N 07° 07.635
E 171° 18.610

Anemwanot is an islet on the northern side of the Majuro atoll. It is only 900 m long 125 m wide.

On the pacific ocean side there is huge reef, which extends at the SW and SE side until the next islets about 200 m away. The Pacific Ocean swell runs loudly against the “reef fortress”. On the atoll inside it has a beautiful sandy beach inviting for relaxing and swimming. Some trees are growing big branches outside over the water giving shade. A place to relax.

The island is covered with palm trees, other trees, and shrubs. Walking through the inner part of the islet reminds me to a walk in a jungle. At some places we saw that people made copra.

Beside palm trees with their coconuts, we didn’t see any other trees with edible fruits. Not even breadfruit trees are growing here. From that point of view it’s a poor islet. However, such islets and even islands are not that uncommon in the Pacific. (See also what I wrote about Butaritari just back in Kiribatis.)

It seems that less than 5 people are living permanently on Anemwanot. They commute daily by boat with an outboard motor 5-6 NM to places on the big island of the Majuro atoll.

On Sunday, a few boats came over the Anemwanot for a relaxed day and some diving (scuba and snorkeling). This, unfortunately, brought a ghetto blaster and music to the tranquil island, Luckily, it as not too noisy.

On Sunday morning I finally snorkeled, as the most important emails were written. Just beneath MaRe there is s shipwreck at 15 m. Although I dived down, I could not recognize the type of boat clearly. It seems it was once a small ferry boat.

Not far away I found the wreck of Bell (?) helicopter, which could have carried about 10 people. My thoughts was with with people who might have been on board.

A little bit to the SW from the chopper wreck, there was another wreck. I was told an airplane is down there. I expected to find an WW2 fighter plane wreck but it was a DC8. One of these famous twin-engine transport (passenger and cargo) planes. They were famous because they were robust airplanes which flew always. It was not recognizable if passengers or cargo was on boar. However, the control sticks were still remaining and the huge pedals were still good to be seen. For me, as I always was interested in planes, it was a very interesting excursion down to about 12 m or a bit more.

Later the afternoon we made our walk around the islet to learn more about it. At the end, already close to the docked tender, we sat down in the shade of hut and enjoyed watching the sun going down and talked.

Back on board, Robert from SV Morwena, the by then only other sailboat around, came over after an unsuccessful attempt to catch a fish in a school of fish he could quickly reach with his tender. Birds indicated the location of the school. We had an interesting talk about his reclusive way of sailing and his pursue of freedom.

Because he wants to got there, for repair and maintenance, I got a very interesting contact to a ship yard in Port Carmen, northern part of Cebu Island, Phlippins. Maybe I get some things done there for a fraction of the money it costs me in Japan. However, many things need to be considered.