A 67 year old US sailor I met for the first time about a week ago.

He lived on his boat, the SV Prima, San Diego, California, an about 37 ft monohull he refurbished excellently, lies in the little marina. He did repair and refurbish jobs on local boats to make some money.

A man who knows how to make most out of his simple but happy life.

His plan was to sail to Nauru departing from Pohnpei in about a week.

He gave me a hand and his advice when we assembled the furler ashore. On Wednesday, while I brought MaRe at the dock, he prepared the furler for being pulled up at mast.

Yesterday, Thursday, Tobi and I went ashore to invite him for beer.

Before I could look for Rokko, we met Gus and Kumer at the restaurant. They told us, “Rokko passed away today”.

A shock!!!

Tuesday, we had first too much wind to mount the furler at MaRe and then Pohnpei did all what it could do to keep the world record in annual precipitation.

I had to give up the idea of mounting on Tuesday. Looking at all four weather models I get, it looked that Wednesday is pretty good in all for weather models.

So, yesterday we started with the final preparations. Two mooring lines and two fenders to dock MaRe at Kumers floating boat dock, bows a head.

Taz & Chloe of SV Alicia, and Rokko helped to carry the assembled furler down to the dock. The roof-only restaurant allowed us to walk at one side through it because the way leads straight forward to the dock.

With a stern anchor we secured MaRe’s sterns against the light wind from side. The bows where fixed against the dock with fenders and a side line against the wind.

While we brought MaRe to the dock, Rokko tied up a sail tie close to the upper end of the furler. A prefect connection to the main halyard I used to pull the furler up to close the top of the mast.

Three young men gave additional hands to carry the furler down towards MaRe while the top of the furler was pulled up the mast. It worked perfectly fine.

I went up the mast and could without any problems mount the toggle, which holds the forestay’s eye and as such the furler on to the mast.

Now, only was needed to mount the lower eye of forestay into the toggle at the bow. While I descended from the mast – it takes me a few minutes – Tobi and Rokko could do this already. The most important things were done.

While descending the mast, I felt already that the wind increasing. But with the lower end of the forestay in the toggle, all was secured and we left the dock immediately. Tobi fought with the stern anchor and when it was board I could fully navigate MaRe.

We went back to the place we anchored before, dropped the hook and MaRe was secured again.

A rest was needed. Tobi made a pot of coffee and brought chocolate chips cookies. We rested at least for an hour. The strong tension of mounting the furler was gone. It fell down of me like parts of a caldera when the islands appeared by their volcanic origin.

After the break we connect the drum with the link plates to the toggle. Re-attached the drum with the furling line connected, winded the line up in the right direction.

Then came a crucial work. Re-adjusting the tension on the shrouds and the inner stay. I took time to do this work but with the notes on full turns of the turnbuckles and absolute measurements, Tobi and I got the written l work done and I feel confident that the tension on each shroud and stay is what is was before.

At end of the day, the furler was ready to hoist the genoa again. A boat without a genoa is not a real boat and I want to have a real boat back. On a few days, MaRe will start sailing to Japan. My second “home country” and midway of my looong sail.

This morning, I got the last needed items to start assembling the furler.

Rokko, a US sailor with experience in furlers, gave us a hand. So the furler was assembled in a few hours. We also test mounted the drum and remove it again. With a comment from Rokko , I could identify the hole for the furler line.

I had to make the furler line at its beginning a bit thinner and now it’s attached to a half part of the drum and will be te-attached after the forestay and furler is mounted again at MaRe.

If the wind permits we will do the mounting tomorrow.

Despite very careful preparations, I have to admit that I’m still nervous about the mounting work ahead.

Yesterday, I removed the last profile tube of the old furler. Gosh, I felt relieved.

Then I had to clean up the foredeck from all the tiny bits of stainless steel, which fell down when I had to drill about 30 pc of 6 mm screws open.
About 50 buckets of seawater did the job. And, I was lucky, a heavy rain came down shortly thereafter washing the salt away.

Then I grabbed the installation manual of the new furler, the plastic bag with all small parts, the drum, the swivel, and big pot of coffee, and started working through the manual. I wanted to understand all details before the assembly starts. At the end all was fine. However in between I struggled with the pin, which holds the forestay eye, and the two links for the drum.

Reading the manual I got the idea to assemble the furler at land, and pull it up the mast with MaRe with her bows at a dock. Tobi got the same story from a sailor on the marina. So I want to do it that way.

This morning we went ashore and looked around where the furler, almost 18 m long can be assembled. As for a place to dock MaRe, there is only one
The floating dock where lime
Kumer had his boat. Kumer is also the owner of the hotel, the bar-restaurant marina. We need his support and he will give me his boat dock for get MaRe in the right position.

Tobi and I also went to Gus who lives closer by, for a short visit. It’s incredible to experience the seven dogs he has. One of them is paralyzed and can only use his front legs. However with the small cart Gus built from plastic made plumbing material and two wheel, the dog runs around in the big garden Gus had with his Australian wife.

I needed to go home early because the hatch of my cabin was open and I didn’t want to get rain on my mattress. It sleeps better in a dry bed.

When the sun was lower, I got the forestay fully down. To assemble it ashore.

Will now do the assembling on one day, and when all is ready for mounting it, I’ll get MaRe at Kumers dock.

On Monday I’ll get a few things saw I need to buy.

After getting the information that the customs clearance documents are at the Mangrove Bay Hotel – they allowed me to use their addresse for shipping and invoicing – I went yesterday at the reception, picked up the documents and went to the customs office in the middle of Kolonia. In 10 min all was settled with a very friendly and supportive officer.

After doing a few errands I planned for the same time, I went back to the Mangrove Bay Hotel. In their Wi-Fi network I wanted to call the DHL agent and found out that my peoplefone VoIP didn’t work anymore. The day before it worked.

Fortunately the lady from the hotel reception called from her phone DHL. I wanted to know when DHL will deliver. Within an hour I called several times via the receptionist’s phone. However, the person in charge at DHL did not return in time. So I asked for the email address to change to email communication for which the person in charge can answer when she is back and I don’t have to wait any longer in the hotel with an air-conditioner running at 24 degC and I did not have a sweater to wear like the receptionist.

Back to MaRe I sent the mail. Today at 1000 I checked my mails and learned that here in Pohnpei also the Port Authority has to sign the document. “Don’t ask why but play the game Pohnpei rules”, I tought myself.

I went to the airport and got again in a few minutes the signature. Then I walked the short distant over to the DHL agent. A friendly and helpful Filipina, copied the double stamped document and want to give it to her colleague in charge of my parcels. I additionally asked for an email with the delivery time.

Then I hitched back to the little marina where the dinghy is docked. Despite of the plenty of cars here in Pohnpei, hitching is pretty easy. People are so friendly and helpful. They even get often out of their own way to bring me to the place I wanted to go. I’m often thinking how difficult- not ŧ say impossible – it would be for them to hitch hike in Europe or in Japan, the places I live in, and I feel ashamed.

At about 1600 I checked my emails and found the one which says the parcels are delivered.

Immediately we went over to the hotel and brought the treasure of the parcels over to MaRe. 4 days after the arrival at Pohnpei, I had my new furler, a TopFurler C430, on board.

However, sometimes it’s not that easy to find it!

Since days I’m working on the preparations to mount the new furler, which is supposed to arrive tonight from Guam, the last hub before Pohnpei. The shipment went from first from Sidney, to Hong Kong and then to Guam.

Because I was too busy with finding out how the shrouds can be loosened enough to get the pin holding the eye of the forestay and the furler’s link plates on the toggle on the first step, and then finding the right way to remove the profile to tube from the furling tube, I was not in the mood to write. Someday I even felt too tired to write.

Now, I have a rain enforced working brake, I’ll write at least a short note.

I could remove the trouble making tubes and found a way to pull the forestay down enough to insert the forestay’s eye into the toggle.

Removing the remaining tubes should not be problem. I can drill the screws open and slide the tubes down. Drilling screws open is necessary as the stainless steel screws can’t be removed from aluminum after 20 years.

So far it looks good.

On Sunday we visited Nan Madol, the ancient city of Pohnpei. I’ll write about it later.

N 06° 57.648
E 158° 12.071

Early in the morning we wanted to go to church to see how it is done here in Pohnpei. We got a the permission to dock our tender at a private terrace a bit more than a meter above sea level. When we finished docking another lady came and canceled the previous permission. OK. We left.

However, it started raining and rained heavily so the “church clothes” (long pants and normal shirts) got soaked. I felt the rain has even reached my underwear. Church visit was canceled and we went back to MaRe. There was laundry waiting and PC work. First I worked on an IT thing and then I tackled mails for finding an affordable marina with a sufficient long time to stay there.

In Japan most of the marinas – I checked already more than 50 between Tokyo and Himeji, and my OBM back home a few more – accept visiting boats only for a day or two, or a week or two weeks. Despite a very good change of Japanese inbound clearance regulations, and only one application to visit all closed harbors in Japan, Japan is not a country being ready for yachts cruising Japanese waters with the intention to keep the boat in a marina and travel across the very interesting country. Even maintenance repairs are not always possible and in at least one marina it’s not allowed to sleep on board.

Dropping the anchor and stay in bay like we do it always is not possible because of steep dropping coastline due to Japan’s volcanic origine.

But I also found so far two marinas and a boatyard were it could possibly keep MaRe for a few month and do maintenance and repairs. So I’ll see what comes up next in this matter.

On Saturday, after a bunch of urgent mails, forming and baking bread, we went ashore. I needed antibiotics and two spanners.

Already in the marina two friendly men gave us a lift directly to the Medical Center because the pharmacy on the way was closed.

The antibiotics I need to treat a skin infection. My old friend Vilma gave my by email the needed advice to get antibiotics. I’m grateful to her advice because I’m normally very reluctant to see a doctor as long as my head still sits on my neck.

For opening the turnbuckles of the shrouds, to exchange the furler, I need two spanners, which are just not in my good spanner collection. I know that loosening the shrouds is easy, but I also know that I have to get back to the tension before.

One way is to count the half turns I make with the turnbuckles. This is a relative measurement, but I also wanted to have an absolute measure to cross- check. This morning, when l wrote an email to my son, I got the right idea. I just checked this idea and it’s feasible. Prefect starting conditions. I’m curious which problems come uninvited when I start replacing the old for the new furler.

The ACE hardware store just closed when we passed by in the car to the Medical Center.

There a few people were waiting already for medical treatment and I had no idea how long it will take me. So, Tobi left and we set the meeting point to the marina, where the tender is docked.

I had to fill in a form with personal and medical information and could sit down to wait until it’s my turn. Beside me, two ladies, mother and daughter most likely, were greeting me friendly. A bit away from me, on my right side, there were some more people waiting.

When a nurse came, she called people so she could measure their weight, blood pressure, etc. It seemed to be the standard procedure for every new patient.

Then it was my turn. After delivering all physical and medical infirmation about me, I could sit down again. However, not for long, and I was called into a consultation room. Like with the nurse before, I got the impression that a lot of staff here comes from the Philippines. Here in Pohnpei are well paid jobs.

The doctor look quickly at the infection on my leg and wrote me a prescription. 7 days, every 6 hours, 1 pill. The pills I got in the pharmacy a bit further down the hallway.

When I arrived back at the marina, Tobi was talking with one of the members of the fishing club. His name is Gus, and talking with him was just fun. A real intellectual person with incredible knowledge about Pohnpei and Micronesia in general.

We could have talked longer but returned to MaRe in a break of two rain showers coming down on us.

Weather here proofs that Pohnpei is the world record holder in precipitation. Lots of rain, which is enough to keep our water tank full. Also I like sunlight a lot because it fills MaRe’s batteries, it is nice to watch the flat area surface when the raindrops let’s water drops jump up from the surface and creating tiny circular wavelets. I also like to see the shore and the green grown rampant on the remnants of the former volcanoes which formed the island. When it rains, this green becomes grey until it disappears completely behind the veil of the dense rain until the rain becomes less again.

Sunday evening, because it did not rain on the late afternoon, we decided to have dinner in the Hideaway Lodge close by but hidden in the mangroves, which cover the shoreline and protects from it from wind and wave erosion with their long and strong roots.

Today, just after 1700, I could reach the dealer in Australia for the furler parts and the final decision. I was waiting all day long for a reply mail from them. So I called them up at about 1500 h. They say they sent mails but I didn’t get one. Whatever the reason is I don’t care.

With several phone calls the important things became clear and tomorrow morning I will get a technical drawing for one last small detail. They will cut a piece of stainless steel for me and then ship with “AussieFreight” a new furler from Profurl with a 10 year world wide warranty.

Shipping time is announced to be week.

I have to say that the phone calls were very good. I got the impression that they really did and do their outmost to get me what I need. This impression is very good because without a furler I can’t sail. This in turn created a lot of stress inside me and was the reason why I suddenly felt exhausted. The dropping of the adrenalin level made me feeling exhausted.

In the next days I can tackle other tasks. Among them an IT for my OBMs company and few boat jobs. However, we will also visit an site with ruins from former times of life on Pohnpei.

N 06° 57.626
E 158° 12.072

Feel like writing more often but then I am too tired or wrote already too much on my PC so I did not write and upload a narration.

Yesterday, early morning still sitting in my bed, I finally completed an email to a potential crew member for a part of the sail from Japan back to Europe through the Indian and Atlantic Ocean.

I should have replied to emails concerning the furler problem and its solution but as it was Sunday and nobody would have read my mail. However, I did complete the work of preparing images with added information inside the images.

After breakfast we took of for a hike on Sokehs Island, which we envisioned already when we dropped the anchor at its current location.

First we needed to follow the road along the street going towards Sokehs Island. It is very difficult to recognize this as an island. It is separated from the main island by the Daumwaokote Mangrove Channel, a narrow stretch of water.

Just before we reached the short bridge to the island, we passed a church. A bit away from the church, close to the water, there was a group of people gathering for an after-service meeting. Most likely some food was served to keep the community engaged in the frame of an religious even after the Sunday service.

When we passed the little bridge and saw that one of the three meeting roads went up the hill. Tobi verified with a walker-by and we took the road leading up the hill. It was a normal rough asphalt road with not many potholes. At both sides there are houses. Around the houses, there were mainly women and children to be seen. Sometimes also men. We waved a greeting. All houses had in common that there was always a used Japanese car was standing in front of them or at the road side. Sometimes, there are one or two or even more cars. When there was more than one car around, it was easily to be seen that the other one or ones are what I call “dead cars”. Cars, which don’t run anymore and are cannibalized for spare parts until nothing can be taken out anymore.

For the local people, this cannibalization of cars is a good way to get spare parts. However, at the end the remaining biggest part of a car just rots somewhere in the nature. This is on this island mainly valid for Japanese cars on other islands the cars are made in China. European and US cars are included but there are only a few of them on islands. So countries with an automobile industry, dispose their cars by selling them to the Pacific Island. A practical way to shift the problem on the Pacific Islands and keep their own country clean.

The road went up the hill rather steeply. The OsmAnd off-line map, which I am using for hiking, shows that with only two hairpin curves the road reaches 200 m above sea level. a point where there are radio towers with mainly mobile phone antennas. With gaining of height, the view down on the bay, on the town of Kolonia, and beyond into the reef on the eastern side of Kolonia got more and more spectacular. Especially the reefs are well to be seen from point up the mountain. Navigation through reefs would be good with someone up in a 50 or more meter high lookout in the mast. However MaRe’s mast top is only about 19 m above sea level. Just a bit too low!

After the first hairpin curve, the way became really steep and rocky. Looking at the tracks, people go up this road with cars once in a while. They must use heavy duty off-road cars.

Once we reached this hairpin curve, a rather big area, cleaned of shrubs and grass, and a hewed trees opened. We reached the WW2 memorial area.

The Japanese occupation forces build there defense positions with naval guns and naval anti-aircraft guns. Beside building the positions a lot of heavy equipment must have been brought a the steep mountain. Almost certainly, by far the most of the work was done by local people as forced labor. Wars are never good for the ordinary people.

The following link shows this area. [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Japanese+WWII+Anti-Aircraft+Guns/@6.9642031,158.1993339,2178m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x660b09054e069cbf:0x39916ad4527423c!2sPohnpei,+Föderierte+Staaten+von+Mikronesien!3b1!8m2!3d6.8518697!4d158.2146857!16s%2Fm%2F0k0tb1p!3m5!1s0x65d9cba7840116f1:0x34d0105d5e1a6f78!8m2!3d6.9642587!4d158.1903952!16s%2Fg%2F1w_vnd4s?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIxOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Japanese+WWII+Anti-Aircraft+Guns/@6.9642031,158.1993339,2178m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x660b09054e069cbf:0x39916ad4527423c!2sPohnpei,+F%C3%B6derierte+Staaten+von+Mikronesien!3b1!8m2!3d6.8518697!4d158.2146857!16s%2Fm%2F0k0tb1p!3m5!1s0x65d9cba7840116f1:0x34d0105d5e1a6f78!8m2!3d6.9642587!4d158.1903952!16s%2Fg%2F1w_vnd4s?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIxOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)

From there we continued to the radio towers. The road was a mud road and we carefully needed to search the right way through it to not sink deeply into the mud. At some spots dead corals were used to fill the ditches. Not am easy task considering the steepness and poor surface quality of the road.

Left and right there was the lush green of a tropical rain forest. However, once we where there, we had a great view around us. There was the outer reef with the pass, through which we came in, there was the outer anchorage area just behind the outer reef, where about 10 cargo vessel were at anchor, there was the a nice view over the bay where MaRe was at anchor. After enjoying is for a while we went back.

The way down reduced slowly the great views. The normal price one has to pay when higher up there was a magnificent view.

Today I spent about half of the day on furler related emails. What will be the situation tomorrow? Can I order? I will see.

Beside this I had to recognize that rain makes me hungry. I don’t know why, but today’s heavy rain makes me feeling hungry since we had breakfast. Apropos “rain”. Pohpei has the world record in annual precipitation. I checked a few places around the world and found the following figures

London: 716 mm
Amsterdam: 942 mm
Tokyo: 1528 mm
Manaus (Amazon basin): 3018 mm
Pohnpei: 3472 mm
Source: [https://weather-and-climate.com/](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,Ponape,Micronesia)

So, we are in the wettest place of the world waiting for furler parts to sail north to Japan. Simple great because I don’t need a moisturizing cream for my skin….

The days before I was busy with furler topics, searching for a marina in Japan with a reasonable price, and had to do again some errands ashore. This way the days are flying by, days during which I wanted to be on the 1500 NM non-stop sail from here to Chichi-Jima, Ogasawara Islands, Japan.

N 06° 57.628
E 158° 12.063

Yesterday, in the early morning I checked my emails especially for a reply from the US dealer of factory the French manufacturer of the furler. Unfortunately no reply.

However, I got a reply from Privilege about information on what needs to be done to open the forestay to exchange the furler part. It looks possible do do it by myself.
Although I got helpful reply from Privilege I needed to go up the mast once again to verify a detail.

Next we needed to go ashore again to do some errands. On the way into town we hitch hiked and a Fijian lady gave us a lift this in the situation that she had already another Fijian lady and an uncle in the car. How helpful they are. The ladies are here, because their husbands have several years assignments to Pohnpei. They happened to live behind the building of the immigration office. So, we were lucky that we got ride in their air conditioned car just when it was very hot straight to the place where we needed to go.

At immigration we paid our now reduced immigration fees and could do our other errands as well.

Among the errands there was the purchase of a flashlight. I had such flashlight in the 80s when I scuba dived in Japan. It only got damaged because I did not use it for years and in the 2010s a battery inside leaked and I could not repair it anymore. For years I could not get a such a lamp newly. Then I saw it at a little shop on Pohnpei. Now I have the new version with a strong LED inside and a very interesting lense built in the front glass to guide the light into the distance.

On the way back to MaRe, we went into a small shop looking what they offer on fresh staff. On two about 3 m long and 1 m wide and 30 cm deep metal basins, they kept fishes in cold water. The water is once in a while cooled down again with plenty of ice cubes. That way of cooling fishes we saw at other stores as well. Tobi was attracted by a bundle of green leaves and he asked the shop assistant if it’s eatable and how to cook it and got the explanation. The same with a powdery and a liquid spice. Both are homemade, which could be seen by the end way they were packed. One was in plastic wrap and the other in a former 1/2 l water bottle. We had good conversation and I suggested one of ladies comes with us for cooking.

When reaching the marina, we searched for the office to tell them that we want to use the marina to dock our tender. A friendly Philippina, who also came to Pohnpei with her husband under a contract, took 10 USD per week per person. That it is per person looks a bit strange. But we also can use the showers and dispose our garbage.

Finally we reached MaRe with all errands done.