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,…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

At 1840 MaRe was safe at anchor. Tomorrow we will go ashore early, do outbound clearance, refuel a bit, last food shopping, checking for Nick if certain cables are available at which store. The day after tomorrow we take off for Majuro Marshall Islands. About 375 NM away.