I’m sitting in my bed looking at the small part of sky I can see through the hatch above the bed. Last night it was more closed than opened. It rained a lot. Fortunately, because we collect rainwater, which we need. Recently we filled already about 100 l into MaRe’s tank. We also had a lot of wind and my SuperWind 350 charged the service batteriesvery well. During nights and cloudy days a wind turbine is a good device.

Clouds are moving fast through the small portion of the sky I can see. Light Grey, almost a light blue. But then, the next dark grey cloud pushed the light colors quickly aside. The next shower hammered on the hatch and deck.

Last night we returned late to MaRe but early enough before the wind picked up and it started raining. We were invited for dinner by Cindy and Alan on their SV Ammaris. We all had a good time exchanging what we experienced in various corners of our world. As they spent 3/4 of year in Japan, and Tobi is very interested on Japan, this was bigger chunk of our conversation.

Somewhere our talk changed direction to where did Alan’s German ancestors come from. (Alan and Cindy are Australians.) When he told me the place, supposed to be at a river, I didn’t get it. So Cindy, who knows where it is, showed it to me on the map. I didn’t believe from where Alan’s ancestors come. It is indeed a village at a river, and only 5 km down this very river from where I was born. “Dorfprozelten” is the village.

Now I have to continue with working on the dough for new bread.

“Today, I catching up again with emails, and also this narration.”, is what I wrote 2 days ago but could not complete it until today, on this raining Saturday.

So, days ago the following happened.

It rained a lot last night and we had a great shower again and then is continued until the morning. The sky remained grey and densely covered with clouds all day long. Frequent showers came down. Light ones mostly.

In the morning, I did not want to get out of my bed. I just took my PC, checked and wrote emails, and found an interesting feature in the XyGRIB GRIP file reader which I explored a bit more. It was already past 1000 when I got hungry and out of bed.

Tobi was sitting in the salon and did PC work as well.

While we had breakfast, I mentioned that we were lucky by going ashore yesterday to have a walk, do some shopping and asked Smith for information about customs procedure for the parcel I am waiting for, and where to get the propane gas bottle filled.

“In Pohnpei, was his answer. “I’m sending my bottle always to Pohnpei”, he continued, “Sometimes I am lucky and a sailboat brings it to Kosrae”. This made it clear for me. Fortunately I have my 3 x 10 kg bottle system, so I’m fine and would be fine even up to Japan. However, in Pohnpei I will get the emptly bottle refilled.

Thereafter we had a walk through Lelu village. From the ACE hardware store on the bayside of the village to the oceanside. Walking along the oceanside, with houses and friendly greeting people on our left, and the wide ocean and it’s pounding waves at the outer reef, suddenly a little truck stopped and asked if we want to have a drink and a ride. We had to decline because wanted to go back to supermarket to get some food.

Thereafter, we returned to MaRe for our normal evening “procedure”.

This early morning I got version 3 of the invoice. Hurray, hurray, the invoice address is correct.

But…

…the tracking status of the shipment of my parts changed to “Label canceled”. I immediately contacted customer support of the dealer for clarification but all I got was a useless automated mail.

Why did this all take so long?
I would like to improve their b workflow from the customer point of view.

On last Friday morning US Eastern time about 0800 my OBM called the dealer to place the order for my needed parts by phone. By internet it was not possible to order the parts. She called at about 2200 JST the dealer, which had send me quickly a quote for the Victron Argofet Isolators I urgently need. This was good speed in handling my request for quotation. I was happy! But then…

Then the bombardment of useless automated emails started.

The confirmation of the order showed as shipment “Flat Rate Promo” a term, which is just a nice marketing word, but doesn’t tell if the parcels comes by UPS, FedEx, DHL or what so ever. It took me several email until I learned that the shipment is done by “UPS Priority”, In between I got automated email saying a customer representative will shortly get back to me. What a useless piece of information, which just needs energy to send and received. This was on my Saturday very early morning, but still business time in the US Eastern Time.

This morning, my time, Monday afternoon in US Eastern time, I saw that I haven’t gotten neither a tracking number nor an invoice, both I need for customs clearance. I had to send several emails until I learned the shipment was not done on Friday during an entire business day and I should please wait even 24 h more to allow UPS to activate the tracking. As I want the parts ASAP to continue my sail, this email communication was a bit pulling my nerves. Especially as I got about a dozen useless automated emails.

When I got finally an invoice I saw that the billing address is wrong. So I went back to them and gave them the correct billing address again. (I am pretty sure that my OBM gave them the correct billing address because she understands the importance of it.) After again useless automated emails I got the second version of the invoice. Again, the billing address was wrong. So I send another mail with the needed billing address and explained line by line what it means and why it is necessary. Useless automated emails arrived but not yet an invoice with the correct billing address.

Now I am curious to see what I will get tomorrow morning my time.

Will you bet on the correctness of the billing address in the next version of the invoice?

Does this company not like business from foreign sailors or do they live “America first”?

…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.

A bit slowly but they move.

When I wanted to place the order for the new isolators to the Hodges Marine I could not make it online. For ordering by phone I needed to charge up my peoplefon account. When I wanted to do this I saw that me banking card expired the end of 2025, the original planned arrivage for Japan.

Only my OBM could get me quickly out of this miserable situation. I called her on Signal, send her all information she needs by email, she placed a call from Japan to the Hodges Marine in the US, and the order is confirmed. Thanks OBM!

I learned in the meantime that the spare parts are scheduled to arrive in 6-10 days. I’m very curious about the ETA update when I get the tracking number.

Hodges Marine, as many business these days, is using a chatbot on their homepage. This one is so excellent located that it just sits above the sign-in button to check the status of the shipment. I’m curious when I get in touch with the first homepage charbot, which is not completely useless.

And my daughter helped me with charging my peoplefon account, which can only be charged via bank transfer. Great that we are all in the EU and transferring money within the EU is as easy as in a single EU country. Thanks Norah for that for the transfer.

I’m still struggling with the STB engine generator. Got a few more hints for additional tests. And it seems a old wrong cable connection was found.

So I’ll spend another day doing tests in the engine room and writing emails. Sailing is a very intensive, no time to rest, no time to get old.

Three days ago, late night I could complete an idea to charge the service batteries again using the PRT engine. This means MaRe doesn’t depend anymore on portable generator to charge batteries through the 230 V shore power connector. This was pretty tricky because my Victron MultiPlus 3000 (an electrical device, which can charge 12 V batteries from 230 V power and can invert 12 V into 230 V power) is very sensitive to voltage spikes, which came from the portable generator. This makes charging with the portable generator difficult.

The other days I was busy with testing an temporary connection of the STB engine generator to the engines batteries. Here I tried to use two possibly still working channels of one isolator. However, the voltage measured at the engine batteries looked strange. Several other configurations were tested and it seems that the STB engine generator has problem. Hopefully still today I can exchange this generator. I have a tested spare generator on board.

I’m grateful for the support in getting from German friends.

The three Danish boats, which were in the bay when we came in, departed yesterday. It’s kind of strange to not see and hear them anymore. But such is sailor’s life.

The day before yesterday we were invited to have a look at the Danish 50+ft catamaran. Pretty interesting to see how they accommodate 13 people on such a boat. Real privacy is given only in the heads. However, it seems they all cope very well with this very special situation.

The conversations with the skipper and the young guests, who want to sail, swim, dive, and learned about the island they visit in a 3 month period where pretty interesting. I got the feeling they want to get out of the hamsters wheel for a while.

The Danish boats sail to Pohnpei and will be there for a month. So we will meet again, several hundred NM WNW from Kosrae. That as well is sailors life.

N 05° 19.776
E 163° 01.294

Yesterday at around 1700 we dropped the hook in the eastern bay of Kosrae.

The last 50 NM we had a nice sailing wind with windspeeds above 15 KN. The swell rose to almost 4 m and we approached the entry pass into eastern bay with speed.

Tobi was all day long waiting to get a fish, ideally a mahi-mahi on the hook. However, there was nothing. Shortly after the last gybe, just while on the last short leg to the entry pass, he got a mahi-mahi on the hook.

I started keeping fingers crossed that the fish is hauled in quickly. A good fishing team we became, we just followed our standard procedure. Tobi fought with the fish. I furled the genoa to get STW down to about 2 KN, then grabbed my harness and the gaff, when Tobi had the fish, a nice mahi-mahi at the stern, I was ready for gaffing.

The fish was quickly on deck. Tobi prepared the HDPE board at the entrance, the place at MaRe for evicerating and filleting the catch.

While Tobi worked on the fish, I prepared MaRe for going through the pass. Then it was time to turn onto the leading line in the sea chart. When I was already through the pass and on the inner course to the considered anchor spot (we got their anchorage coordinates from Manon & Stef of SV Long John Silver) Tobi finished his work and was ready in time to drop the anchor.

There were 3 Danish boats in the bay. A cat and two monos. Unfortunately the cat was more or less where I wanted to go and further north I tested the depth and it appeared as too shallow. Fortunately there was enough space between the cat and the next mono. There I went and Tobi dropped the hook. The first time it didn’t hold, but the second time it worked out fine. We were safe at anchor.

Now, I needed to solve the issue that we could not charge the batteries anymore. Various tests we made during the day, indicated that the both battery isolators are broken. A quick solution would have been to get a hand carry generator and charge the batteries through the shore power connection.

Then a tender returned to the neighbor boat, the mono on our STB side and I called the lady to please come over. (Our tender was still in long distance sailing mode with the motor mounted on it holder in the cockpit.).

Sarah, got a knowledgable guy, Methi, with a 2.5 kW generator to MaRe. However the generator seems to have problem. It doesn’t charge with 600 W of its 2.5 kW. However we could use it to slowly charge the service batteries and connect to Starlink to exchange mails and messages.

Dinner was what Tobi and I talked about days, pan fried mahi-mahi and potato salad. Excellent!

Today, after inbound clearance, I checked the ACE store and the AB Electronics for isolators. They don’t have such items.

However, the ACE hardware store as well as the foodstore have an excellent offer on products, I didn’t see since leaving NZ.

We hitchhiked to the other side of islands. This was very easy as the people are very friendly here. Sometimes we just say on the cargo bay of a little truck.

We observed a very special element of the traffic here. It’s a right side driving traffic. However, cars have the steering wheel on right side. Which country introduced right side traffic we don’t know, but as the used cars are coming from Japan, they have the steering wheel on the right side. With the slow speed of the traffic and the many holes in the street this is no problem at all.

The little museum showed many photographies of foreigners coming to the island for their counties interests in the Micronesian Islands. It seems many of these traders mainly whalers, where more “pirates” then traders, which created troubles. But also the kings and higher ups took the advantages of trading into their own pockets.

Venereal diseases brought into the Kosrae reduced the population from 1700 to 747 before it fortunately recovered again.

We returned to MaRe with a lot of impressions on the new islands we reached.

Solar charging was very good during the day so we had enough power for the night. However the wind picked up quite a bit and then three charging of mates
MaRe’s SuperWind 350 turbine kicked in and we got additional power.

The same time it started raining so we could collect rainwater and have a good shower, with more than the normal 1 l of water. Felt pretty good.

For dinner Tobi made usuku-kiri (thinly sliced) mahi-mahi with ginger and soy sauce and udon (thick Japanese noodles). Excellent again.

Just for all who might have lost the tracking link.

MaRe’s always actual position and the track since Jan 2025 is too be seen at:
https://share.garmin.com/P435

N 05° 48.822
E 164° 28.008

… after writing – but not yet uploaded – my previous narrations, all sails are down and we are drifting in another calm of the NW pacific, less then 100 NM outside of Kosrae.

That’s sailing as well!