Gresham Family Exodus

Tim had plans to go fishing with Ruteru (the man with the foozeball table) but plans changed because Ruteru’s niece became a woman and there was a feast to prepare for.

The tradition is that when a girl gets her first period she only eats dried coconut for three days and then at the end of the three days they have a big feast for her to eat. The man we talked to about it said that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but probably the moms feel sorry for the girls not getting to eat anything but coconut and sneak them rice from time to time. We were invited to the party, and of course we accepted the invitation, but we weren’t sure if a gift was appropriate or not. So, Tim asked someone before the party and was told that a gift of money is generally appropriate. We considered that input, but opted to go with the gifts of nail polish, lipstick, and body spray that we have.

The party was a lot of fun, and we feasted, danced, and Tim even gave a speech to the new young woman. Alex was there this time for the dancing, and like Brenden he was also a very good sport, but sadly it was too dark for any videos. Lucky Alex. The funniest part of the night was the huge group of kids hovering around us. We jokingly call the group of kids that hover around us wherever we go “Alex’s posse” and this night was about the biggest posse we’ve seen. They actually broke down the fence they were gathered by and leaning on, and once there was no fence they infiltrated us and sat close in with us in our little corner. They don’t speak much English but there was lots of repetitive high fiving, fist bumping, and of course they absolutely loved having their pictures taken.

A man came and sat with us and talked with us during most of the party and after awhile we found out that he was the new MP, the one that beat Martin in the election. His name is Tieniti (pronounced Senis) and it turns out he was one of the men I had danced with at the Protestant party on New Year’s Day. (Not on video!)

At the end of the party the hostess presented as a gift to us one of the woven mats, and I couldn’t contain my gratitude/excitement because I’ve always really been wanting one. I told the boys when we get home we aren’t going to have furniture, just a big hand woven mat in the living room, but Tim has vetoed that. I think he misses the big comfy couch. The hostess also gave us two huge pumpkins, and Tim never tired of the joke “Oh my gourd, what are you going to do with those?!” The pumpkins were almost as exciting as the mats given we had absolutely no fresh food on board. Oh, and when you think pumpkin, don’t think big round thick skinned pumpkin that you carve at halloween, think something more like a giant zuchinni. You can even eat the skin.

With the woman of honor

Alex’s posse breakin’ down the fence

Oh my gourd!

Please do not read this if you are an animal activist and/or you have a soft spot for sea turtles. The photo that follows may be disturbing for you.

When we first arrived at Martin’s house our first day in Aranuka, there were two very large turtles on shore laying on their back, presumed dead. I was a bit curious, in a dark sort of way, so I asked Martin about it, and he told us that these two are for “the feast.” I thought maybe that meant the New Year’s Day feast, but that turned out not to be the case. In hindsight I think maybe they were for an election day celebration that never happened. Anyway, Martin seemed simultaneously proud and cautious about my interest in the turtles. Proud to have such specimens ready for a feast but cautious, because he was clearly familiar with how our culture feels about sea turtles, and he was probably a bit worried of where I was going to go with it. He asked us if we’d ever eaten turtle before, and he seemed a bit relieved when I replied positively that we had tasted turtle soup in Grand Cayman.

So sad for these guys

In addition to these two big guys, there was also a smaller turtle that they slaughtered that day, and Martin gave us some of the fresh turtle meat to try. We had mixed feelings about it, given that sea turtles are endangered and all. Although we were trying not to judge them for their approach at obtaining food and living, we weren’t exactly comfortable with following the “when in Rome..” philosophy in this case. In the end, though, we took the meat and I cooked it up and we had turtle tacos for lunch. We decided that since the turtle was slaughtered already, it would be better to honor the turtle by eating it than just throwing it out. All of us except Brenden. He was a conscientious objector and refused to eat any of it. In fact, for weeks after if I cooked chicken or pork he would double check that I wasn’t trying to sneak turtle on him.

The meat was tasty, and I can see why the people like it as an alternative to all the fish they eat, since it was much more like chicken than seafood.

But the story gets a little worse. A couple days later we were back at Martin’s house and the two large turtles were still lying there on their backs. At first, I was a bit grossed out thinking they must be rotting by now and hoping no one ends up getting really sick. But then I was startled to the point that I jumped a little when one of the turtles moved its head and one of its flippers. Holy crap, they are still alive! Of course, it makes sense, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. It’s not like there is refrigeration to store the meat, so they keep the animals alive until they are ready to eat them, and we learned that they can keep the turtles like this for up to a month.

Like I told Brenden, it takes a certain level of affluence to be able to consider animal rights on the same level as your need to eat. And before you judge these people, I’d like to point out that this is a small village feeding themselves, and the turtle population in and around Aranuka is quite large.

Brenden stood firm on his principles about the turtle, though, and I was proud of him for that.

We had accepted the dinner invitation from Keekee, but there was a lot of confusion about what day it was going to be. And one morning we had a boat full of guys come visit us on Exodus with a message from Keekee to come to dinner that night at 6:00. After we checked our social calendar for the evening, we agreed that would be great.

We went to shore and we were right on time, but Keekee was no where to be found. We met some new people on shore, including two Mormon missionaries: one from Utah and one from Australia. So, apparently in addition to Protestant and Catholic churches there is also a very small Mormon population on the island. The one from Utah had just arrived recently but the one from Australia had been there awhile and spoke pretty fluent Kiribati, so he was able to translate for us with some people. It was election night, and being part of the town council Keekee had responsibilities. She was still in the other village where they had gone to collect the ballot box. No worries, we hung around for awhile.

Eventually Keekee came back, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned yet that she’s in a wheelchair, which is a challenging condition considering it’s all dirt roads, and you can forget about wheelchair ramps. But she seems to do OK.

She took us to her house and directed us to a small fale where we lounged around for a while she went off to presumably prepare a few things. Then she came back and told us she would be doing things for the election that night, and her husband would be with us for dinner and if we wanted, we could come down to the election afterwards. Soon they brought out a very impressive, and I am not exaggerating when I say impressive, spread for us for dinner. And similar to Fiji, the custom seems to be that guests eat while hosts watch. The spread was plentiful, but the memorable parts were a big bowl of bananas, sodas and juice, and four huge lobsters. This was an amazing feast that they were sharing with us, almost to the point of being a little embarrassing. Keekee’s husband’s name is Koae, and he didn’t speak much English, so the conversation was a bit sparse. At that point our Kiribati vocabulary was pretty much just the three standard words: mauri – hello, korapa – thank you, and tiabo (pronouned sa-bo) – good-bye. So, we passed the time with Koae learning new Kiribati words, and these are the notes I took:

• moimoto – drinking coconut
• koara – house
• maruruna – I’m very well thank you
• teraoi – you’re welcome
• tebwaukin – pumpkin
• karau – rain
• kiakia – small house with raised floor (i.e., fale)
• tenewe – lobster

The parliamentary election was happening while we were in Aranuka, and our friend Martin was up for reelection. Prior to our arrival had been the first round of voting, and Martin had made it through to the final round along with two other men.

The final round of voting happened while we were there, and it’s the kind of thing the whole island turns out to watch. They had a chalkboard set up to tally the votes keeping track of how many votes from each village for each candidate. (There are actually three villages in Aranuka.) One person pulled a paper ballot out of the box and read the name, then the ballot was passed through the hands of three people for inspection and validation, I presume, and then another person marked a tally mark on the chalkboard. This whole process took a couple hours, so the people sat around in circles with their friends and families, sometimes just hanging out, sometimes playing this game that used a bunch of rocks. We were curious about the game so Tim sat down with a bunch of kids and asked if they would teach him to play. They thought that was so funny! He sat with them for a while, and I’m not sure he ever actually learned the game, but he kept the kids entertained for a while.

When we arrived our friend Martin had a comfortable lead. And we learned that his name was actually pronounced “Ma-sin.” Of course! In Kiribati the letter combination “t-i” makes an “s” sound, but he westernizes his name for the likes of us. When they got to counting the votes of the third village, Martin took a beating in the tallies, and we had our jaws on the floor when the final count came out and he was very narrowly unseated! It turns out that third village is the home village of the winning candidate, which is why he overwhelmingly got their votes. As soon as the winner was announced, we were approached by a woman who told us she was the new MP’s wife, and we were invited to a celebration party at their house. Ordinarily we don’t turn things like this down, but we were tired, and the wind was still blowing pretty strong, so we wanted to get back to Exodus. It ended up being a very wet dinghy ride upwind.

The night before the election, we had hosted Martin and his family on Exodus for dinner, we had let him decide which night would be good for him, but in hindsight, we would feel really bad if spending time with us instead of doing more last minute campaigning in the village had cost him. We’ll never know, though.

Brenden with Martin’s daughters: Reitene (age 11) and Teue (age 13)

As mentioned earlier, we arrived at Aranuka on New Year’s Day and we were immediately invited to shore by Martin, Aranuka’s MP, to see his house, tour the village, and see some traditional dancing. As we were walking around the village, A man called Martin over, and then Martin called us over and introduced us. It turns out the man was the minister of the protestant church, and he wanted to invite us to his church’s celebration that day for lunch and to see some dancing. We were all for it but then after we walked away Martin explained that there’s also a Catholic Church and they will also have dancing. After further conversation and a little prodding, we found out that Martin belongs to the Catholic church, so that was likely where he was planning to take us before we got invited by the Protestant minister. We asked Martin for advice on what we should do and he was very diplomatic, saying we should do what we feel we want to do, so in the end we decided to try to attend both.

First up was the Protestant feast, and Martin loaned Tim a sulu so he would be dressed respectably for the occasion. When we arrived they treated us like special guests and even gave us wreaths to wear on our heads. Then they let us eat with the first wave, with all the respected elders of the group.

Enjoying New Year’s Day in Aranuka

After lunch the dancing started, and it was a combination of traditional dances, hip hop, and some dances which were interesting blends. The music was so loud I could hardly stand it. It certainly wasn’t like any church party I had ever been to before. But the fun really started when they invited us up to dance. There really are no words to describe this, so you have to watch the video:

If you watched the video you’ll notice at the end that I was also asked up to dance, and I am grateful that the video clip ends there. However, you better believe that it was captured by many of the local smart phones. After, Martin told us that the people didn’t think that white people could dance, so they wanted to see if it was true. He told us that he was telling them something like, “where do you think this kind of dancing started?” He also told us that we seemed to have done OK. I’m glad he told us this, because you would never have known by how much everyone was laughing.

Being a politician, Martin helped us graciously extract ourselves from the Protestant party so we could go hang out with the Catholics. The vibe at the Catholic party was also light and fun, and they also had a mixture of traditional and hip-hop. When we first arrived, it was in the middle of a performance and we kind of lingered in the back, but then we were quickly summoned up to the front to sit up with the priest. This just happened to be right in front of the speakers, so our ears continued to take a beating. And it turns out that our time in the spotlight wasn’t quite over, because apparently the Catholics also wanted to see how well the white people can dance. Check that video out.

If you watched the videos, you’ll have noticed what a good sport Brenden was through all of this, and you’ll also notice that Alex was no where to be found. It turns out that Alex was sick that day with a fever and sore throat and stayed behind on Exodus. After hearing our stories and watching the videos, you better believe he has never been happier to be sick.

I cannot overstate how much fun we had this day, and it set the tone for the rest of our visit to Aranuka.

However, we were a little bit at a loss about what to do when Sunday rolled around. We typically like to go to the local church, but in this case we weren’t sure which one to go to, and we didn’t want to pick a side or play favorites. So, on Sunday morning we just slept in.

The Catholic Church in Aranuka

So, it turns out we aren’t quite pioneers. When we arrived we inquired about other visiting yachts, and apparently a single hander had just left. But they don’t get many boats; they don’t even get one per year, so I think when all is said and done this just might be the most remote place we’ve visited. And we loved it.

After navigating through the pass and anchoring near the main village, we were immediately visited by a local fishing boat (small fiberglass skiff, in Mexico we would call it a panga). On board was a man called Martin who spoke very good English, and we soon learned that he was the sitting MP (Member of Parliament) for Aranuka. He stopped by to welcome us and to invite us to shore to his house and then to watch some dancing at a New Year’s Day celebration. We quickly accepted, and when we pulled the dinghy up to his house, we sat around relaxing, drinking coconut water and talking; and we also met Martin’s wife Tamere. There was a group of men drinking kava, so we asked about it having just come from Fiji and all. Apparently, they love to drink kava there, but they don’t grow it, rather they purchase the powder in a bag in Tarawa. We told Martin we still had some dried Yaqona from Fiji on board, and we’d love to give him some, but he said they don’t have the tools to grind it. That’s why they buy the powder. Too bad. (Spoiler alert: we will end up carrying that bundle of Yaqona all the way up to Marshalls and back, but it won’t quite find its way back to Fiji.)

Drinking kava in Aranuka

Then Martin took us on a tour of the village. We met many people that day and felt very welcome in the village. We were invited to not one, but two New Year’s Day church celebrations (more about that to follow) and overall it was a fantastic day, although Brenden did spend some time in the jail. Alex didn’t go with us to shore that day, because he was sick with a sore throat and a fever.

The jail clearly doesn’t get used very often

In fact, our entire 10 day stay in Aranuka was pretty fantastic. The people there were very welcoming and very generous, although the kids were a bit shy.

The next day we went to shore in search of internet, onions, and any sort of fresh vegetable we could find. First, we found the onions at one of the little shops, well, that was easy. Next up we started asking people about how to get internet, and we were eventually directed to the government building, where we asked some more people, and we were eventually guided to a woman named Keekee. Keekee is the treasurer for the town council, and she matter of factly told us that the internet isn’t working because they haven’t paid the bill. OK, well at least we got to the bottom of it relatively quickly and didn’t spend more time trying to figure it out. Keekee was very nice, and when we asked her if she knew anyone we could buy some vegetables from, like a pumpkin or anything, she turned to a man nearby and spoke to him in Kiribati, and he was off. He soon came back with half a pumpkin that was from Keekee’s house, possibly to be used for her own dinner that night. We accepted it graciously, but when we asked if we could pay her for it, she insisted on no, and would we like to come to her house for dinner. Of course, we accepted.

The next evening Tim and Brenden went to shore (Alex still didn’t feel very well) and they made friends with a man named Ruteru who had just had a foozeball table delivered from Tarawa, and they had a fun evening playing and hanging out. Tim also made a friend who picked him up the next day in his tiny outrigger sailing canoe to do some fishing. They had a great time, but sadly, no fish.

Tim had a great morning out on the water

Ever vigilant about the volatility of the weather forecasts near the equator, on our way across the lagoon we scouted a potential spot to anchor on the other side where we would have some protection should a westerly kick up. And a few days into our stay we had a whopper of a westerly, which was totally un-forecast. It blew up to 43 kts for a little over a day, however, we didn’t have to move after all. There was just a hint of north in the westerly, so we didn’t have much fetch at our location tucked up near the village. We just hunkered down on the boat and filled our water tank and jerry cans from the torrential downpour that accompanied the wind.

As the days started to tick away in Aranuka, we (OK mostly me) grew concerned about our ability to get back up to Tarawa before our 10 days were up, but more importantly, before our 1 month Kirbati visas were up. The forecast was for NW winds and since NW was the exact direction we needed to go, this made things very difficult. I even went so far as to email the immigration office back in Tarawa and explain our situation. They surprised the hell out of me by actually responding, but then they didn’t surprise me by being vague about what would be the consequences if we came back to Tarawa after our visas expired. Our friend Martin told us he’d be willing to help us if needed and that he’d be back in Tarawa around the same time. Luckily, in the end we were able to depart Aranuka in order to get back to Tarawa in time.

We were there exactly 10 days, and we easily could have stayed for a couple more weeks and had a lot more fun.

When Lahnee found out that Tim and I are aerospace engineers (aka “rocket scientists”), she was floored and amused herself by calling us that over the radio. Soon, she added “pioneering” to the nickname, and here’s pretty much why:

A first for us…we went to Anranuka and entered the lagoon without ANY prior cruiser intel… no tracks, no waypoints, no depth/current information… nothing. We didn’t even have nautical charts… the island of Aranuka, must not have been important during WWII because unlike Tarawa and Abemama it’s completely uncharted. All we had was a somewhat cloudy satellite image and the fact the someone once heard from someone in Majuro that you could get a boat in there. From the Soggy Paws Compendium about Aranuka: “We didn’t stop here, but I was told in Majuro that you could get inside the Arunka Lagoon. Google Earth seems to support this. If you try this, you’ll be a pioneer!”

When we arrived in the afternoon, it was about low slack water, and before going through with Exodus, we dropped the dinghy and Tim and Alex scouted the pass to check for depth and current. All of the depth readings they took were deep enough for Exodus, but it was still very shallow, and the pass is full of little bombies, so it’s difficult to know if they sounded the shallowest parts. In the end we made the difficult decision to anchor for the night on the outside of the lagoon and enter in the morning at high slack water in order to give us a few more feet of depth.

We entered the pass the next morning about 10 minutes before the listed high tide (+4.5 ft), and coming in the pass, and all the way across the lagoon for that matter, we navigated by eyeball. Tim was at the helm, I was on the top deck, and Alex and Brenden were each on one of the bows and everyone’s job was to look for shallow coral heads. This was harder than you might think because 1) there was about 15 kts of wind on the nose and the small wind chop made it hard to see into the water, and 2) we were basically going over a sea of coral heads at 10-15 ft deep and we were trying to spot any tiny pinnacles that might stick up shallower than our draft, which is 4 feet. Tim says it was a piece of cake, but I found it quite stressful… no surprise given our personalities. The shallowest depth we measured was 8.5 feet and that was at the very inside of the pass.

Satellite image of Aranuka

We departed Abemama in the morning on New Year’s Eve and had an easy, uneventful day sail to the nearby atoll of Aranuka. For reasons discussed in the following section, we decided to spend the night anchored on the outside of the atoll. Immediately after dropping anchor Brenden was in the water with his speargun, but unfortunately, he came back empty handed. Brenden is a very accomplished spearfisherman and a strong diver and swimmer, but I couldn’t help but keep one eye on him the whole time he was in the water by himself. I guess that’s just what moms do.

There was huge long period swell coming at us from the south, so it was a somewhat uncomfortable night out there. Tim tried to make up for it by looking for lobster, but no luck. He only saw one, and it got away.

For me, other than the fact that we were anchored on the outside of a remote atoll in the Pacific, this was a pretty unmemorable New Year’s Eve. I went to bed early to be well rested for our approach into the lagoon the next day. Tim and Brenden made a party of it though: they ran around the deck naked at midnight!

Sorry, no photos.

When we were still in Fiji, we heard from our friends on Nautilus about a boat called Mariposa, which has a dentist on board who does free dental work for the people of the islands. While in Abemama we saw “Mariposa” on AIS, gave them a call on VHF, and sure enough it was the same Mariposa we had heard about, the floating dental clinic.

Because of the service provided, Mariposa was able to obtain permission to stop at islands in Kiribati on his way up to Tarawa, prior to clearing in, and that’s how we came to cross paths in Abemama. He usually sets up a day long clinic where he sees as many patients as he can. He has equipped his boat with a dental chair, and he spends his own money on all of the tools and supplies that are needed (and this is certainly not cheap). He prioritizes his time and insists that he only sees patients with pain, nothing cosmetic. We were looking forward to playing dental assistants when he did the clinic in Abemama, but the weather kept delaying the effort, and soon enough we were off to Aranuka. (Spoiler alert: we will see each other again in Ailuk, RMI, and Brenden will get to learn how to pull a tooth.)