N 01° 32.651
E 172° 51.741

The sail back to Tarawa is not yet completed. We’ll reach the pass’ entry at around 1600-1700 h.

During the night the wind was not to strong but shifted often between 80 and 100 deg. This required wind vane angle adjustments and decision on how much offset we need to make it to the WPT at the NW corner of Abaiang. We could make this pretty well.

Thereafter we were lucky with wind. It shifted almost only between 85 and 90 deg. This allowed us to sail with a wind vane angle of 45-50 deg directly to the WPT on the leading line into the atoll.

Just after 1200 a rather big marlin liked Tobi’s lure too much. I had to heave-to. Tobi had to fight very hard. Unfortunately the marlin wanted to inspect MaRe from all sides so the rod needed to be moved around MaRe. At the end the line went around the PRT propeller where finally broke. Marlin gone, lure gone and I needed to dive at the prop to see if there is a piece of fishing line around the shaft. This will damage the shaft seals. I didn’t see a piece of line and so I have to keep fingers crossed that there is not a short piece wrapped around the shift which I could not see.

Towards Tarawa we lost am hour to sail in at daylight. However, MaRe seems to understand and runs at close hauled course of 43 deg wind depending often almost more than 6 KN. As it’s looks now, we’ll be able to go inside the atoll.

Two days ago, we went ashore after the morning rain clouds got empty. We took the tender to the pier like structure which turned out to be a good dinghy dock when using a stern anchor.

We walked the street in NE direction. The sand/gravel road was hot because the shade of trees is missing. They were removed when building a wide road not really needed.

It is obvious that on this island there are more stone built houses than on other islands. I think, I saw the reason. A Chinese factory for such stones. These houses change the appearance of the island a lot. At one house I got t
he impression of a small house in Europe. A car in front of it and a lady clearing the yard of dry leaves. Later we had the chance to talk to a local guy and asked about these houses and he mentioned that there are more mosquitoes in such houses. A draw back I’m seeing is maintenance. Once the houses are getting a few years old they will show strong traces of usage and the people will need funds, materials and understanding to maintain these houses. I saw already a few of such houses with partially broken jalousie windows. From all my conversations about supply ships and supply to these islands I can see that it takes six month to a year to get things needed for repair. Most likely they might not even available on Tarawa. So they needed to be order abroad. But where? The learning process towards the technology future might be a long and not easy one. It might be easy for me to question the value of a future with a lot of technical things around one but what I saw along my looong sail, let me think that the simple life on a small island might not be bad.

With the palm-thatched houses it will be different because the roof needs to be replaced about every 5 year. The material is available in abundance and everyone knows the work to be done and the community helps everyone.

The street was every 100 m, left and right side, decorated with flags of “China Railway First Group”. The company, which runs the factory for the stones for the houses and the building of the street. We learned that the street project is financed by Kiribati, but China made the best offer for the street construction.

On the way back we greeted a family while walking by. The man invited us to come to them; so we did.

We sat with him in the shade of the palm-thatched hut of his ant. The temperature is very pleasant there. His aunt, wife, and two young people also were there. Although the two ladies commented once in a while to our conversation, they were not include into the conversation.

He spoke excellent English and lived in several European countries for professional reasons. To the Butaritari atoll he came, because of his aunt and wife, who lived there before. Until June this year, he lived on Tarawa. It really seems he enjoys his island life much more.

One of the things he explained was the understanding of time. Life on the island is not driven by the time one sees on a time piece but by the needs. There is e.g. the time to go fishing.

They live in the normal open palm-thatched houses with a special palm-thatched hut, which serves as an open fire kitchen. The burning material are coconuts husks of which they plenty. This, because they make copra and that brings them 4 AUD per kilogram.

Water, which they need to boil before drinking it, they get from a well. It’s solar power pumped up into tank of about 1-2 m3, at a height of 3-4 m. The gravity caused pressure supplies a few water taps and the shower.

The first stone building he wants to make is a toilet and a shower. His privacy requirements.

Collection of rain water is possible on this island but it requires corrugated sheet metal roofs and rather big tank of around 10 m3.

From him we also learned about an island council initiated regulation. Every family needs to grow a certain number of types of plants, which includes fruits and vegetables. This program ensures that every family has food. Beside this, close to all houses have their pigs, which will be turned into pork when the time for it arrives.

Beside this, there is the lagoon and the ocean side of the atoll with plenty of fish, shells, and seaweed.

As the people on the islands are a sharing community, they will also share their produce with each other there is always plenty of food available. In the conversation it was emphasized that people don’t barter, but only share.

While talking with him, we got 2 drinking coconuts, which a young fellow, who belongs somehow to the same wide range of family members, took out of the husk. We got them opened and enjoy the taste and freshness of the coconuts water inside. When the coconuts water was gone, we got them cracked open to eat the young and soft flesh. This is just a delicacy!

Tobi wanted to get coconuts for his cooking and got four coconuts with the husk removed. He paid 4 AUD for them. The price we heard before – a coconut a dollar. They wanted to give them as a presents, but we insisted on paying.

From him we also learned about an event the next day. Hoping to see him again, we said goodbye and went back to MaRe where we started cleaning her hulls for our sail back to Tarawa and then to Majuro.

Because we experienced so many things in Butaritari I need too write again catching-ups.

Yesterday and today we cleaned the hulls and then took off for Tarawa. There we do outbound clearance and head of for Majuro, our closest Port of Entry for the Marshall Islands.

N 03° 04.535
E 172° 46.721

It was raining in the morning cats and dogs. I had to do PC work and forgot to close the hatch on my cabine. When I discovered it, a four-letter word escaped several times my mouth.

We wanted to go ashore but the train continued, and continued. I made a last attempt to make yogurt. The last time it stayed mostly liquid. Ẁhen Tobi was about making something for lunch, the rain stopped and we went ashore.

I saw on the map a structure looking like a pier so I went closer to the shore to see possible places to dock the tender. We found one with a wall built of coral pieces went closer and asked the people of we can dock our tender. When the people understood what we want, we got immediately with smiling faces their go-ahead. We tied it up on the lee-ward side of the wall and used a stern anchor. With friendly words we thanked them and took off to the police station for which the gentleman gave as directions.

The first surprise was the street. A brand-new concrete street. “How long will it be? ‘, was the question which went immediately through my mind and, “Who pays for maintenance and repair in a few years from now? ”
The second surprise was the green of the island. Plenty of banana trees grow on this island. Also their are more and bigger breadfruit trees. Taro, tapioka, pumpkins and papaya trees we saw. How different this island is from Abaiang just 100 NM south of Butaritari.

The third surprise were the properties with fences. Most often just plants, which looks natural. Inside the properties it was clean. Along the street unfortunately the garbage of imported products was scattered.

Before we reach the police station the concrete street ended and it continued as the sand/gravel street we saw on Tarawa and Abaiang.

Along the street, we asked a lady for the police station. She pointed to an open door. We looked inside and it was clear that this was a former prison. “This can’t be the police station we need!”, I tought. The answer came by immediately from the other end of the building in the shape of a female police officer. Surprisingly not in uniform but a simple white T-shirt. It was a bit a bizarre situation standing with her; in high, uncut weeds talking to a police officer nearby her office. But that’s Butaritari.

She spoke pretty good English and I explained, I want to handover the permits for Butaritari. She took both of them.

When we asked where we could get bananas, she pointed to side street diagonally across the street from where we stood. “Inside there’, she explained, ‘Their are many banana trees”. We thanked her and and will go there on our way back.

We continued walking the street, greeting people with, “Mauri” and received a “Mauri, mauri”.

Palm-thatched huts are the main housing objects. They just fit best into the climate because the air can just flow through making it cool. The main “house” the “bata” is used for eating, socializing, resting and sleeping and normaler covered with mats woven from palmtree leaves.
Small huts are used for cooking utensils etc. The roofs need to be replaced every few years. Leaves rot.

We then saw the pier like structure, I identified on the sea chart and we went to have a closer look. It was a man made structure with a concrete wall on the NE side which continued with sandbags filled with sand and cement. The bags rot away and concrete wall remains. It’s a technique i saw often on Pacific islands. The other side is made of larger pieces of corals and it between is filled with corals and sand. The hole construction is built on top of a coral reef. For the supply boats’ landing, it has slanting part.

At the head of the pier there are also huts for a family, as well as a maneaba for the community. This maneaba has a concrete floor, no palmtree leave mats but natural stones as supporting columns, which carry the huge palm-thatched roof. The roof is completely built without nails or screws. All is tied up with some 4 mm thick lines made from coconuts husk. Simple and functioning since hundred of years.

When passing we greeted the men sitting under the big roof of the maneaba and received the “Mauri, mauri”.

We looked at the head of the pier to see how we could tie up our tender there. On the way back, we went closer to the maneaba and were asked to come under it’s roof.

There was one gentleman who speaks English. We had an interesting conversation with him and learned that he has a small family with only four children. Most families have 5 or 6 and up to 8 children.

He trank cold tea whereas the other men drank kava. “Until they fall down” , our conversation partner said.

On the meantime dark clouds didn’t just drift over the atoll but brought winds of 6 Bft and a lot of rain. MaRe, we saw her from the distance hold on to her anchor. The SuperWind turbine all the energy consumed during half a day. Thus we sadeliveredw when we returned to MaRe and the charge status of the service batteries where the same as when we left.

When the rain got closer to zero, we started walking back.

At the only eatery of the
village Tobi had the idea to have a late lunch there. Fish or chicken with rice where the options. We chose fish. It was tuna fried with soy sauce. The taste was not bad, the result was bad. On the way back to MaRe, Tobi’s face turned red and his body temperature went up. I had nothing until I was and suddenly urgently needed to visit the toilet. A big explosion and I was rid of the meal. So we knew what happened to us. Tobi asked ChatGPT and the AI confirmed our symptoms and the cause.

After the late lunch we went to the area whet where there are plenty of bananas. There were indeed plenty of banana plants. A banana jungle. The second men we asked said he has bananas and walked into TN jungle. After a few minutes he found one and another man cut a bunch. We got a bunch bananas and the men got AUD 45.-, about EUR 25.- About 150 bananas to eat.

We reached the place where we tied up the tender, but it was not there. The friendly gentleman tied it up on a pole in deeper water and brought it back für us to the wall. We thanked him again and took off to MaRe.

There we first tied the banana bunch on a line and the Tobi hung it in the sea for a while got rid off all the insects. Later we tied it up in a very special way.

Tuesday we did some fixes for Lisa & Nick.

Tobi tried his best with the motorbike and I worked on illumination stuff.

In the evening another pleasant dinner with Lisa & Nick until commander “tide” ordered us to go home.

Manon and Stef left this morning early for Tarawa to make outbound clearance. They planned to sail via Micronesia to Okinawa. The chance that we meet again on Japan is pretty good.

On Wednesday, we wanted to take the bicycles and explore the island. Lisa & Nick had invited us to even have breakfast with them. But, there is always a but.

I was up already just before 0700. When I had my first look up to the sky, I saw some big black nimbus clouds sneaking very low over the western small strip of land. As such clouds often pass above us, I assumed the same for these ones. There are no mountains where they can bump on and spill the water down on us. About 10 min later my assumption proofed wrong.

It did not rain on us, it poured down on us. The visibility became quickly very limited. The wind increased a bit. I just enjoyed the atmosphere of such a dense rain on the Abaiang Atoll.

We collected rainwater and got about 50 l in a very short time.

Such a warm and heavy rain I want to have every evening to get a prefect rain shower. But in the evening there is no rain shower, only our 1-l-plastic-bottle shower, to which we got used to.

Waiting until it stopped looked like the best. 2-3 times it looked as if it would stop but then it came back.

We decided to go in swimming pants ashore and carry clothes, towel, and other things in a water tight bag.

After we waited for another while, we emptied the tender. Quite some rainwater was collected inside.

Finally we took the tender to the beach. It still continued raining.

We had a late breakfast with Lisa & Nick. Nick wanted to make bacon and eggs. A homage to a European breakfast. Board baked bread we brought already during the previous days.

As the rain didn’t show signs to stop, breakfast got longer and longer. Topics to talk about, we always had more than enough.

As they offered us to use there washing machine Tobi filled in our laundry and the machine did a good job.

With that much rain, the many and big puddles were filled with water. So doing our planned bicycle tour got out of discussion. Instead,we did a few more jobs to help Lisa and Nick. Parallel I worked on Joplin problem I had on my mobile phone. I used Claude AI as a source of information and it worked pretty well.

The day ended like all others before with a very enjoyable dinner for four until the commander “tide” told us….

N 03° 04.516
E 172° 46.719

Sailing with the gennaker up to the NW corner of Abaiang was extremly pleasant. Almost no waves and a good wind . I would have liked to sail like this until Butaritari. However, at the NW corner of Abaiang, course needed to be changed too 000, full N.

As the weather forecasts of ECMWF and GFS were the same, I could assume the wind follows the forecast. So I decided to not sail directly to N but sail with the wind vane mode 45 deg upwind. This because during the night the wind was forecasted to turn up to NW. It showed that my decision was prefect. (You were lucky dear skipper! ) in the morning we reached the SW corner WPT without needing to tack. As we had to wait several hours to go through the pass and through the atoll, I decided to sail very slowly along the coast line, which is the western reef, to the most northern point of Butaritari. There we took the main down and sailed as slow as possible with only a deeply reefed genoa back to the entrance. We made it just in time and started going through the pass at 1300. This was high tide and the sun was already on our back. So, ideal conditions.

On the chart plotter I used for the pass mainly coordinates of another sailor plus coordinates decided on peculiarities of the Navionics chart. The chart matched pretty well with satellite images. Tobi on the cockpit roof and I’m at helm we started to sail along the leading line.

However, although it was high tide, the current inside the pass was horrible. Sometimes I steered to STB while MaRe was still turning to PRT. It was a tiring time. With Tobi looking for the right way through the reefs and shallow parts I had to fully concentrate on the steering. Once inside it got better but tension continued until the hook was in the sand.

Now, we are at anchor, and in the Garmin tracking site our anchoring position is to be seen.

For the rest of the day we take it easy and tomorrow we go ashore. First to the police station and then stroll around and look at the island.

Again a “Catching up’, because in the evenings I’m too tired to write my naration about the same day.

Additionally, I had a problem with my Joplin app in which I’m writing my narrations before I upload them into the PredictWind Offshore App. This, I do for two reasons. First I have a backup of all my narrations, and second writing in the PredictWind Offshore App is pretty cumbersome.

On Monday, we spent again a long day ashore.

We got bicycles from Nick and Lisa to drive the 2 km to the police station to submit our permit.

The ride along the sand/gravel road was kind of exotic. The road is like an allee with palm- and other trees, and bushes on both sides. But then suddenly we saw the village with its simple, palmtree leaves covered roofs and mostly open structures. A closed area is only needed for privacy. However, what kind of privacy do people want? For sleeping in the climate here, 1 deg north of the equator, one only needs a roof for rain protection. Cooking is often done on open fire. There is also no need to prepare a meal exactly until 1200. Time has a big elasticity. People greeting very friendly and kids come running towards us wanting to make a high five or fist bump or just show a thumb up.

I asked a girl of maybe 14 years for the police station. She made a bright and open minded impression on me. However, unfortunately, she could not answer my question.

When I’m thinking about my experience on other Pacific islands, where English is taught as a foreign language, I get the impression that teachers and lessons are not enough.

According to what I heard and cross checked with Claude AI
The school year starts in February and ends about in November. This means that two month are nonstop off and there are additional vacations during the year, so about 3 month per year are off. For my feeling that’s a bit too long because I think that education is the most important matter for children around the world.

A bit further on I asked a young man about the police station. He signaled me to follow him and around the corner was the police station.

I gave the friendly officer our documents, and to my surprise she returned the documents from customs due which we had to walk quite some kilometers. Now we are officially registered in Abaiang Atoll.

We saw a street going towards the ocean-facing side of Abaiang Atoll. Locally it seems to be called just “ocean side”.
However, the street ended at private property. We asked for permission to cross and got a very friendly positive reply.

The atmosphere on the outer side of the atoll is completely different from the lagoon side. It’s to be heard already when coming closer to the beach. The 2-3 m high swell from the Pacific Ocean hits the outer reef, about 300 m away from the beach, with thunder, warning people not to mess with it. Looking along the beach to its far ends the high sky content on the air created a mystical impression. Fascinating ocean.

As we are running very short on garlic, we stopped at the 2 little shops. “Sold out!”, were the answer we got. For curiosity I asked for the arrival of the next supply boat. It’s completely unknown. Supply ships arrive when they want to arrive. It’s not like in French Polynesia where supply ships have a fixed schedule.

With a new impression on the village of Tebero we arrived back at Nick and Lisa’s place.

Then Lisa, took us to the beach for collecting clams. Equipped with big stainless steel bowl with an about 2-3 m long line attached to it for dragging it along, we went into the water. Lisa immediately in the sand clams where I saw nothing. Then she showed us how to float with whole body in the water and search with our fingers in the sand. This was my method! Quickly I started finding plenty of clams in the sand. Sometimes I got stung on my fingers. This was from a white shell with plenty of thin spins on the outer side to protect it. The stinging sensation disappeared quickly and I continued harvesting clams on the sand.

At the end we had plenty of clams for a dinner for 6 people and still more for another day.

After the right amount of clams was boiled, it was Nick who made and excellent clams salad.

At end we all, Lisa & Nick, Manon & Stef, and Tobi and me had again a wonderful dinner time until “commander tide” told us to return to our boats.

This morning we had to bid farewell to Lisa & Nick this morning and then prepared for departure to Butaritari. We could have stayed with the wonderful friends for more days but the weather window is good only today or on Monday or Tuesday. Too late for our sailing plans.

As I had a synch-problem with Joplin, there are a few narrations not yet written. They will become “catching up” narrations.

Here only a short note on the actual situation.

After we were out of the pass, we set the gennaker. AWA of 130 deg STB and a TWS of 8-9 KN makes sailing with the gennaker very comfortable. The track mode of the autopilot keeps is fine on course and the TWD is very stable from E.

N 01° 48.150
E 173° 01.616

Yesterday we finally went ashore.

First we stopped at our new neighbor boat, the Dutch SV “Long John Silver” of Stef and Manon. They are sailing since years and – only seen from our tender – they have a very sturdy aluminum boat. We could have talked with them for days but wanted to see something of the island. They recommend to leave the tender just at anchor and approach the shore on the right side of the house of the Swiss-Kiribati couple we saw 500 m away at the shore.

We approached it that way with the outboard motor in normal position for about 200 m. Then I had to tilt it because the water got pretty shallow but still deep enough. The seabed was just sand. No coral heads, no rocks, not even big stones. We continued for another about 200 m like that.

At about 0200 (direction seen from the tender) we saw a lady a walking in about knee deep water collecting something from the sandy sea bottom. I was not afraid to run aground because of the sandy seabed.

And then we did at very slow speed. It was still 100 m away from the dry sandy beach. As we were already past low tide, it was my plan to pull the dinghy towards the shore as long as it was floating. We stepped out into the water, which was less than knee deep. With about 150 kg less weight, MaRe’s tender floated and we walked on the very fine sand the tender between us, towards the beach for another about a bit more than 60 m than it ran aground again. That’s the closest we could get the tender to the shore.

To anchor the tender, I extended the bow line by another 10 m line, which I attached to my sandy-beach-anchore. This very long anchor line made a very shallow angle to keep the anchor in the sand even if we get a strong offshore wind.

Then we walked the last part to the beach and arrived about 10 m to the right of the Swiss-Kiribati couple’s house who must have seen us coming. The Swiss gentleman came already towards us to the beach and welcome Tobi and me. Short introduction to each other and Nick brought us on the large veranda at the sea side of their house, 3 m above the beach. Nick, made the introduction of us and his wife Lisa, who speaks pretty good German and was born on Abaiang.

They met in Switzerland where Lisa lived for 23 years. If I’m not wrong, they moved 8 years ago into this house, which they got built on a ground which was cleared up for building on it.

The kitchen and some other things they got shipped from Europe. They created their place in paradise!

We got delicious a cold milk coffee and talked about all the things people talk about when they meet the first time in such paradise place.

Life in this paradise is not easy. One can’t just go into a shop and buy what is needed or wanted. All must be planned and organized. Some things can be bought in Tarawa others need to shipped from abroad. Deliveries can take month without firm dates. However, the life here doesn’t require so many things, people need or think they need while they live in places like Europe or Japan. Nick and Lisa grow a some vegetables and papaya trees. The air is so clean that they can drink the rainwater collected in a big tank behind the house. They also have a well, whose water they use for showers and toilets.

Their life with their well educated dog Yoda, a puppy and a kitten is very relaxed and driven only by the daily needs of food and drinks. Entertainment comes from sailors, who are always welcome at their place, friends and family members who visit them, and guests staying in the two small lodges in the part of the property on the other side of the sandy road with almost zero traffic. I’m sure they also have a social life with locals on the island, because Lisa comes from here.

They have a Starlink connection, which gives the access to the internet and so a good connection with family and friends around the world. I also saw a big TV screen but it was covered, which indicates they don’t use it often.

After an hour to two Nick mentioned that we better get the tender now closer to the beach because the tide rose already by about half a meter. (The tidal difference is due to the full moon 1.6 m.) The tide dominates life at the beach and I pulled the tender closer to the remaining dry beach and dropped the anchor higher up the beach. Later I needed to shorten the anchor line that the tender did not bump at the concrete columns of the veranda.

After Manon and Stef of SV Long John Silver arrived, the communication between is four men turned quickly to the repairs Stef did for Lisa and Nick, and continued for a while. Stef did completed also a repair he started before. Stef has a pretty good technical understanding. Tobi and I will continue with some things, which still need to be done.

The evening ended with a long delicious dinner and lots of talks and laughters. Finally “commander tide” as Lisa calls the tide, told us to go back to our boats or encounter that the tenders lay dry on the sandy beach.

What a wonderful day!

N 01° 48.140
E 173° 01.620

It started raining in the morning. Not to heavy but a long rain. Visibility was limited. The atoll appeared in a different light. The atmosphere was different. No blue sky with bright white cumulus clouds on the sky. The sea still showed its light green.

I used the rain to continue a bit of laundry. I could rinse the laundry almost 3 times.

Then we got a VHF call from the other sailboat in the atoll. They saw us coming in an also on their AIS system. They are here since a while and invited us to come over and drop the hook closer to them. In the afternoon after the rain stopped, we moved south and dropped the hook in a bit deeper water.

I also wrote two catching up narrations.

We also did some small boat tasks.

After the rain the wind died, but the sky was still mostly covered with clouds. A part of the ITCZ, the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone with its doldrums, is finally moving also over the western part of the Kiribati Islands and us.

When the sun went down, it was this time Tobi, who took the initiative to do a workout, which fell good. I always do my workouts on the morning or when sailing during my night watches. Doing it immediately after sunset is a good idea. I hope I can keep it.