to make water or escape Majuro, and right underneath where we were moored were the wrecks of an airplane and a helicopter. The airplane is quite shallow, very easy to snorkel. From the first two moorings closest to the little dock, we were able to get internet from the boat using the bullet (Tim set the mac address of the bullet to be his iPad in order to access NTA Wi-Fi).

Underwater exploration at Anemomet

Being February and all, we ended up spending my 39th birthday in Majuro, and so we took a break from the boat chores and headed out to Anemomet to celebrate. And let me tell you, even given the fact that old age is setting in, there was still plenty of fun to be had. We ate birthday blueberry pancakes, played card games, did “family jump off the bow”, had steaks and mashed potatoes for dinner, and later in the evening we drank wine and ate apple crumble with our friends on s/v Free Spirit. Speaking of wine… I had bought a bottle of Kendall Jackson chardonnay in Majuro thinking that it would be a fun birthday game to do a taste test between my old friend California chardonnay and my new acquaintance New Zealand Chardonnay. It turned out to be no contest, because the Kendall Jackson that I bought in Majuro was rancid. I was sad for about two seconds and then I did some bilge diving and found some Robert Mondavi Cabernet, one of the few bottles still with us from California, and, oh my god, it was so good I almost cried.

Bad wine, good wine on my birthday

Enecko and Anemomet weekend getaways

After picking up our mooring on our first evening in Majuro we had much-needed safe arrival drinks, a nice dinner on a flat boat, and a solid good night’s sleep. Since we always try to follow proper protocol when arriving in a new country, we had attempted to radio port control when we arrived and again in the morning, but since there was no response, we headed to shore to take care of all the formalities in person.

Clearing in was easy. It simply involved visits to both the Customs and Immigration offices, and since we are U.S. citizens there was no limit placed on the duration of our stay in RMI. There was some confusion for our non-American friends and getting a straight answer from Immigration seemed to be a bit of a challenge. When asked about this, one immigration employee said, “I’ve heard it’s 6 months.” You’ve heard? Don’t you work here?

Anyway, Majuro has a ton of taxis and it’s a cheap way to get around town. Although our taxi driver had no idea where the government offices were, we just asked him to drop us off at the Marshall Island Resort. He had heard of that. And the other funny part is that because taxis are so cheap you shouldn’t expect a private ride all the way to your destination. As long as there is room in the taxi they will stop and pick up more people. We never minded, since it was just another way to meet more people.

With respect to the formalities for getting permission to visit outer islands, it’s a bit different in RMI than in Tuvalu and Kiribati. In The Marshalls, the permissions are controlled by The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) rather than Customs or Immigration. Even though I had been assured the approvals could be turned around quickly, I’ve just gotten used to how these things go, and I went there on our first or second day to get the price sheet for the islands and a copy of the form. Then I took these back to the boat to decide which islands to request and made copies of the form. (You have to fill out one form for each island you want to request.)

We submitted forms for the following atolls: Aur, Maleolap, Ailuk, Likiep, Rongelap, Kwajalein, Namu, Jaluit, and Ebon. It’s true that most were approved and returned back to me right on the spot, but a few took a while to turn around, and we never did get approval for Ebon. Apparently, approvals are controlled by the individual mayors of the islands, not the MIA. The MIA just manages the bureaucracy. Mayoral elections had just been held so some of the atolls had new mayors, so it took a while to coordinate with them in order to get the approvals. The mayors control the fees, so they are different for each island ranging from 0$ to $250, although most are $25 or $50.

They say that some mayors want cruisers to come to their islands while some prefer that you stay away. The word on the street from the ever so credible expat community was that Mili and Kwajalein should be avoided because they had previously kicked out some of our fellow cruisers. Whatever. Our friends went to Mili without incident, and, spoiler alert, Kwajalein was a piece of cake too.

Bikini and Rongelap atolls require an extra layer of approval to visit. These are the islands that were affected so many years ago from the US nuclear testing. Since their population doesn’t live on their islands, they have Town Halls in Majuro, and if you want to visit their islands, you need to also request permission at the town hall. So, I made a stop at the Rongelap Town Hall and after asking about five different people who I needed to talk to I found a man who looked over my paperwork and then asked me to speak with the Mayor. So, he got the Mayor on the phone, and I had a pleasant conversation with him about the fact that Tim and I are engineers. I could just see him coming up with a list of things for us to help with when we got to the island! He gave us approval, but unfortunately, we never made it there, but that’s because we decided to stay longer in Ailuk than we planned.

As we were approaching Majuro upon arrival I had been coordinating with Ariel IV just in case we didn’t arrive before dark. Erik had told us where they had moored for the night near the pass when they arrived, and he even offered to dinghy over and help us find the mooring and tie up. As we got closer and we were in VHF range I gave him a shout out and he very mysteriously asked if we could switch over to SSB to our “usual channel.” The conversation that followed was confusing, as much for Erik as it was for me, because he was trying to relay to me what some other people were telling him about the rules in Majuro and how Customs officials might be listening to VHF traffic.

And that was my first glimpse into the Majuro Expat Cruiser Community. We’ve been in places with a community like this before, mostly in Mexico like La Paz or Puerto Escondido, where there was a group of ex-cruisers and wanna-be cruisers living on their boats inserting themselves as a buffer between the actual cruisers and the local community. Don’t get me wrong, they can be extremely helpful with information if you need help but they can also be a bit pushy and self-important when you don’t. And this was never more obvious than when we were in Majuro, because we had just spent months in Tuvalu and Kiribati where no such help was available, and guess what, we all did just fine!

The small town politics was just too much for me to stomach. Again, reminiscent of places we’ve been in Mexico, or even Neiafu (Tonga), where people are backstabbing and two faced and grievances get aired in a passive aggressive way over the radio net when someone starts the net too early, or too late, or whatever. The pettiness would be comical if it weren’t so annoying. These people had an over-inflated sense of their own self-importance, I mean, I stopped listening to the radio nets altogether and somehow I still managed to figure things out. Luckily we eventually escaped Majuro for a visit to Ailuk where we got to meet and spend time with the real treasure of The Marshall Islands, the Marshallese people!

Majuro is the name of the atoll but it’s also the name of the main city located on the far eastern side of the atoll. There is a large pass, suitable for large shipping and fishing vessels, on the northern side of the atoll, but once you are inside the lagoon it’s still a 10-mile haul to the mooring fields which are located at the city of Majuro. You can see our arrival track on the image below.

The Atoll of Majuro (Exodus arrival track shown)

As mentioned above, we were racing the clock, or more accurately the sun, so as we approached the pass we decided not to enter through the main shipping channel, but instead we picked a shortcut that looked deep enough based on satellite imagery. We were cautious and had the boys posted as lookouts on the bows, and although the Navionics charts weren’t quite accurate, visibility was good and we had plenty of depth the whole way in. We were feeling really good about once again using our exceptional pioneering skills to our advantage, only later to notice that the short-cut, mini-pass we had used was already extensively documented in one of our cruiser guides (Soggy Paws Compendium) as a totally viable pass. Oh well.

Majuro Passes

Once inside the lagoon the sail to the anchorage was almost pleasant, since the water was relatively flat and we were able to zip along. We couldn’t quite point at the mooring field, so we just pointed as high as we could until we almost reached the other side of the atoll and then we engined up for the last little bit. There was *no way* we were going to tack back in order to make it the whole way under sail because 1) as I mentioned, it was almost dark, 2) we were so ready to be there it wasn’t even funny, and 3) There were literally hundreds of fishing boats in the lagoon creating a slalom course out of any straight line you might want to take. Seriously, we had never seen so many fishing boats in one place. The word on the street was that there was some sort of conflict going on with regards to fishing rights and the fleet was “grounded” for awhile.

Fishing Boats in Majuro

We were so thankful to our friends on True Blue V who found a suitable mooring for us that day, and as we were pulling up they met us in their dinghy and gave us a quick lay of the land. This arrival in Majuro is a borderline candidate to qualify for “Arrival Euphoria” and it was oh so appropriate that it also included being reunited once again with True Blue V.

(If you’re interested, here’s a link to a cruisingrunner blog post where I describe the phenomenon of “Arrival Euphoria”: https://cruisingrunner.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/arrival-euphoria/)

There are two mooring fields in Majuro: 1) the north mooring field is owned and operated by RRE (a large company that owns a lot in and around Majuro, including the big hotel near the mooring field and the Tide Table restaurant.) 2) the south mooring field is owned and operated by Matt Holly. In our case, we were one of the last boats arriving for the season, and when Craig (True Blue V) checked for a mooring for us he found out that RRE was full and the ones that Matt Holly had left were not suitable for our size boat. So, they asked around and were able to arrange for us to use a private mooring owned by Chuck on S/V Deviant. It was separated from the rest of the mooring field a little bit further south, and it was more expensive, but it worked out OK for us. We kind of liked being out of the high traffic area, but on the downside it was a longer dinghy ride to the dinghy dock.

Majuro itself was very American, in fact it reminded me a lot of Mexico. The funny thing is that when we were in Mexico everything seemed pretty foreign since at that time we were so fresh and home was still so much in the forefront of our memories. At this point after being so many different places whose western influence did not come from the US, arriving in Majuro seemed so familiar, so much like home. But in reality, it was just the same as Mexico, it’s just that my perspective had totally changed changed. And it’s all the little details that made it feel American… USD as the currency, 110V electrical power, 8×10 paper (not that crazy A4 size), driving on the right side, pizza, good beer, coin operated laundromats, butter sold in 1/2 cup sticks, all of the American products in the supermarkets, the fact that there even were supermarkets.

The best internet among the Pacific islands is in Fiji by a long shot, but it turns out that Majuro is a surprising distant second. However, it’s only a wifi service rather than 3G digital data. So, when we were in range of a wifi hotspot we had a blazing fast connection, but we weren’t able to reach the hotspot from the boat. This means we tended to spend our afternoons in the Tide Table bar/restaurant getting our daily internet fix, while of course throwing down the cheeseburgers and beer. And as a bonus, it was air conditioned!

Provisioning in Majuro was good and bad, and here’s what I mean by that:

The good:

• Several large, air-conditioned, western style supermarkets. The first time I waked into the K&K Store I almost wept.
• Familiar American products
• Good beer, like Sierra Nevada and Stone Brewing (although very expensive)

The bad:

• Very little locally grown produce, only sad looking imported stuff
• I bought one bottle of California wine (Kendall Jackson Chardonnay) and it had gone bad and tasted like vinegar
• Lots of bugs in the dry products, especially cereal. The grocery store would refund or exchange if I brought it back, but after a few times, I just stopped buying cereal.
• No automatic doors at the supermarket. This isn’t really that much of negative, but it is kind of funny that the first time we were in K&K I must have felt very much at home after doing my shopping, because I stood by the doors waiting for them to automatically open!

Overall, provisioning in Fiji, especially Suva, was much, much better, but Majuro was a sight for sore eyes after months in Tuvalu and Kiribati.

We hadn’t seen a beer selection this good since leaving California!

The majority of our time in Majuro was dedicated to boat chores and getting Exodus listed on the market for sale. Although we were busy, I had originally had big plans to do some touristy stuff while we were somewhat settled in one place for a little while. Yeah, this never really happened. The best I can say is that one day we took the day off from school to visit the Alele museum, and it was well worth the visit, but probably not worth credit for a *whole* day of school. It’s very small, with just a couple rooms, but that meant we could look at every exhibit in much depth. Two featured bits of interesting information is the construction of the traditional sailing canoes and the aspects of traditional Marshallese navigation.

Discussing a stick navigation exhibit at the Alele Museum (Why yes, I *did* make them pose for this photo)

We ended up spending an entire month in Majuro, which was *way* too long. I wasn’t really crazy about the place, but I suppose there are worse places to be stuck for a month (like Tarawa!)

During our time there, our “northbound” fleet of boats, the group we traveled with from Tuvalu to Marshalls slowly scattered as Ariel IV headed to Micronesia and many others went off to various outer islands within The Marshalls. This represented another end of an era for us, and we forged ahead as we always do.

The hardest part was saying good-bye to True Blue V yet again, but we’ve said good-bye to them so many times by now and we always seem to end up back together, so I tried to take this in stride as well. (Spoiler alert: Of course we will see them again in Fiji in a couple months!)