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.

On Christmas Eve we had Tobis Christmas dinner described in my previous narration.

On the 25th we wanted to see what’s going on in one of the many churches we saw already in Majuro. We just picked the first church as we had no selection criteria. It was the United Church of Christ in Uliga, a town or village on the main island of the Majuro atoll.

We saw many people, mainly in blue dresses, the ladies and girls, and boys and men in shorts of the same color and pattern.

Suddenly I recognized, that we are in T-shirts and short pants. In the church I visited on Penrhyn Island, this clothing would not have been possible. However, a lady we asked, said that we can enter in our outfit. We also learned the service will start soon. Looking at the many people going in and out of the church and the music we heard from the church, we wondered and went into the church.

In the middle of the church there was a huge empty space used by a group performing a dance. On both sides and the side towards the door, of the big free space there are about 5 – 8 rows of benches arranged. A friendly man saw us and indicated a place where we could sit down. A very friendly offer because we could see the dancers better and could sit down.

A group of about 30 – 50 people, kids, young and a few elderly people in white and green colored clothes performed a group dance. The same time they were sin ging. The music, dominated by basses, from a digital sound source had a very fast rhythm. Something like boogie-woogie. The singing reminded me to karaoke, music from sound source and voices are life. Karaoke with a choir.

At the end of their performance to white-green dressed dancer throw sweets into the audience. The kids were happy about this and collected each sweet on the floor. When one fell close to me I gave it to kid who look at me with big eyes.

The white-green group left the church dancing and singing.

After a few minutes the blue dressed people, among who we sat outside in the shade of a big tree outside, came in dancing. A leader in front with a whistle danced and guided the group with hand signs, with showing what the next movements of the dance are, and his whistle to emphasize something I felt nobody needs. Row by row the group came in singing and dancing. The music repeated on-going. Someone must have made an long PC cutting job to created such a long song from rather short elements.

Also the dances looked a bit different and the songs sounded different, the blue group repeated what the white-green showed before. After the blue group came a red group doing more or less the same as the pervious two groups.

To me it appears that the whole service is an dancing and singing enterainment time. I assume that the songs contained religious text, which we didn’t get because we don’t speak Marshallese.

We had enough and went home.

Back at the boat we had our dinner with its talk time.

Unfortunately we heard the music until we fell asleep.

A Christmas event at the United Church of Christ in Uliga.

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.

N 07° 06.177
E 171° 22.418

Yesterday since about 1030 we are hanging on a mooring ball on the east side of the Majuro atoll. Inbound clearance was done quickly because the officers had to go to the neighbor boat for the same procedure.

Before, many calls an VHF CH 16 remained without answer.

In the meantime I’m back from fetching our stamped passports. They needed to be brought to their office für stamping.

A document from customs will be sent by email.

The passage through the entry pass just at sunrise, was very easy. Positions of the markers in the Navioncs map doesn’t match reality. Beside this it’s possible to enter the atoll with the Navionics charts. The 25 m line in the chart matches pretty well what the depth meter showed. These Navionics comments are only valid for the pass and the NE part of the atoll.

Today it’s pretty hot and I feel like relaxing.

N 07° 09.606
E 171° 17.654

…I sit and hear the children’s play…
These are two lines of famous Rolling Stones song “As tears go by”. I don’t hear the children’s play but hear my Volvo’s play without tears going by.

The wind was never, not even for 10 min, strong enough to sail today.

Although not good because I’m a sailor and not a motorer, it had a bit of a good side today, because I could catch up with sleep. Last night I could not sleep much during my first sleeping period and was pretty tired during my watches. But that’s a part of the game. When I really can’t keep my eyes open anymore I take naps of 5, 10, or 20 min. When the alarm wakes me up, I get up immediately check all around the boat, the instruments, and radar and than take the next nap. After 3 to 5 naps I’m feeling mucus better.

Tobi baked a cake today. It for sure contains 5-6 bananas (we have natural bananas of around 10 cm long) he also added choco chips, coconut flakes, and crumbles. So we had a typical European “coffee & cake” in the afternoon. The cake is delicious.

On the meantime or it’s 0428.

I started the last watch of the night. We are approaching the WPT “Majuro N” and will be at sunrise at the entrance for the pass. The pass is indicated as day and night pass with a water depth of more than 20 m, but I’ll only pass at daylight.

I’m a bit hungry, haven’t had a banana for more than 3 h….

N 05° 49.829
E 171° 45.163

Normally when I sail longer distances, I never use the engines to bridge a no or very low wind zone.

Now, I’m in the situation that the forecast is not matching the reality at all. Based on my experience with forecast in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a large area with low and no winds, I have to consider that we might need a week or so to make the final 130 NM.

Looking just back for the last 12 h, there is no wind to sail although forecast says there is wind to sail. The typical TWS is maximum 2 Bft in the last 12 h. Not enough wind to sail even with the gennaker.

Triggered by a thought of Vili, my Swiss based sailing friend and wind advisor, that the wind can change to NE or any other N-component wind, let me decide to make the last 130 NM using the engines whenever we don’t have wind for sailing at least 4+ KN. So we are running now with the engines through a very calm sea, with a short (about 50 m) swell of only 1 m height, and wind waves of less than 50 cm. In the Douglas wind and swell coding system we have wind waves of class 2 and a swell of class 1.

I am about finishing my second watch this night. Tobi might come soon out of his bed.

After breakfast, I have to do again admin work on my PC. The internet world requires that. Inbound clearance is a lot of work to be done prior to arriving in a country. I’m working on the inbound clearance for Marshall Islands with daily ETA updates. For Micronesia I got, after gentle reminders, a mail stating that the team is on standby for our arrival. For Japan I’m still trying to get the OK for arrival. No answer so far. Even my OBM sent a mail. Will try now an port authorities email and an SAR email address to find out more.

Beside this, we will enjoy bananas, bananas, bananas. However, last night dinner was the last tuna confit with roasted sweet potatoes, cucumbers, onions, and olives. A confit is a good way to preserve fresh fish for weeks.

In Butaritari we got since quite a while again bananas. A full bunch of approximately 150 bananas.

Since the day before yesterday, they started getting yellow. Even the ones we covered with a black plastic bag. Tobi read somewhere, that this should slow down the turning-yellow-speed. We did not observe this effect.

So since yesterday we eat bananas. For breakfast we had bananas in our müsli.

Tobi’s puts peanut butter on slice of bread and tops it with bananas. He calls this “banana bread”. I do the same but have thicker banana pieces on the peanut butter. This he calls “bread banana”.

I’m curious about the dinner he makes for the night. Banana pancakes, is what I mentioned during breakfast.

Since last night we face weakening wind.

The sea became much calmer. Wind waves are at level 3, moderate. The swell, rolling on from SE, is about 100 m long and has a height of about 2 m. Very comfortable sailing, BUT we are slow. The averaged SOG during the last 3 h is still. 4.5 KN. I would like to have again 5.5 KN.

But, there’s always a but, we can’t change the wind only adjust the sails.

As I always get into close contact with the authorities for inbound clearance, I just send them a mail with the updated ETA being 23. or 24. Dec. I also asked them if they would clear us in on the 24th. Wonder what they will reply.

And, I wonder also about what the wind will do.

First a comment on the correct way of writing “the people of Kiribati” in the short form. I found that correct is “I-Kiribati”, (pronunciation: ee-keer-ee-bas”). It is used for male and female, as well as for singular or plural. The “I” in front is a feature of the Gilbertese language, which is the national language of Kiribati. Starting with this narration I’ll use this term.

——

On the day of our departure from Butaritari we were pretty busy.

We where ashore already at 0800 or just a bit later to see the race, some people called “Marathon”. We doubt that it is a Marathon. Even a half Marathon would be long distance. But, who never knows.

We docked the tender again at pier like structure as we did the day before and walked towards, what we considered, as the center of the village. The shop with the restaurant appeared to us as the center.

Indeed the lady from the shop knew about it. “It’s in the next village. 15 min away”, she answered my question. Off we took.

When we came closer we saw already flags and other stuff indicating that we are right.

Then we went to the area with the start and finish line. Colorful and big with lots of flags of China Railway First Group or CRFG, which is the abbreviation used.

The background of the stage for the award ceremony carried Chinese and English information “Butaritari Island, 2025 “CRFG CUP” Marathon “

Big boards along the race track showed Chinese and English sentences like, “Running Through Palms and Ocean Breeze, Connecting our Hearts and a Dreams”, “Way to the Future, A Bridge to Our Dreams”, “Every Drop of Sweat, Gleams with the Light of Friendship”, “China-Kiribati Friendship, Forward Together”.

CRFG is the sponsor of the race. From the outfit for the runner including new, bright color running shoes, via plastic plates and cutlery for the meals, to the drinks. Chinese made and Chinese labled, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta and Chinese bottled water. With this, Coca-Cola China earned some money.

They also sponsored the prices. For men and women the same prices. For the first runner a motorcycle and the for second and third placed runner, a bicycle were prepared. Useful on this island.

We walked around a bit and a friendly l-Kiribati lady told is we can sit down at a place under large tent. Then another lady, came with drinks. She carried a tray with Chinese Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Fanta. For me it was the first Coca-Cola since years, I don’t even recall when I had the last one. As I was thirsty, I drank it. Until the end of the day I drank several of these drinks. Horrible sugar water with some “kind of taste” making molecules inside. I drank them just to get liquid in my body. Later there was also bottled water available.

The start of the race was delayed because the prominent people, I-Kiribati and Chinese, from Tarawa did not yet arrive.

While waiting, a big breakfast buffet was opened and we were invited eat as well. The food was prepared by local women. It was the full variety of local island food. But there was one very special element in it. Cans of spam like products. A still closed can or two were just placed in bowl of rice. Modern islands food. I took some boiled pumpkin, breadfruit, papaya, a lobster, rice and few noodles with a green vegetable. It was a delicious meal. When I wanted to get some custard as desert it was gone…

With all the VIPs arrived and greeted by others, the race finally started. Time is flexible on the islands. Men and women started together.

Before the runners returned there was a group of women preforming one of the soft looking Polynesia dances. (Kiribati still belongs to the Polynesian cultural area of the Pacific. ) I like to see these dances.

The first runner crossed the finish line after about 40 min, quite some min before the second and third arrived. Then came the first female runner over the finish line.

Many of the runners crossed the finish line in socks. They got rid of the shoes along the race track.

The award ceremony took quite a long time because it needed to be orchestrated for the publicity of the VIPs. There were several events on stage to attest the Chinese-I-Kiribati friendship.

As we were invited to also join for lunch, we did it. Again very delicious local food.

At the same table there sat an I- Kiribati lady who got food and a pair of chopsticks from a Chinese gentleman. When I saw the chopsticks I asked for a pair for me. First he looked very astonished at me but gave also chopsticks. Chopsticks are better eating tools for this kind of food than a plastic spoon. As the I-Kiribati lady sat across the table and fought with her chopsticks I offered her advice. Thereafter, she slowly did it well.

After lunch we thanked again the people to whom we could talk or invited us for food and drink and big farewell.

Always a sad moment.

After making outbound clearance, bought the last needed food, got some information for Nick and Lisa, refueled, and cleaned the saildrive from fouling, we lifted the hook and left the Tarawa atoll to sail to Majuro, our Port of Entry to the Marshall Islands.

With winds mostly around 12-22 KN TWS and from ESE to SSE we are sailing with only the genoa. Sometimes it’s a smooth sail, sometimes it gets a bit bumpy. But, we do fine.

Sailing routine establish itself quickly.

Now, in my second watch of the night I’m working on my bread dough and will put it into the oven at the end of my watch.

In between I’m writing on a catching-up narration but it’s a bit difficult to concentrate because I’m feeling a bit tired.