…we had last night!

After dinner, towards the end of one of our daily talk times, it started raining and few minutes later it sounded like a real rain. This was the trigger point to shower with plenty of water just falling from the sky. I also could do my daily simply laundry. Such a nice an heavy rain just feels good on the skin. Why don’t we get such a rain every evening???

Yesterday, Tobi took off early to explore the island,

I wrote a few emails and then took off as well.

First, I walk to the Ruins of Lelu, which are just behind the ACE food store. The interesting thing was seeing the big stone blocks they use to built, what looks like a defense wall. Beside two royal tombs it was not possible for me the recognize the former dwellings.

At the end of the ruins I saw a small faint trail through higher grass and followed it the Ocean side of Lelu.

One of the first things I saw, was a concrete ruin, which looked to me like a left over from the Japanese occupation forces. Now its used to store old rusting washing machines out of function, except for one, which was obviously used.

Along the street there is a good view to the Ocean waves, which break at the outer reef. There is also a magrove lagoon. These mangroves are always good as wind and land erosion protection.

While walking towards the end of the short coastal street, I passed many houses. Kids and adults exchanged greetings with me. At one spot I saw about 5 kids sitting together wasting their time with mobile phones.

Just at this place a gentleman came talking to me. George, so his name, is the school administrator. First the standard questions as where from and where to. Then we started talking about other things. When I asked him about the cocks kids are carrying around, he explained me that cockfights is a hobby of the local kids and is not for adults. He asked two boys to show it briefly to me and they demonstrated a 2-3 min cockfight.

George is the first person I met in the South Pacific who keeps chickens for eggs. Unfortunately right now he cannot sell us eggs.

After a while he needed to go back to work and I continued my walk.

Some of the houses I saw were pretty big. Bigger than what I saw on smaller islands in the South Pacific.

When I reached the end of the street, I decided to follow the trail along the water line. At one corner I thought this is just a low-tide-trail and I am lucky it is low tide. At one of the next corners I needed to climb already to keep my feet dry. After another one or two corners, I had no other choice but walk through ankle deep water…

It was an interesting walk because I saw the pass through which I steered MaRe into the bay.to her current anchorage, from a very different perspective. The pass looks so narrow from the shore.

When I reached the first house, a pack of dogs approached me. Barking like hell. However, when they came, they came so close that I didn’t fell comfortable anymore. I tried again a trick I once learn in a TV report from a “dog whisperer”. I pointed with my open hand, fingers up, to them and made a loud “zzzssh” sound; it worked. The dogs backed up immediately but started following me again the moment I turned around to continue my way. I had to repeat my trick. After about 50 m I was either out of there territory or they gave up.

Back at the street I hitched to the church, which we can see from MaRe. Unfortunately it is closed when there is no service. So I walked to the intersection at the start of the causeway. I wanted to hitch near the airport to look around for the port authority office, which is supposed to be there.

My lift was a lady with her two daughters of 13 and 17 years. I needed to think about my grandkids and whish they were here. The family comes for Fiji and her husband works for 4 years as a public attorney. For the girls a wonderful experience in a foreign country. To my big surprise the lady did not let me get out at the end of the causeway but said she will bring me to the airport. Extremely nice of her. We talked about my wonderful experience at several Fiji islands, which they knew about. then I needed to get off and we wished each other farewell.

Just next to the place where I got off of the car, I had again an interesting conversation with a gentleman at the beginning of my walk which led me to a shipyard, set up an run by Chinese. They had an about 2500 t, most likely a ferryboat from China on the hard for refurbishing.

It looks as if they want to build a bigger shipyard, which can take several ships out on the hard, just beside each other. China takes over infrastructure or builds infrastructure, what ever it is, they control the infra-structure.

BTW, I did not see the Port Authority’s office. Where will it be?

On my way back, I had a stop-over because the people in the car, who gave me a lift reached their destination. The break was nice because I could see more on how is life in this corner of the island.

At the end I got a lift on a little truck and climbed quickly on the cargo bed enjoying the lift I got, and the view onto the houses, trees, and the ocean on my right side.

Suddenly, the truck stopped and two boys joined me with their fighting cocks on the cargo bed. Not many words, but friendly smiling faces, and the permission to take pictures of them. They got off before me.

When the driver reached the ACE Hardware Store, it was a great place for me to get off, because the tender was less than 50 m away.

As a surprise to both of us, I recognized the driver, as Jason of the port authorities, with whom I had to registered MaRe the other day. He recognized me already when I picked me up.

Accidentally Tobi also arrive just minutes before at the same place. He talked a with Smith, the hardware store manager and I joined. After a while we left to head back to MaRe.

However, we saw that the tender of the new boat in the bay, SV Amaris from Australia, was tied up to the boat. So we went there to say hello to our new neighbors. We ended up talking with Alan & Cindy over a cup of tea, until it was dark and I proposed to go home before we need candles to show us the way. They are long time cruisers and staid for a longer time in Japan with plans to sail to Alaska. For various reason they gave up this plan and sail now towards Australia. They were very lucky with the northerly wind blowing them from Pohnpei to Kosrae.

Tobi prepared dinner and I did some other small things and also rested a bit.

After dinner we had our rain showers and went to bed. It was a nice day.