Something we learned in the Marshall Islands is that weather prediction for the surrounding area can be painfully inaccurate. Being only a few degrees off the equator, the ITCZ (which in itself is annoyingly unpredictable) is never too far away and can turn a glorious day into a panic of dragging anchors in the blink of an eye. Or on the other hand, as in our most recent case, the forecasted winds we were hoping to ride south to Fiji were simply nowhere to be found.
We’re going places again and it’s rig-check time. Matt normally runs me up the mast, and from the top down I’ll look at every single part of the rig; from wind instruments and electrical components to stay/shroud connection points to the mast itself. There’s a lot going on when it comes to a boat’s rigging, and a lot of places where failure can happen. You have to look closely and be thorough to catch things like hairline cracks, pitting, kinks, corrosion. But, sometimes, a failure is obvious. Like our broken backstay. That was obvious.
Sailing has been around for a while. Like 7000-ish years. Given its historical perseverance one would think it would be more commonplace, or at least more understood. But with the advent of planes and cars and boats with big powerful engines it seems to have fallen into a sort of niche category reserved today, perhaps, for those in less of a hurry. While I’ve developed my own collection of adjectives for describing the art of sailing, most tend to see it as a romantic venture; consulting the stars, quietly disappearing over the horizon, always with the possibility of never returning… Handheld electronic navigation units, satellite phones, engines and autopilot can mar that dreamy description pretty quickly, but fortunately we know where the elemental magic of yesteryear can still be found, and that is precisely why we’ve come to Ailuk.
Escape Mission! Some very altruistic friends loaned us their spare outboard so we could get the heck out of Majuro. We had ten days with the foster kicker, so we kept our jaunt semi-local and made for Maloelap Atoll just 100 miles to the north.Continue reading →
I’ve been feeling generally uninspired by Majuro. Engaging with the locals is difficult; taxi rides are awkward at best, and despite dressing to blend in we still get stared at everywhere we go. We’d been warned directly that the locals were unfriendly, and while I wouldn’t necessarily use that word nor apply it to everyone, there is an underlying dissonance. Continue reading →
To think we almost didn’t come here. To think they almost didn’t let us come here! After sitting down with customs and immigration in Fiji and having a carefully worded conversation, they granted us a visit for the sole purpose of refuelling before continuing north. Our “special permission” came on a very official-looking sticky note and was accompanied by intimidating eye contact and the stipulation that we were neither on vacation nor to go surfing.Continue reading →
Up until a few weeks ago, if you’d asked us where we were headed next the answer was Vanuatu, New Caledonia and then Australia. It’s more or less the usual route everyone takes around here, and this is likely one of the reasons we’ve opted for the alternative. There are a number of reasons, really, and the more you try to unpack it the more complex the decision becomes. In the end, though, we realized an opportunity that probably wouldn’t present itself again, and I have a strong personal aversion to predictability.