Yesterday morning, I did maintenance work on the engines, wrote some emails and around 1400 h, when the sun was beyond the zenith, we took the tender to go ashore.

We used a different and better dinghy dock.

We started walking N.

The day before, we went from the short commercial pier and small boat harbor, where we docked our tender, in southern direction. We were invited by Cary, an American sailor living here with his wife already for many years, for the monthly dinner of the yacht club. This month in the “Island Star” restaurant on the right side of the main street in southern direction.

The yacht club dinner, a monthly gathering of the members, who are not necessarily sailors like we are, and the sailors who are in this area of the atoll. We were four foreign sailors. From UK SV Alicia with a couple on board, and Tobi and me from MaRe. The whole groupe was about 14 people.

The dinner was Chinese and reminded me already to Chinese restaurants in Tokyo.

It was a nice evening and we learned quite about a few things we need to know while being inside the atoll.

At the end of the monthly yacht club dinner, the “commodore” brought us sailors to the dinghy docks.

Now back to yesterday.

The walk down the street into the northern direction. What we saw was the same as the evening before living house, mixed with shops and small companies.

The walk down the street into the northern direction showed us again what what we saw the evening before. Living house, mixed with shops and small companies.

It’s is a fully different experience from what we saw in the other islands we visited before. The street is full of cars drying slowly. No public bus system to be seen. Sign boards at shops say “buy and save” never “buy and pay”. The USA influence can’t be overseen.

The houses are partial build of stones, partially of plywood and all have curogated metal sheet roofs. The way of building reminds to French Polynesia, except that the villages in French Polynesia are clean. Only in Papete I saw litter on the streets. Here we see a lot of “convenience litter”. Things are thrown away because that’s more convenient than putting it on a garbage bin, from where it will be collected and burned somewhere on the island.

Not many people walk on the streets. And almost no one greets when we greet them.

All kind of churches are too be seen. Getting believers seems to be a good business all over the world.

We didn’t see much mainland China influence, the Chinese population here originates from Taiwan. Cars are almost 100% from Japan and Korea.

The population seems to be mixture of Taiwanese, people from Kiribatis, Fiji, USA, Australia, New Zealand and few Europeans.

We had a look into the Marshall Islands Alele Museum. A project financed by the Australian Direct AID program. A homepage is supposed to be at “alale.org”.

The museum has simple but nicely arranged exhibits mainly from times after photography was spread over the world.

The Marshall Islands sailors had a different design of ocean going sailing vessels which looks good for sailing upwind. Their navigational instruments look simple and complex the same time. They must have understood the position of stars very well.

Tattoos are an old tradition in Polynesia and also in Micronesia. The Marshall Islands belong to the cultural area of Micronesia. It was interesting to see the tools used in days when there were no metal needles available. They utilized a linear array of 5 wooden needles cut out of a flattend piece of wood. The tattoo patterns displayed are completely different from the Polynesian patterns.

The influence of early missionaries in the clothing is very well documented in photographs. The clothes were designed according to European and US dressing codes. They didn’t fit at all into the climate of the Marshall Islands.

The 67 atomic bomb tests the USA made over 12 years between 30. Jun. 1946 and 18. Aug. 1958 on the Bikini and Enewetak atolls documented to the extend possible for that time. In terms of yield the tests ranged from 1.5 kilotons to 15 megatons, thus a factor of 10 000 is covered in the yield.

The dates also show the USA also did not care much about their own staff having to set up bombs and test equipment. They were sent in immediately to prepare the next test explosion. In one case even the same day two explosions the same day on the same atoll.

During the last phase of testing on Bikini and Enewetak they made 32 tests between 28. Apr. 1958 and 18. Aug 1958.
This means 32 tests in 111 days or in average one test in 3.5 days. The staff must have been exposed to pretty high level of radiation.

One chart shows how Marshallese moved or were moved around the atolls to get less direct radioactive radiation or radioactive fallout.

Three portraits of purple people and their statement about the atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands are:

Lijon Eknilang: “I had 7 miscarriages. If it wasn’t for what the United States had done to me and my family, my children would be growing up like others.”

Rokko Kangonbelik: “They knew what they were doing. They used us as human experiments.”

John Ajain: “A soldier told us our lives were smaller than a fingernail. They used us as guinea pigs.”

As a physicist with research years in non-military nuclear fusion, I can understand very well what happened to the US bomb testing staff and especially to the Marshallese.

You can make up your own mind.

At the end of our time ashore we went into a supermarket. Tobi wanted to buy some food stuff. The prices for fruits and vegetables were so high, the highest we ever saw on a Pacific island, that Tobi bought only the minimum needed. For me this explains the huge amount of instant ramen (cheapest noodles available) in the shelfs as a food when there is no money available and no fruits and vegetables grow in the own garden.

Back to MaRe, Tobi started working in the pantry. He worked and worked and worked. At the end he served a Christmas dinner. Oven fried chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes. As a topper he also made a nice gravy. When this was on the table I started to realize it’s Christmas eve.

As a desert we had the banana cake he baked a few days ago.

We had a long dinner with a long after dinner conversation.

When I went to bed I missed my OBM, kids and grandkids.

Merry Christmas to all.