Bikini

Bikini is deamed safe now but for our protection we were given these outfits to wear. (smile!-just kidding)

Thursday, June 7^th, 2007

            We flew along at 8 knots at times through the night.  The miles were being clicked off.  We had a few more squalls but nothing major.  Today I found the sun very hot as there was little cloud cover.  We found ourselves below more often than not.  We continued on averaging 6 to 7 knots.  We would see Rongdelap by nightfall and we did.  On our chart there was a small island showing very near where we were, but when you zoomed in on the chart the island disappeared.  Weird.  We kept and extra eye out as we did not want to run aground.  Day turned into night and we had 75 nautical miles to go.

View of Bikini Atoll from our boat.

The main road of the dive center.

Great Gazebo Bar.  Too bad they did not have it functioning at the time.

Taking a road over to the other side of the motu to see the beach on the windward side.

Pictures, memrobilia, etc... in the seminar/reading/gathering room.

The building itself.

Friday, June 8^th, 2007

            We reached Bikini earlier that we had planned, which was great.  We saw the first motu by 7:00 am.  We made sail adjustments and headed for the motu, Bikini.  We were hailed on the radio on approaching by two dive boats asking if we had our permission form and then welcoming us to Bikini.  We made plans to meet up later and learn more about the area and hopefully be a part of a history film viewing tonight.  We anchored just in front of the dive shop.  The water does not seem clear.  We are in twenty feet of water and we cannot see to the bottom.  There are many coral mounds around us, so hopefully the snorkeling is good.  Finally anchored, sails down and a few jobs done, like putting the dinghy in the water we all just laid back and relaxed awhile.  By 3 pm we headed in to shore.  There is a bit of surf here, so we would need to practice hitting the sand shelf and getting out quickly so that the boat does not get turned over. J  We walked through the compound and finally found someone, a Marshallese man.  He led us into the kitchen and eating area.  We were told to help our selves to a drink of water or juice and some ice-cream.  Very friendly!  The diver leader we wanted to talk to had gone out again for another afternoon dive and would be back around 5:30, so we decided to just walk around for a while.  The guys in the kitchen said that the film was at 6 pm, so no point in going back to the boat.  We walked to the right and saw an old ancestral grave sight and a mechanic shop that had a sign outside that said that they could fix everything but a broken heart. I thought this was funny. J  We then turned around as the road just seemed to keep going but with no buildings or anything.  We kept walking all the way to the other end of the compound seeing where dive guests stay etc…   The coconut trees and everything here are all planted in rows.  We learned later on that the whole island was leveled for the bomb testing that went on, so any foliage was replanted.  We found a road that jutted off towards the other side of the island, the windward side, so we hoped we could get to the water.  We did and the walking was nice because we were somewhat out of the sun.  We were really not up for a beach walk, still tired from our crossing, but once we were there and we say the litter of plastic buoys we started our march in search of glass balls.   5:30 pm came quickly and so we made our way back.  We met Richard who was pleasant and helpful in pin pointing Jim the dive leader out.  6 pm was dinner not a film and tonight at 7 pm was a seminar if we wanted to come.  So we headed back out to our boat knowing we would just have to turn right back around but also needing something to eat.  We quickly warmed up some beans and headed right back.  In my attempt to get out of the boat quickly this time my flip flop front caught on the gunnels of the boat and I went down in to the sand just in time for the next wave to soak me.  Great!  I was not so keen on going now as I doubted they wanted someone sitting on their furniture wet.  Jon said, "They'll get you a towel or something."  Well, they didn't, but I was able to sit on a wood bench.  A wee bit cold I might add as the room was air conditioned.  The seminar was interesting and we enjoyed seeing pictures of the bomb.  We were hoping for a film but no such luck.  We thanked Jim and made arrangements to come back tomorrow to use the SSB radio.  He never mentioned any other seminars or films, so I don't know if we will get to see anything else.  Getting back into the boat was better and Jon and I crashed once back aboard Sonadora.  Wade stayed up and watched a movie.

Saturday, June 9^th, 2007

            I spent most of the morning working on preparing the aft for our offshore journey home.  Shells away, warm clothes out etc… Jon sketched out projects for the boat that we will do when we get home and Wade read.  By early afternoon we were all ready for a cool down, so we chose to check out the waters and see what the snorkeling is like.  The first bit of reef we saw was made up of the big round coral that we have seen.  I really need a book so that I can give proper names to the coral we see.  The interesting thing though was that all the coral was varying shades of brown??  Very little colour here.  There were lots of fish and some big fish.  As we moved over to another section of reef we started to see more colour, but only in one small strip then it was back to the browns.  In this small strip there was much to see.  Jon found two giant clams.  I have already mentioned earlier back in Ailuk how beautiful the colour combinations are.  I took a picture with Tanya's disposable underwater camera she left.  I am being choosy with only 18 pictures left to take.  One of the neat things was to be swimming along and then all of a sudden you were in the middle of a school of fish:  Hundreds of green flecks in the water darting in every direction.  Then a school of yellow would come swarming your way and then a school of turquoise blue.  All this colour like someone was throwing buckets of paint and the colour was spilling through the water.  Each of the guys saw a black tip shark I thankfully got to see turtles instead.   I had seven or eight spottings, but think that I saw four different turtles.  How thrilling to be swimming with the turtles again.   We found a dump sight of engines etc… in one section of the reef, most likely left over from the bombing that took place here.  We eventually made our way back to the boat.  I found another cowry shell on the way, but showed Jon and Wade and then put it back.  A nice one, white with brown spots.  I like the two I have from Ailuk and the ones Sally gave me.  By 5 pm Jon and I headed back in to shore for the net.  I was looking forward to talking to Daneen and saying hello to Sam and Sally.  Again the guys in the kitchen were very nice and brought us a picture of juice with ice for us to drink while we were on the radio.  Daneen and I had a nice chat but too short.  They will be heading off to Fiji here, so I will just have to email her when we get home.  I made my hellos to Sam and Sally and then signed off.  Jon was outside talking to one of the kitchen staff about places to snorkel etc… His English was not great and his main answers were you can swim anywhere, but don't go out where the water turns dark blue, there are big sharks! And when anchoring around the atoll the waters are shallow with reef, so just watch our depth.  We were able to get a big bag of ice before leaving and I made a joke about looking for glass balls and no luck so far.  He said just a minute, we protested, but he kept going and came back with a small glass ball.  We declined but he insisted.  I now have a glass ball but this is a special one even though I did not find it because I got it as a gift from a Bikinian on Bikini!   We thanked him very much and made our way back.  I had been putting together a roast chicken dinner complete with peach crisp.  I was hoping to get some more ice-cream, but the guys had been so nice, I just didn't want to ask.  Besides I had made whipped cream.   So we had our feast in paradise talking about where we would go tomorrow.

A set-up of lines down from buoys where there are oysters being fed sand? to make pearls.

The beach past the dive shop was like broken up shale.  There were some huge clam shells.  We really wanted to take one but they are impossible heavy! :)

Sharks Wade came across on his beach adventure.

Sunday, June 10^th, 2007

            We did not get moving on anything really until 1 pm today.  We were going to move on, but something had us stay.  We just puttered around the boat all morning.  We finally all took off in the dinghy.  We dropped Wade off at shore.  He wanted to go in and find out about these films that we could hopefully watch on Bikini.  Jon and I continued on in the dinghy.  First, we checked out a number of buoys in a row.  Jon stuck his head under water and said that it was some kind of clam or oyster production.  Lines went down from the buoys and the clams or oysters were growing on them.  He also saw a carrier in the water.  We headed for shore a ways down with this big red bush drawing us in.  The first amazing thing to see on land was these huge clam shells as if almost fossilized.  We tried to dig one out that did not seem to be attached to the surrounding rock, but no way was that clam shell even budging.  I walked down the beach and found my first pair of flip flops.  You see a lot of flip flops washed up on the beaches, but a pair! I then found that the road came right down by the waters edge and just on the other side was this beautiful tree laden with red lily type flowers.  Gorgeous!  I took a bundle to hopefully put in a vase when we got back on the boat, but then again how will they like to be in the heat cut from their source of water and food: not very much. L A bit wilted, but they did make it back.  Jon and I carried on from here by snorkeling the waters edge.  Still kind of on the brown side, but the fish were enough to keep you entertained.  The fish here seem so much bigger.  We had schools of fish going by.  I don't think I had ever seen a school of parrot fish before??  All the various colours.  I am going to have to pull out my fish book and see if I can remember the parrot fish and all the other variety of fish I saw.  At one point I poked my head out of the water to see where Jon was and just as I put my head back in the water this large body went flying in front of me.  I just about jumped out of my skin!!  I would say if you could talk to the turtle, as this is what the big creature was, he would probably say he was spooked as well and took a run for it after hiding behind a rock. J  We snorkeled all the way to the end of Bikini motu.  The water was quite murky, so we did not venture out.  Sharks you know and Bikini is known for them.  We do not need to tempt fate.  We pulled the boat up on the sand and took a break.  The cold lemonade we brought tasted so good.  Of course I was up soon walking around shell hunting. J  We walked a bit around the island just to see.  You never know, there could be a glass ball. J  We did see this big rectangle space in the middle of the reef as if someone created a pool in the middle of the reef.  We decided to get our snorkel gear and go check it out.  There were fish, one black tip reef shark I saw in the distance, some interesting coral, but otherwise quite sparse.  There were these rods put together TP style along the edge of this rectangle space??  We decided to get going as I still wanted to see the small island just to our south where hopefully not many people travel and at that maybe the workers form time to time, maybe.  There is just no one else out here and the divers that come are pretty much bound to the motu of Bikini because they do not have boat access.  Funny enough, right after pulling up our dinghy on the beach we took a cut through the middle of the island and Jon found a glass ball about five minutes later.  This ended up being the only one we found, but we found one! J  Other treasures were a few nice shells and two small beige eggs with brown and dark brown spots on them.  We had seen these big indentations in the sand on the other side and wandered if they had been turtle nests.  We even saw tracks that we wandered if they were baby turtles heading for the sea.  These eggs though were in a very shallow indent in the sand, beside a bush all branches and no leaves.  This left no camoflauge or protection.  They were about the size of chicken eggs but they seemed too big for the white birds that flew over head??  Another mystery was the four TV's buried in the sand.  Where would they come from??  The next little island was so close and Margaret on Cahoots said she had left me something turquoise on the south shore, but it was now five thirty and we needed to go pick up Wade.  We all headed out to the boat and had a quick dinner and then headed back in to watch some Bikini movies.  When we arrived the door to the movie room was closed and we could here something playing.  We decided to finish our chocolate ice-cream we grabbed before going up as we did not really want to disturb.  We thought maybe there would be a natural break in about twenty minutes and we could join.  Instead after flipping through magazines, looking at pictures of atomic bombs and perusing their book collection, two hours had passed and no change other than the door opening for a minute, we stared waiting for someone to walk out before speaking up and then the door just closed again.  We started to leave and then decided lets just go in.  So we did and there were three guys in watching the old film of Pearl Harbour.  It ended five minutes later and they left.  We watched two films of Bikini and found them both educational.  The history here is very interesting.  Thanks to the Bikini Divers group we have had this opportunity to learn more.  Upon leaving, I went to get a few plumera flowers.  Wade wanted to sign the guest book in the kitchen.  Next thing we were all in the kitchen talking with Ronnie and Edward.  Edward is a Bikinian who helped start the dive shop.  Two very friendly guys.  I think I have already mentioned how friendly Ronnie has been.  Upon entering the kitchen/dining area right away, do we want something to drink? How about some ice cream? Etc…  Their generosity was boundless.  We sat together and chatted awhile.  We were passed midnight by now and finally said our goodbyes.  We all had signed the guest book and thanked them again for their hospitality.  We dragged the dinghy down to the waters edge and took a couple waves over the side.  We all got wet.  With this surf it is hard to not.  I was exhausted, generating heat from a bit of a burn today and wired.  Not a good combination as I could not fall asleep, but soon sleep came.  What a day.

On a couple of the small islands we explored there was this broken up shale type rock (coral) again.

Jon was our scout looking for any wrecks or good snorkel spots.  He would put on his snorkel gear and just stick his head in the water. (smile!) 

We believed this to be one of the old landing craft.

Jon our diver (smile!)

Scouting out the oyster set-up

Monday, June 11^th, 2007

            I was working on my journal this morning and I heard a call over the radio.  It was Ronnie.  They were on their way out for their first dive and he wanted to apologize that he was tired last night, he had gone fishing and did not get a chance to say goodbye to us.  I invited him to come see the boat if he got a chance after his dive and thanked him again.  I told him I would call him before we pulled up anchor.  I cannot say it enough. A very friendly and kind person.   Well, you know how it goes.  We had intentions of pulling up anchor.  We know our time is very short now, but once we had Ronnie on Sonadora for a tour with Liz ( a teacher out for the weeks dives), we felt the only way we could thank him for everything was to offer to take them out sailing.  They jumped at the idea, so we will be staying here another night.  Bikini motu is not bad at all, just with the boat projects still to do and the exploring we still want to do, I am afraid we are just going to run out of time.   "Back to life….back to reality….."  However we have all decided this is the true reality.   We all decided to jump in the dinghy and head back down to the small island that Jon and I were at yesterday and check out the reef in front.  It had looked interesting, so we were hoping the snorkel would be good.  There was a lot of old coral at first, but the scene got better as we kept going.  We decided to swim through the pass to the next island, which I thought was the one Margaret from Cahoots had left something for me.  I was a bit nervous about sharks and believe it or not I think I have pulled a few muscles never really been used before from all this snorkeling.  I have something on the top of my left foot that if just touched right sends and fizzy feeling all up my leg.  The current was strong to boot and when I decided that maybe I would just get out of the water, Wade was too far behind with the dinghy to want to swim back through the current, so I kept going.  I think the most impressive thing so far here in Bikini is the size of the fish.  There are definitely some big fish here!  Of course Jon saw a shark, lying on the bottom of the ocean.  "What to see?", "No."  I was tired and since I was nervous about the sharks, I decided going to the sharks was not on my agenda. J  We made it to the other motu.  The snorkeling just off there was quite nice.  The water was murky though and same with out in front of the other motu.  When we went through the pass the water was clear, clear, clear. ??   I first walked to the south end of the motu to look for my turquoise something and found yet another motu in front of me!  One more island to go.  This was not the motu.  Oh well.  We looked around.  I collected a few more shells.  No glass balls.  I found a skull which we think is a turtle skull.  Neat!  We burned our garbage, had a drink and rested for a bit.  Amazing how the waves must crash right over this motu as well.  There was not a lot of debris and we figured it must get washed right over.  Wade found a nest in a low bush with eggs that were the size of chicken eggs.  He said the eggs were white with brown spots.  Not the same colour as the ones I found yesterday, but I am still surprised by the size.  These birds are not that big.  I would not think that their eggs would be that big??  We made the motor back stopping at the buoys we had looked at yesterday.  Jon had asked and they said they were farming pearls and we could look.  The guys looked at the carrier there as well.  Back on board we had a nice simple dinner.  I relaxed with a book and the guys decided to go in to watch some more movies.  I am just plum tuckered out.

Wade goes to bring in a fish but a shark decides to take half of the fish before Wade can get the fish on deck~!

Making friends!

What a great day!

Tuesday, June 12^th, 2007

            I had made the suggestion yesterday that maybe we could take our jerry jugs in and fill up with water here at the dive center.  We have not had rain and we are running low.  We have laundry to do before we go and we need all tanks and jugs full before we leave.  We could do this with the water maker, but getting a few jugs filled here would probably help a lot.  The guys took in three out of the five jugs.  I am not sure why yet as they are still sleeping.  All I can think about is the weight in the boat and the surf line getting in and out of the dinghy?? I went to go make coffee and they have dumped every jug of water out in to our tanks which is not drinkable.  I finally was able to get enough left in the kettle and in the bottom of one jug to make ¾ of a pot full.  Not sure what the plan is here.  J We have Ronnie, Liz and Edward coming on board for the day as well and we will need drinking water???  Well, of course all works out.  Jon and I went in a bit early with all the jugs and took a load of water out and then he went back and left the jugs when he picked up our passengers for the day.  We will fill them up again probably two more times.  Jon also wandered if we might be able to take our laundry in as this would save us having to transport the water out to do the laundry on the boat.  There are washing machines we have heard of and just maybe we can use those.  The people here, as I have said a few times have been so kind though and I do not want to over extend our wishes to the point we are being rude.  Anyways, Liz, Ronnie and Henry, who we had not met yet, were safely on board.  Edward could not make it, so Henry came.  He had never been on a sailboat before.  We left our dinghy tied up to our anchor chain in hopes that this would keep our dinghy safer and also make tying back up easier than re-anchoring as we may end up back at dark.  We got all three sails up and sailed along beautifully to the pass.  The guys worked away at getting the fishing lines out.  Once we reached the pass we followed the reef line along down to the next set of motus.  This reef line is quite blurry though as at no point does it reach a depth just below the surface.  This makes it quite a wide pass here and the depth ranged from 40 to 80 feet.  Right away we pulled in a gray snapper.  First time I have seen one of those before.  We then brought in a rainbow runner.  I thought wow; we are going to do some good fishing today!  Unfortunately the lines just rested in the water after that for some time.  We talked, enjoyed cold drinks and laughed.  The day was great and the scenery was wonderful.  Once we approached the next motus we saw structures left over from the atomic bombing days where they had set-up areas for transport between the motus and a bunker.  I wish we would have time to come here.  But now here we are the 12^th, and Wednesday.  We still have stuff to do in prep to go and only a few days left.  We came to the next pass after not finding any flocks of birds and began the trek back, this time straight to windward.  In hindsight, I wish I had said, why don't we head back up the reef and then cut across the way we came, this way we would be on a broad reach.  Oh well.  We caught two mackerel and half a rainbow runner I think?  The other half was taken by a shark!  Interesting!  The sky filled with rain squalls and we even went through one, but no more than a sprinkle.   We arrived back at anchor at 7:30.  All was well.  Ronnie has decided we are like his brother and sister now.  I told him I would write him and send pictures.  After several hugs Wade gave them a ride back to land.  Ronnie and Liz would be gone in the morning with the rest of the crew as the weeks dives are over and now the staff has a month break.  We will miss Ronnie and we will be thinking of him.  Thanks for a great day everyone.  Another day in paradise to remember.

Having some breakfast! Yeah!

Getting to do our laundry with laundry machines was a real treat!!

Saying goodbye to the icecream machine. (smile!)

Saying goodbye to Henry.

Saying goodbye to Edward.

What a place!  We are so glad we had the opportunity.  We would have really missed out if we had not found a way to make sure Bikini atoll was a part of our trip.

Wednesday, June 13^th, 2007

            OK today we go!  We don't really want to go, but our time is so short and there is still more to see.  We went in with our laundry and totes with the back-up plan of having to stomp our clothes, but we were really hoping we would be able to use the laundry machines.  Even one better happened.  We ended up in the laundry room and started our laundry.  Edward showed up with his whistling tune as he came down the hallway and then his bright cheerful face and smile.  He had us go back to the kitchen with him and said, "You go in to the cooler and make yourself something.  Whatever you like.  Everything will go bad if you don't."  We were all starving as we went to bed last night without dinner and now getting on in the late morning had not had breakfast.  He sat and chatted with us while Jon got bacon and eggs on.  Wade toasted some bagels.  He said we should have come for dinner last night as they put out all foods you could imagine as they were trying to cook up the food and last night was the divers last night so a bit of a party.  As much as the idea sounded good we were just as happy with what we did: went sailing with friends.   As Jon served up our bagel sandwiches, Edward said goodbye.  We sat and ate and then we left soon after as well to go find Henry and say goodbye to him.  My most enjoyed part of the meal was getting to eat a fresh, cold, crisp apple!  Ohh how good!  This had all been much better than the anticipated cup of ice cream.  We had switched the laundry over and hopefully we would not be too much longer as we wanted to get down to our new anchorage while the sun is overhead: much easier to see the coral heads for maneuvering.  We could not find Henry, so we decided to make one run out to Sonadora and then we would try one more time.  We filled our water jugs and took them out with some laundry done and then came back with the jugs to fill again.  This time we did find Henry.  We sat with him a while in his office and chatted.  He is a really nice man.  He will be finished working on Bikini in August as he says that he does not like to be away from his family so long and his family is not able to come and stay in Bikini.  I took a picture of him with Jon and Wade and then we made our goodbyes.  We seeked out Edward one more time as we did not get his picture.  We found him and said out last goodbyes.  We may see them again though on Sunday as all the workers are getting together to go to one of the other motus for a relax day and we may join them as our last day here.  We will see how the boat jobs go.  With the last of the laundry in the boat and after feeding the cats a bagel and saying goodbye to them we all got the dinghy out through the surf and jumped in.  Goodbye Bikini. L  All the Marshallese here have been absolutely wonderful and very friendly.  We have made friends and are very thankful for their generosity and kind nature.  The Bikinians made this trip memorable!   We pulled up anchor after getting our stuff aboard and headed down the atoll.  The first stop was for Jon and me to jump in the dinghy while Wade held Sonadora off so that we could go to a small motu where Margaret from Cahoots had left something.  The surf was pretty big and the beach steep, but we managed to beach the boat with only taking one wave over the bow.  As we climbed up the steep beach, right at the top was what she had left: a beautiful turquoise frosted bottle.  We had a quick look around and then headed back to Sonadora.  Our anchoring was easier than expected.  We were thinking the whole coastline was going to be foul according to our chart and what we had heard.  There was definitely some coral heads further in, but we were able to anchor in 20 feet of water just off of one of one of the three old docks here.  We were tired, but we were curious about shore, so we all clamored into the dinghy and made our way over to the dock.  We tied up and the first to see was a lifeboat/shore launch boat that must have been left here from the Bikini testing.  There are several buildings and we have not pieced together all the history here, but some is from an attempt to re-inhabit the island and others are from the Bikini testing and yet others are probably from the war.  Quite mishmash.  The airport building looks set-up for two inhabitants and just sits empty.  There is one room they seem to use for the coming and going of divers etc… on the airplanes, other than this the building sits quiet.  There is a big warehouse building full of filters and tools as if a mechanic type shop was set-up here once.  All the metal parts are rusting and showing corrosion and the boxes are losing their form and bending and molding together.  We walked across the airport strip and made our way to the beach.  Wade really wants to find a glass ball.  I found several more of my small plastic balls, but no glass balls.   We still have much beach to explore though.  I cannot see why we would not be able to find a glass ball or two!   Now going on 7 pm we thought it best to make our way back to Sonadora and make some dinner.  Fish and chips it is!

Excellent anchorage!

The buildings we explored were pretty empty.  What was left made the place seem somewhat like a ghost town or other parts just seemed abandoned and unfinished.

A kitchen in a main building where we believe the workers who were building the housing were fed.

Ice machine, tables etc... just outside the kitchen.

Pantry

A nice sized spider on the wall.

Living quarters.  There were some rooms with two beds but most with four beds bunk bed style.  Very simple and small rooms with bed and a back to back desk in the middle of the room.  Each bed had a small closet for the men's personal things.

Washrooms and laundry room

workshop

Machinery

An old office.

Thursday, June 14^th, 2007

            A beautiful sunny day.  We got some boat projects done first this morning.  I started pulling out our sweaters etc… to get ready for the crossing.  Jon began work on the dodger which I think is going to make a big difference in comfort in our crossing.  Not only will it cut down the wind, but the cold and the rain or sun's heat, which ever it may be on any given day.  We all worked until noon and then had a bite to eat before heading to shore.  We took the dinghy to the north end of the island to go check out this building that was made for a dive operation and then abandoned.  We are still trying to peace together everything around here.  Like I said there is stuff from the atomic bomb testing, stuff from attempting re-habitation and stuff from setting up a dive center.  Quite a mish mash.  The building was not as impressive as we were hoping.  The building was pretty much bare inside minus a toilet or two and several bunk beds.   We then crossed the island and began our beach walk.  At first I was thinking we may get rained on.  We had our first bit of rain this morning.  We have not had any rain since we got to Bikini.  In the distance looking out towards Bikini motu all I could see was a mass of clouds and dark lines coming down to meet the ocean.  We never did get rained on though.  Somehow a lot of the squalls seem to go around us wherever we are.  We walked and walked and walked some more.  Again not a lot of debris on the beach, but the beach was pretty steep and things most likely either get pushed in to the bush or end up being pulled off in the next tide.  No glass balls.  Wade gathered several stainless steel clips and I have a back pack full of my Japanese plastic floats along with a few shells.   Wade at one point ended up far behind as he was getting right into the bush and looking.  Jon and I went for a swim while we waited for him.  Oh how to describe the ocean.  That mint green was all around me and then the shades of colour that rippled out towards the dark indigo ocean.  Oh how I will miss this.  My feet danced along with the rhythm of the waves as I let them glide over the sandy bottom.  Ahhh!  Jon had found a big orange life ring from a boat and we both took turns floating in it and talking about being lost at sea.  I said that if I was in a little float like this I would not want to be in the water for more than an hour and that would probably be too long.  We finally spotted Wade and continued on our way.  Jon had found a nice piece of green rope we will most likely use as a docking line.  With all our loot we headed over to the big warehouse at the airport to have another boo around.  Jon is just fascinated with all that has been left behind:  old cars, machinery, parts, boxes and boxes of nails.  So much stuff.  We finally headed down the grassy road that seems to go the perimeter of the island to get back to where we had left the dinghy.  In the mean time we came across some more buildings.  We feel like we are walking through a ghost town.  The first building was obviously housing.  Again more bunk beds, some lockers and washrooms.  We then found another work shop again with engines and parts.  Some things Jon and Wade pointed out had been new at one point, never been used and now rusting away.  They both could look at items and state the price: one item were $1000 and another box of things $3000.  What a waste.  I saw this dresser unit that I thought my brother Jim would like and later I found another just like it.  If we only had the space.  They both were done in bamboo on the exterior.  I thought they would be great for his Tiki bar.   The next building was a generator plant with huge generators.  The next quarters for workers we gathered.  Each room had a number and inside a bunk bed on the left and one on the right.  In the middle of the room a desk with two sides and above a ceiling fan.  There were three corridors and four rows of these rooms.  In the far corner was a common washroom set up with showers and toilets.  We then found two larger rooms probably for who ever ran the operation, a large office room and then at the far end of the hallway, the kitchen.  There were still jars of peanut butter, jam, baking powder and lard in the pantry.  Now I know what peanut butter looks like if left in a jar for ten years!  This was all very interesting to us and we wish the walls could talk.  We moved on as we had a roast beef to put on the barbeque for dinner, that's right a roast beef all the way out here.  We are not suffering you know! J  Not in the least!  In some ways I was thankful there were no more buildings between us and getting to our boat.  I don't think we would have been able to just walk by.   Definitely more exploring tomorrow.  We are curious to see what may be down at the south end near the two other piers.  Back on board Sonadora with cold drinks in hand we started dinner complete with Yorkshire pudding.  Yum, yum!!! 

Friday, June 15^th, 2007

            What a day! Rain! Rain! And more rain!  In all the time we have spent in the Marshall Islands this is the rainiest day ever.  The clouds came in a settled in for the day.  We have had passing squalls before and like I have said have even been lucky to have rain once a week to top up our tanks.  However, we missed out on a rain last week and today the Gods are making up for it.  The sun came out briefly.  The first I saw of a pending storm was while walking the beach and seeing only shades of gray and black coming closer.  The morning was off and on drizzle and we puttered around with boat jobs.  Jon really wanted to get the fiber glassing done on the dodger but with everything wet this was not going to happen.  Hopefully tomorrow is sunny because we are running out of days to get these boat jobs done.  We all went a shore in the late afternoon.  Wade and I were walking the beach while Jon was playing around with history.  The first good bit of rain hit as I was just coming to the south corner of the island.  I was soaking wet as I walked down the airstrip back to the pier.  I had found my first glass ball ever and was happy with my bag of goodies, again mainly my plastic Japanese balls, some stainless steel clips and some shells.  I was with Jon about an hour checking out the buildings again when the rain really came down.  If we did not have full tanks we would have today with no doubt.  We waited Wade out in the airport office.  He was still out there walking the beach we guessed.  The coconut trees were bent over like you see in the news broadcasts of tropical storms.  The air was a light gray with so much water and the wind was cold.  We checked on Sonadora a couple of times, but she was holding on.  We all finally made it back out to Sonadora and the storm started to let up.  We continued to have on and off rain for the early evening, but nothing like this afternoon.  We still have not even gone snorkeling here.  I am definitely not in a rush to leave, but our time really is at an end if we want to get back before August.  Hopefully tomorrow is sunny and we can get the dodger fiber glassed, a few more boat jobs checked off the list and do some snorkeling.  If this can happen I will feel that we are closer to being ready to head out of here in a couple of days.  I am just glad we were not already on our way as I would not have wanted to be at sea for today's rain storm.  I am still hoping for a fast, comfortable, sunny ride home!

Saturday, June 16^th, 2007

            Yeah!  The sun is back.  We kept ourselves very busy all morning with boat chores, again!  How boring.  They need to be done though before we go.  The dodger is looking good.  We have a get together with the Bikinians tomorrow if we wish.  Still so much we want to do.  By 2 pm we took off our now drenched clothes.  Sorry, perspiration!  It's hot working out here!  Poor us, I know.   We jumped in the water looking forward to a much anticipated snorkel.  All we could find though was weeds and a few pieces of coral here and there.  The fish were big though!  I think a parrot fish tried to attack me with his mouth wide open!  Here I thought they were just beautiful fish, but maybe they have the ability to gang up on me.  We see them in school here.  An after thought was that I was wearing my bright coral swim hat on as it keeps my hair out of my eyes when I snorkel.  Maybe the parrot fish thought I was one of them and this one big guy was trying to get a kiss.   We decided soon to go back and get the dinghy and maybe try the pass.  I knew our chances of sharks were greater, but we had the dinghy with us and the snorkel should be good.  The coral here was not bad and yet more fish and schools of different kinds.  Even the reef fish here are big.  Jon had brought the spear gun, so sooner than later Wade and I got in the dinghy after I had tied it to a rock.  We were in about 20 feet of water, but I was able to find a piece jutting out from a rocky area.  There current through the pass is strong and the chop through the dinghy nose up and down.  We found ourselves occupied with bailing water.  We had seen two white tip sharks before getting out of the water, so did not know if spear fishing was such a great idea.  No telling Jon though.   He was back and forth and back and forth and then about 30 feet off the dinghy he looks up and says, "Shark.  A big one!"  He figures it was a gray reef shark.  Not one to take your eyes off of and play around with.  Jon just kept the spear gun pointed at him until he left.  He said he was about 7 feet long and had 'girth'.  He soon tired of the idea of spear fishing in the turbulent water and we all headed back to Sonadora.  We still have projects to do, but we are done for today.

Sitting and having a casual Sunday with our new friends.

Reef fish they caught to take home to their families.

The group came over to get some movies for us and rescued our floating away water jug at the same time. Thanks. :)

Sunday, June 17^th, 2007

            Boat chores and more boat chores.  Well, we did kind of leave a lot to the end, but not really either.  We just have stuff to put away that could not really get put away until we were ready to, the diesel stove to re-hook-up that we won't need until the end of our trip.  No worries though.  All is going well.  The Marshallese from Bikini showed up here this morning and seem to be spending the day here rather on the motu down to the south/west of the motu.  We joined them at 3 pm for a drink and a chat.  They had been fishing earlier and had two coolers full of reef fish and I mean full!  We passed on a few movies to them and they invited us down for dinner Tuesday night.  We were going to try and leave Tuesday, but we will see.  A relaxing afternoon and a relaxing evening.

Now that's fresh laundry! (smile)

Last fresh water showers!  Most refreshing!

Monday, June 18^th, 2007

            Well, we have reached our day of departure but we are not departing.   We were looking at Tuesday and I justified it with the fact that we will go back a day when we cross the international line, so technically leaving Tuesday is the 18^th.  However, with being invited for dinner with the workers on Bikini, we have decided to do this and depart Wednesday.  We all know we need to get going, but to get home and say well, we could have had dinner with the Marshallese in Bikini, but we needed to get going so we declined just didn't seem right.  What is one more day. J We will be home soon enough now and I would rather look back on the memory of a evening with the Marshallese in Bikini.  Besides we are so close on getting the dodger done and we will definetly appreciate having that on our passage.  We spent the morning doing the dodger, a bit of laundry, collecting a bit more water, garbage burning and just a bit of time on the motu.  We took time to float in the water of course.  Jon and I even took advantage of the fresh water up at the airport and did a rinse in fresh water.  Hopefully we will be able to spend tomorrow relaxing as our last day and have a good sleep.  Tonight we will be out collecting lobster.  We were anticipating a big feed.  Jon did find two very nice lobsters but alas only two.  We walked the reef for 3 hours and we never even saw and other lobsters.  At least we get one last taste.  The night was dark but I enjoyed the hunt all the same.  This would be the last time to be out this late in the Marshall Islands.  The silhouette of the coconut trees standing out from the dome of stars.  The crashing waves and rush of water up and over our bodies.  What a beautiful place!

Working on getting the dodger finished.

The many cats of Bikini...

What a great dinner they put on for us.  Thank-you! Thank-you!

Flowers that were picked and put out on the tables. Beautiful!  I will miss the wanderful fragrances.

I will miss our new friends more! :(

The sky was stunning that night and made the evening all the more magical.

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2007

                        Last day!  Oh boy.  What a feeling.  Part of me has been saying, "let's just get it over with!" and  another part of me is saying, "Are we really at the end of our trip?"  I am going to miss the water, the marine life, the coconut trees, the weather, the people, and all the wonderful experiences we have had.  I am so looking forward to getting off the boat at the government dock and hugging Tanya, to seeing our family to playing with my cat and to sitting around with who ever wants to listen and tell the tales of our last year.  So many mixed emotions.  The Marshall Islands are truly a beautiful place!  We continued this morning of course on boat jobs.  Finishing off the dodger was a bit saw-dusty and fiber-glassy, so we all jumped in the water to cool off and wipe off the dust.  Listening to the tools going again and even the thought of fiberglass takes me back to our preparations last summer.  We have truly come full circle.  We were not sure if we could make it to Bikini for dinner, but finally decided we could not miss the evening with our new friends and truly lay back and soak up this great place.  Before we pulled anchor and made the hour motor down to Bikini motu Jon and I got dressed up in our tin foil outfits and hats to take our picture we have been wanting to.  We thought it would be funny to have a picture of us like this to add the caption, "We have been issued these suits and hats to protect ourselves from the radiation here on Bikini."  We had a hoot! J We all jumped in the dinghy once we arrived and ventured the surf one last time to go to shore here.  We had forgotten about the roll as our last anchorage has been heaven.  As we started up the beach I spotted the cats and they all came running out to greet us.  They had not done this before.  I had spent some time with them our last time here and gave them some food.  They obviously did not forget. J Edward told us they would be waiting for us at the bar.  The bar here is a huge gazebo overlooking the water.  They said we could not eat in the kitchen because they just laid down a new floor.  No problems here.  The view alone makes the bar a perfect choice.  The workers were all milling about enjoying an evening after work.  We were truly touched by their efforts.  They made us feel so important.  Someone had gone and cut fresh flowers and placed them in vases around the gazebo and the bar.  They had put together vodka and orange juice, straight tang and even brought us out cold beer!!  The cook had put together a great spread of food.  Very tasty! Enno tata!! J Conversation was enjoyable and the sunset spectacular.  We could not believe they had put this all together for us.  In fact many of the guys went fishing afterwards to catch red snapper to take back to their families in Majuro and then would have a meal together later.  Edward said that the Marshallese prefer to have fish and rice but are learning to have more vegetables.  So all this food, spaghetti, steak, stir fried rice was made for us.  The guys ate some, but were looking forward to that fish later.  Again, I can hear my dad agreeing except he would want potatoes. J  We sat back with coffees and listened to the surf as the sky changed intensities of yellow, coral, and pink.  Wow! (The universal word here  ).  Kommol Tata to all!  Edward thanked us very much for coming in for dinner and spending time with them.  He said that others do not do this.  They do not take the time to interact with them.  All I have to say to that is everyone else has been missing out on the best part of the Marshall Islands.  You can find sandy beaches, great snorkeling and spectacular sunsets in many places around the world but here is where you find the kindness and warmth of the Marshallese people.  We will miss this the most.  Kommol Tata kon am Jemjera! (Thank-you for your friendship!) J  Back on Sonadora we got all of our new stores put away and all basically went to bed to be ready for the last of what we need to do tomorrow before we sail past Bikini and out to the blue.

Bye Edward!

We will truly miss Bikini Atoll, and the rest of the Marshall Islands: especially the people we have met and the friends we have made along this most memorable journey.

Wednesday, June 20^th, 2007

            The day has truly arrived!  We are not right on schedule, but this whole trip we have not been right on schedule and each time this has been for the best.  I am still reminiscing on last night and our journey to date.  The sun is playing hide and seek behind the clouds.  The day is warming up and the only sounds are that of Wade snoring from time to time.  I have my coffee in hand and I am just enjoying the morning before all begins.

            We made our way down back to our anchorage in front of Enu. Wade and I made our way in to say goodbye to Edward.  He is flying out today back to Majuro.  We thanked him again very much for all he has done and for his friendship, "Kommol Tata kon am jemjera (thank-you for your friendship)."  We did not stay long as we needed to get back to the boat where on was already working on boat projects, ie the dodger.

The day has turned into evening and we are still here.  We were hoping to be out of here by 4 pm.  Sorry for all awaiting our return at home.  When we left home a year ago we were about a week over the date we chose as our departure, then we were a week I believe past our date leaving San Francisco and then about the same leaving Hawaii.  Here in the Marshall Islands we ended up going back to Majuro, so I would say we are doing just fine.  We all worked very hard today.  The boat is ready for sea.  We have the tarp to put up, tools to put away and the dinghy to get on deck.  We are going to run in and get a wash up before we leave tomorrow morning and then hope we are off by noon.  Tomorrow will tell.  What a journey ahead!  There is still beach and water calling us here and a home to get to.  We will be in the middle for about 30 days or so.  We will be home soon enough.  We are all just going to try and relax tonight and get a good sleep.

Ailuk

We arrive in Ailuk

Monday, May 28^th, 2007

Jon and I were up at midnight, to get the passage underway.  The moon was not full, but gave a nice light for the beginning of our trip.  We could see the motus and the reef, which made things less nerve racking.  We still followed our old line out the pass as you could not distinguish different colours in the water and we did not want to end up on the reef.  We knew the wind was going to be right on our nose as we headed up the outside of the atoll.  We had looked for a different pass to make the trip easier, but this was the best one.  We hoped that by tacking out we would get to a point where we could tack once more and be on our path for Ailuk.   No such luck.  By 4 am we made our first tack and then Wade made an additional tack on his watch.  By 7 am we were just passing Wotje meaning we had covered about 8 nautical miles!  Not good!  This meant we most likely would not make Ailuk by dark and would have to stand off.  However, the sea swell died down some once we passed Wotje atoll and the wind was perfect, so we sailed along wonderfully at 7 + knots the whole way.  We took a few rogue waves over the side: twice completely soaking me.  All I saw was a wall of water heading for me then whoosh.  We had a small splash on the aft bed twice as well as we had the hatch open.  Most water broke over the bow of the boat.  A very beautiful sail though and we saw Ailuk by 2:30 pm.  By 3:30 pm we were fishing along the reef heading for the pass.  Unfortunately no birds, so no tuna, but on our way through the pass we caught a fish that looks like a tuna, but we don't think it is a tuna??  There are a lot of coral heads in this atoll, so we had to keep our eyes peeled.  We some how always had a coral head to our starboard or our port, but never in front of us.  We picked a good path.  We arrived at our anchorage by 5:30 pm and were happy to drop the anchor and sit back with a cold drink.  We saw two outrigger canoes on our way in.  They sail fast!  Two beat us in to the motu Ailuk.  There is more going on here than we were told.  We were told that this was one of the most traditional atolls.  We will see tomorrow, but what our eyes see as the sun sets is a large boat anchored in the bay: fishing boat?, a large front end loader or a split ax Trojan moving some coconut trees, a very large building that we are not sure what it is but it looks like a resort and big, white beautiful church and there are vehicles on this motu.  Seems pretty modern to me.

A ship in with supplies.  A new building is being put up.

Theiir church.  Quite nice!

A lady drying kimej for handicrafts.

They had nice gardens here that were fenced in and netted.  Their pigs were in pens or tied.

This is the airport strip.  Below the picture shows the airport building - not really finished but I guess where people would wait for the plane or store the supplies that come off the plane.

The guys were always checking out old engines or anything of that sort.

Tuesday, May 29^th, 2007

            We all went for a quick snorkel this morning before heading to shore.  We wanted to check the anchor and get an idea of what we might see with the coral heads around us.  Jon was in the water first and was reporting sharks, he thinks?  When I got in the water there were these two fish, about the size of dog fish swimming under the boat that yes, definitely looked like some kind of shark.  They were curious creatures too and any movement from us and they had to come and investigate.  Well, as long as there are only two.  If more show up, I may just get out of the water.  I remember Cheryl telling us about the mob mentality of little sharks.  The anchor had dragged across the bottom when we set it yesterday just as we had guessed.  The bottom looks like coral rock with some sand on top.  We have hooked though and with the winds we had last night, we should be good.  We checked out the coral head just ahead and then I began to miss my camera.  Yet again some coral arrangements I have not seen before and one of my favourite corals, round or oblong discs was here in tube form as I had been told by Kaye to watch out for.  There was an abundance of fish as well.  We did not swim in to the reef as we decided we would do this later, but from what we saw there was a lot of promise.  I want a camera!   I have Tanya's disposable underwater camera with about 10 pictures left on it.  I will have to use it wisely and maybe she will share the pictures!   We got dressed and headed in to shore.  A man on a pier in front of the big building that looks like a hotel or something from out on Sonadora was waving for us to come to the pier.  We did and he took out painter and tied us up.  As Jon guessed he was the mayor or more specifically the acting mayor.  The mayor, as we guessed again, is in Majuro.  He was a nice man and spoke some good English.  He signed our permission form and I paid him the $25.  After some small talk and a picture we went on our Jambo (walk) around the village.  I cannot believe that 400-500 people live here.  The building that looked like a hotel is a big house where the mayor lives and is not near as impressive up close.  The church was beautiful up close though and I liked the designs on the exterior.  People greeted us as we went by and we saw all kinds of buildings.  There was another octagon house and another on stilts.  There are many fenced in gardens some more impressive than others.  We have seen a few chickens, but no pigs yet?  We walked all the way out to the airport and to the windward side of the island to check out the beach.  We stopped at a house just on the other side of the airport and spoke with the man there for a while.  His family kept a very tidy home and the yard had grass and shrubs and flowers.  Beautiful.  I took a picture of the little girl that was barely bigger than the little boy, most likely her little brother, she was caring.  As we walked to the other end of the village we met Like and his wife Caseeah (spelling?).  She was working on an animono yep (handicraft basket).  They do some beautiful designs here.  I want to buy it all!   Like spoke very good English and we enjoyed chatting with him a while.  His wife is going to make me a necklace and earrings.  We will go back tomorrow.  We stopped off at the acting mayor's house one more time and made arrangements for him to gather all the ladies tomorrow with their animonos for us to look at and choose what we like.  This will be tough.  I know there is going to be some beautiful things.  We thought we would go back to the boat and go for a snorkel, but I think we are being a bit smarter this time round after our long passage from Wotje and we just took it easy on the boat.  I worked on my animono flowers, Wade read and Jon took a nap.  We will go for a snorkel tomorrow after I spend the last of my money!

This was a new building that was being put up in the village.  After a couple of days the building was almost finsihed.

An outrigger up on the beach.

This is one of those shark looking/moving fish that we found out are not sharks but hang around sharks. Very interesting flat head.

Wednesday, May 30^th, 2007

            Wade and I were up and on our way in this morning to go look at some handicrafts.  Tempo, the acting mayor had some to come in the morning, but he had not specified a time.  I felt 10 O'clock was reasonable.  We arrived and his son told us that Tempo was on the other side of the motu and to come back in about half an hour.  So, Wade and I went for a walk on the beach.  I had wanted to walk out to the sand spit anyway.  On our way we stopped to look at two outrigger canoes on the beach and to take a couple of pictures.  I would like to see one of these in the water up close.  The sand spit was beautiful and went right out to the reef separating the lagoon from the open ocean.  Sonadora bobbed up and down on the waves and the wind swayed her from side to side.  The colours between me and her still astound me: light green, dark green, turquoise, aqua marine, deep blue and indigo.  We made our way back to Tempos house and watched several Marshallese working at putting up a new building.  There still were no handicrafters and Tempo gave me a radio and said maybe this afternoon.  This was fine and we made arrangements for a radio call at 3 pm as we most likely would go snorkeling next.  Back on the boat however, relaxing and doing little took over.  I continued to work on my handicraft flowers, Wade read another book and Jon tinkered with boat projects.  At some point Jon threw a line in the water and was able to catch one of the fish under our boat that swims like a shark.  Interesting fish!  The top of its head has this flat oval section that when I touched it sections separated and came up like they were gills??  I took some pictures and we studied the fish a while longer before throwing it back in the water.  We were all content to just hang out for the day and little things like this entertained us.    At 3 pm Tempo called me and we talked about tonight for handicrafts or maybe tomorrow morning.  If we were going to make the trip in I had to ask if there was a radio that I could use to contact Majuro.  Yes!  So, at 5 pm Jon and I went in and I was able to contact Kaye on Navigator and Daneen on Rose.  Well, she was actually on Cahoots visiting, but I got to talk to everyone!  It was so nice to hear everyone's voices and be able to reply.  We have so appreciated Daneen's messages and hellos on the SSB and I have wanted to reply back.  She has not received my email yet??  We talked and talked and talked some more.  I felt bad taking up the air waves for so long, but considering this is my one of maybe two chances to do this; I am putting all my days of air waves together. J  Forty minutes later we said our goodbyes and I said I would try and contact her from Bikini.  With her news of an upcoming grandchild, we just may have our paths cross sooner than we thought as "Grandma" is going to need to go back to the states for the birth.   Congratulations Andy and Daneen!!  How exciting.  After the radio call Jon and I made our way to Tempo's house in case ladies were waiting to sell handicrafts but no one showed.  So, we made our way to Like and Caseeah's house but she also told me to come back tomorrow.  We stopped one more time at Tempo's house to say thank-you and that we would see him tomorrow.  He invited us in for coffee, so we sat, drank coffee and chatted.  The workers were there who had been working on the building.  I took out a couple sailing magazines and a Vanity Fair magazine and everyone focused in on the pictures.  The way they turned the pages you would think it was a great novel! J  Someone did bring a bag of handicrafts and I was able to buy a wall hanging and a few more baskets.  We made goodbyes and headed for the boat since we had not had dinner yet and the sun had already set.  Jon and I made homemade somosas for dinner and we stuffed ourselves.  We watched a movie and made our way to dream land.  Sleep was not easy though as the wind really picked up.  The first gusts woke me up and I was able to get hatches closed before the first squall hit.  With our anchors lying on the bottom as opposed to being dug in I found it hard to sleep wandering if we would drag.  The wind tried its best but we held our position!  We also collected one tank of water.   

Thursday, May 31^st, 2007

            A little tired this morning.  Hoping for handicrafts but by 11 am the news was no ladies had come.  We know of some handicrafts out there, so I figure we will go in later anyway and see what we can find.  Jon is already tinkering on new boat projects and Wade is in to his next book.  I have not quite decided what I want to do this morning.  I would really like to go for a snorkel but the winds are still quite strong.  This would mean a lot of swimming to hold position as we explore the coral.  I am not feeling all that well anyway.  Almost like something I ate, but I have not eaten anything different from the guys.  Maybe last nights curry dish just did not agree with me.  The day passes and I do very little.  Jon is very pleased with himself and the outcome of his work however.  He decided to take on the wind generator again and has the generator working.  Well done!  Now we have our starter battery getting a trickle charge which makes the battery stay within an optimum running performance level instead of being drained and recharged to small percent.  This is great!  I never made it in to check out handicrafts and this was fine with me.  The weather was not improving, so we were not going to be moving.  The wind needs to die down so that we can see the coral heads as we move up the atoll to a new anchorage.  I will go in tomorrow to see about handicrafts.

Sally and Sam show up.

Friday, June 1^st, 2007

            I feel somewhat better today.  I think maybe part of it is not wanting to leave this beautiful place.  This will most likely be the last village we see in the Marshall Islands.  Less than three weeks before we head home.  We started off the morning by going in to say goodbye to Tempo and to hopefully gather a few last handicrafts.  A squall came through though and we had to wait it out.  It was still sprinkling a bit but we headed in anyway.  We reached Tempo's house and it started to rain again.  We waited out the rain and then went to Like and Caseeah's house to get the necklace and earrings she was making for me.  She only had a necklace and she wanted me to pay what they sell them for in Majuro.  Jon was right and I should have set a price with her earlier.  I did not want to pay what they charge in Majuro.  Most things are at least double the cost and what she wanted was five times what I had paid for a necklace in Maloelap.  The one I bought in Maloelap was woven too where this one was just braided.  I finally came to a price with her, but I don't think she was too happy but agreed all the same.  I was hoping to "sweeten" the buy by offering to buy the two baskets she was working on two days ago, but she said she gave them to the business.  This confused me because all I could think of was that they make there crafts and send them to Majuro, which just happened recently, but she did have these two baskets she was working on just two days ago.  I thanked her and we headed back to Tempo's.  He told us that the house we had been at out by the airport will take the ladies crafts in exchange for food.  I thought that she would most likely not have been given as good of a trade with him as she would have if she sold them to me.  Even when they send their crafts to Majuro they are not paid as much as if they sold them to us.  This confused me further.  So, we headed out to this house to see if he had these baskets and any other crafts.  When we had been out there before he only had a wall hanging and a few dolphins.  If I had more money I probably would have bought one of the dolphins, but for the cost I would rather a basket.  He did have more handicrafts and he had the two baskets I was interested in.  Unfortunately he did not want to do a cash/trade deal with me and only wanted cash.  I only had $20 left which did not allow me to buy all that I wanted.  He was measuring the open baskets as well by going down the sides, across the bottom and up the sides.  I had never seen this before and this also made no sense to me.  Everyone else goes across the bottom and you pay by the inch.  Why would you do this method for the open baskets and only go across the bottom for the closed baskets.  To me the closed baskets are a better deal because you are getting a lid which usually has a nice design.  I think he was just trying to get more money out of us.  While I waited for Wade to make his purchases I saw and old man wrapping and binding these long tubes.  Jon said that he told him in was pandanus and they wrap the pandanus to preserve it and protect it from flies etc… I thought the wrapping was an art form in itself.  We thanked the other man for our purchases and said our goodbyes.  Back at Tempo's he had a bag of handicrafts for us to look at which I was afraid of.  With only three dollars left what was I going to buy? L  I had a look anyways and there were two baskets I really liked, of course!  I said I had no more money would the person who made the baskets want to trade.  He went and asked and then I went with him and I made a trade for the baskets.  Pleased with our handicrafts we gave Tempo a few things and said it was nice to have met him.  I had him write his address down for me.  I was going to take a picture of him and his wife, but then he said maybe another time.  Oh well.  Off we went and we got ready for a snorkel.  The water was refreshing and we made our way to the reef bobbing around one coral mound to the next.  At times I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium!  The fish schools of turquoise and light mint green swam around me while fish of reds, oranges, black, and yellow below me.  The little black fish that have iridescence to them if you look closely would swim out from the coral to check you out, throw up their fins as a defense mechanism, swim back in to the coral and back out again to see you again.  There was a big boxer fish, about a foot long, all black with white spots.  The coral was amazing!  There was a fluorescent mustard coloured coral, long thick stag coral and thin, delicate looking stag coral.  There was fat fingered coral and dainty needle point coral.  Oh how I miss my camera.  I tried to just enjoy and not worry about capturing or wanting to share.  But oh how I want my camera back. L  As I made my way back to the boat I saw a sailboat in the distance: Sally and Sam!  Finally they made it.  I was worried about them.  They circled around our port side which had less coral heads and finally dropped the hook of our stern quarter and drifted back.  Wade went in to check their anchor and it actually dug in.  Just in time too as a squall hit and land and water disappeared in a haze of water.  We knew they were most likely exhausted as they beat to windward and went through squalls with 30 knots of wind.  We offered to make them dinner if this would be relaxing but they declined and chose sleep instead.  We don't blame them.  These short passages take the stuffing out of you.  We settled in for the night and agreed we would chat in the morning.  Hopefully the weather will improve as we do need to move on if we want to see any more of this atoll.  I cannot believe we have been here five days already.  Today was better, but the squalls did come in.  It is hard to tell, but from here the position of the other motus looks like we will be a little more out of the wind.  We will see.

Saturday, June 2^nd, 2007

            We were up with the intention of moving on today.  We did hope to bump in to Sally and Sam though before we pulled up anchor.  We know their trip was a bit rough and they must be so tired.  We did not want to call over to early.  By 11 am Sam had their dinghy in the water and they came by on their way in to see Tempo.  At first they just came along side and chatted while holding on to the stanchions.  I finally said, "Do you want to come aboard?  It would be easier than holding on to the stanchion."   I lowered the ladder for them and then next thing we were all talking.  Jon got cold drinks for everyone.  Sally and I got into talking about the handicrafts and moved down to the aft cabin to show her what I had bought.  I also showed her the flowers form Wotje and the ones I had made.  We stayed back their and chatted some more about our experiences and the next thing I was writing out some of the Marshallese words I had learned for her to practice.  We then got on the topic of going home and how we both are not really looking forward to the journey and hope the passage is good.  She shared with me how she uses half a patch and takes half a Stugeron pill in the morning and another one in the evening and this jump starts her system.  She is one of the lucky ones though who after 3 days gets over sea sickness.  She said the statistics she had read were 50 % of people get sea sick and get over it in 3 days, 25% never get sea sick and another 25% never get over being sea sick.  I think this one is where I would fit in if it was not for the patch.  I wish we had more time with them as they seem like a really nice couple.  We are the same age and from our conversation we seem to have a lot in common.  Jon felt the same about his time spent with Sam.  We said goodbye and hoped we would bump in to one another at another motu up the way.  As they headed in to see Tempo we pulled up the anchor.  Unfortunately just as we went to do this Wade knocked the end off of our reaching pole and had to get in the water to get it.  He could not dive down to get it, so Jon had to get it.  I am sure they both liked the cool off though.  We then got the anchors up and we were on our way.  The wind was still up, but not too bad.  The sun was out and I did not give it much thought, so no sun block and needless to say I now have a red nose again.  Each motu we passed, and there are many, looked so inviting.  We were heading for a larger one in the hopes that that means more things can wash up on to shore.  Wade saw an outrigger canoe in the distance and soon it was upon us.  As they passed Wade took pictures, I called out "Yokwe!" as I waved.  The man on the back waved and called out, "Hi Cathy!"  I was a bit shocked.  To the best of my sight I would say it was Like as his wife had said he was on a small island.  I thought that was pretty cool.  Ways out here, to have an outrigger canoe pass and have someone call out my name.   After circling an area we finally chose our spot and anchored in 20 feet of water.  The tide was already on its way up now, so we would not be doing any beach combing today.  We had some more outrigger canoes pass and we waved.  On one of the outrigger canoes were younger men and the one in the front was standing up doing a bit of a dance as he talked in Marshallese and held up two glass balls.  They are supposed to be out her doing copra not beach combing and collecting glass balls.  We hoped we would have some findings the next day.  Jon and I decided to head in for a snorkel before the day was done and swam from coral head to coral head.  Up ahead of us at one point the sand was all stirred up and we could not see beyond.  It looked like something was stirring the sand up??  We moved cautiously forward not knowing we were both having the same thought, sharks.  The sand sharks could be doing this.  We went around the perimeter of the cloud a bit and then saw what was making the big stir: a ray!  This was not a sting ray or a manta ray or eagle ray.  We were not sure what kind of ray this was and he was moving his head like a vacuum cleaner.  He had spikes on top of his body and to the best of what we could see was gray in colour.  We will have to look this one up when we get home as we know this type is not in the book we have.  Oh, again how I wished I had my camera.  On we went as not to disturb him.  He was looking at us and who knows how he would react having dinner time interrupted. J  On another coral mound Jon found another one of those huge sea stars with the spines.  We used his knife this time to touch it and the spines are like rubber.  I wished I had my camera again but at least I do have a picture of one of these.  We made our way in to shore and walked the beach a bit.  There as not much beach with the tide up, but nice caramel coloured sand laden with small white shells.  Back in the water we tried to hit new coral heads on our way back out to the boat.  As I was exploring a coral mound I saw something pink that at first I thought was maybe coral like the other mushroom like coral I have seen.  I called Jon over to check it out.  When I dove down to have a closer look it didn't look like coral.  Jon dove down and touched it with his knife and it all shriveled up like a sea anemone.  Cool!  Well, the sun was going down and therefore time to get out of the water.  We would need our rest tonight as we will be doing some serious walking tomorrow.  At low tide, we should be able to walk a few motus if our bodies will allow this.  I need to collect some more coconut materials as well.  I am sure a snorkel will get in there as well for a cool down at the end of the day.

The crashing surg on the windward side.

Heaven!

Lobster hunt somewhat successful but we wished we had caught more.

Sunday, June 3^rd, 2007

            I was up at 7:30 am.  Coffee on.  The day felt good.  The day actually felt like a summer day back home.  The sun is bright with promise of a great day but the air is still cool.  Something felt very good about today.  While the guys slept a little while longer I worked on this journal and drank my coffee.  We eventually were all up and ready for a busy day ahead.  In the dinghy we headed for shore for some beach combing.  The tide was still on its way down, so this was a perfect time to do some motu jumping, otherwise the passes between motus are under water.  We started south and around the island we were anchored in front of.  The beach combing was perfect.  The beach was not steep like so many others we have done lately.  The beach was stretched with sand and coral bits.  I found several of my small Japanese plastic balls (my substitute for glass balls) and there were tons of sea urchin spines.  We even found some shells of the sea urchin bodies in the high tide line.  The sun was definitely hot when you were out of the breeze.  Jon went into the low lying underbrush at the shore line at one point and said he could not believe how hot it was out of the breeze.  He said we are literally getting cooked out here!  I had another collection of flies too that somehow found me and used my back pack as a wind breaker.  Every time I would stop to put something in my pack there would be twenty or so flies all buzzing about trying to find their shelter again.  Soon I found myself out on a motu and the guys were no where in sight.  Jon had basically stopped two motus back and Wade stopped a motu back.  We had been walking the back side or windward side of the motus and I now wanted to walk the fronts or lagoon side.  To cross each motu though the only place to cross without swimming seemed to be on the windward side.  I first tried walking out from sand spit to sand spit but finally gave that up realizing I was going to end up swimming at some point.  Once I started the trek back I realized I was not going to be doing any exploring of the sandy front sides as the tide was on its way in and I had four passes to get by.  The last one was the most balancing act as the water was rushing through and the ground was somewhat slippery.  At the edge of the motu where we had started I found Jon or more visually put Jon's head as he lay in the water, body stretched out, cooling off.  Wade and I joined him and enjoyed the quiet as we all marveled in the place that surrounded us.  Back on board we took things pretty relaxed style as we were going to be heading out lobster hunting tonight.  We can walk and walk, but our legs do get tired and the sun takes more out of you than you realize.  Sam and Sally called just as we were finishing dinner.  We chatted with ease and the minutes ticked by.  They shared their snorkeling and adventures in finding some handicrafts.  I shared ours about beach combing.  Sally and I also talked about writing articles and about the Marshall Islands.  Time and conversation went easily and we all agreed we had a lot in common and needed more time together.  I told them to think over coming to Bikini with us.  I said you cannot come all the way to the Marshall Islands and not go to Bikini, especially if you are divers like they are.  They said they would think about it and would at least pull anchor tomorrow and try to get up to see us for the day.  I look forward to their arrival and maybe we will see them back home as they have talked about exploring the area around Bamfield and Ucluelet.  By 10 pm we were heading to shore once again.  The full moon was out and the stars were twinkling.  We walked the reef until I thought I was going to collapse.  My legs were finally saying enough.  This was three hours after pushing water with my legs mind you.  I did get to see one of the sea urchins, live way out on the reef and we caught four lobsters, so we were not skunked.  We were expecting way more too though and bigger ones.  There just has to be more that we do not understand.  We gladly took our catch and headed for the dinghy.  We all needed sleep.  We cooked up the lobster as soon as we got back.  We have learned from past experiences.  Our heads hit the pillow and we were out.

The outrigger canoes went by daily.  Awesome to watch.  They move so quickly.

Over at Sam and Sally's boat for dinner.

Monday, June 4^th, 2007

            The only thing that disturbed my sleep was an outrigger canoe going by at 7 am with someone aboard yelling, "Wake-up! Wake-up! Wake-up!"  Well they woke me up that is for sure.  I did manage to sleep another hour.  We had a rain squall start our day and then the sun came out.  More like a Marshall Islands day than what yesterday was like.  Today was starting out muggy and warm.  After my coffee I took the dinghy in to shore to collect some more coconut material for making the handicrafts.  I only have so much time left and I want more material.  I am worried though that I will not get around to making the handicrafts that I want fast enough and it will all become brown and brittle as it dries out.  Well, I can only try.  The tide was going down, so I did not pull the boat up the beach and just tied it off.  The day was already hot.  I had to constantly wipe my face as perspiration ran into my eyes.  I found out that the Marshallese have not only done a lot of copra harvesting here, there have obviously been some ladies out harvesting for handicrafts as well.  Many of the coconut fronds had their stems stripped.  I was able to get enough for what I wanted and besides my shirt was pretty much soaked by this point.  Must go for a snorkel! J  When I got back to the dinghy the tide had definitely continued to go out and I had to drag the boat through a couple of inches of water for a while before she would float again.  I was so close to the boat by this time, I just rowed the remainder of the way.  I worked on cleaning up the coconut that I had brought for a while as the guys were not quite ready to go and then we all jumped in the dinghy and went over to the reef we have wanted to snorkel.  Again it was like we were in an aquarium.  The coral rose in clusters of smokey blue, milk cream, rose pink, and mint green.  The clams were in every wonderful colour combination you could imagine and then more!   Fish floated above and around all of this from finger nail size to arm length size and they brought their own colour combinations.  The reef started off in the shallow and worked its way out to the deep so that three quarters of the area was surrounded by deep blue water.  Wade finally tried his hand at spear fishing but with no luck.  Jon gave it a try as well with the same result.  Jon did find a beautiful large clam shell though and I did not have to twist his arm with the question, "Can we keep it?"  In to the dinghy it went.  I would still love to get those really large ones and give each mother a half for a bird bath in the yard.  I think they would be just gorgeous.  So heavy though.  Bird baths are usually made out of cement and these clam shells are not far of from that! J  We began to motor over to one of the passes to check out a drift snorkel idea and stopped by Moana to see Sally and Sam.  They invited us aboard, but we kept saying we wanted to go do this drift snorkel.  We said we would call when we got back to the boat and would still love to see them tonight.  On our way, we decided that being 4:30 pm already and we most likely would not get out of here tomorrow because we are so tired and really want to spend some time with Sally and Sam that we could do the drift snorkel tomorrow and went back to Sonadora.  I called up Sally and Sam and we made plans to get together for dinner and a movie.  Well, dinner happened, but once again the conversation went so well that we never did get to a movie.  We had a wonderful time with them and found out that we still have yet more in common.  We talked about the west coast and hope that we will see them back home before they head for home themselves.  Really nice people.  By midnight we made our goodbyes and said we would call them before we went for our drift snorkel as they would most likely join us.  Thanks for a great night guys!

Tuesday, June 5^th, 2007

            Our morning was dedicated to getting the boat ready for sea.  I find it amazing how quickly the days can go and although we are fortunate to have had the opportunity to bump in to Sam and Sally and we have enjoyed our time here in Ailuk, we need to get going.  By early afternoon we were all ready for a snorkel to cool off.  We had not had the chance to drift snorkel the pass between the motu we were anchored in front of and the next one, so once we were in the dinghy with our snorkel gear, this is where we headed.  We took the dinghy up the pass as far as we could go and then over board we went.  As soon as my mask was immersed in the water I felt like I was this small being inside an aquarium.  Wow!  How beautiful!  The coral was all around me.  My head darted back and forth trying to focus on something but every time I tried my eye caught something else to look at.  We began our float down the pass and just marveled at the creation around us.  Oh how I want to share this, so all can see what I see.  If I did take pictures there would be hundreds and you still would not get the experience that we were having.  Being in shallow water we gathered the sun could get through better and therefore the colours were all that much more vibrant.  Just as we were ending the pass I floated over this small patch of coral and in a little nook I saw a treasure!  A cowry shell!  Beautiful!  What a find!  We boarded the boat and headed for the next pass.  We could easily do this pass over and over, but we thought we would check out the next and possibly the next.  The next pass did not have as much coral, but was interesting all the same.  Jon found another cowry shell in the stag coral and a spider shell for me.  Yeah!!  We were too tired to do a third pass and decided to go back to the boat to get dinner on and finish off the last bit of putting away so that we were ready for the next morning.  Sam and Sally came over just after dinner for a bit.  They said they would not stay long knowing we would be getting up early, but once again conversation was easy.  They left around 10 pm.  We all headed to bed hoping for a good rest. 

Saying goodbye to the last outrigger canoe we will most likely see.  The weather was not looking to good and we were hoping we were not in for a bumpy, wet ride to Bikini.

Sally had some shells for me before we parted.  We said our goodbyes and hoped we would bump in to one another back home.

I took the helm as we made our way to the pass.

Jon watched for rocks.

Wednesday, June 6^th, 2007

            I got up at 7:30 am and got the coffee on.  We still had not got the dinghy up and other than that we were pretty much ready to go.  I took the tarp over our aft bedroom hatch down and then got Wade to help me with the dinghy.  We had the motor started by 8:20 and then on our way shortly after.  We stopped by Sam and Sally's boat to get back our battery charger we lent them and Sam had some more war history DVD's for the boys.  Sally also passed over a bag of three cowries for me.  We will miss Sam and Sally and do hope we meet up with them back home.  Wonderful people and I do believe we have friends for life!  Thanks guys for your friendship and kindness.  All the best to you on your voyage home.  We were 5 miles from the pass and a few coral heads later we were there.  The wind was light, but squalls were forming all around us.  I was hoping we were not in for a stormy and wet ride.  We made one last goodbye to Sam and Sally and then we were off.  The squalls and dark clouds got closer but once they were upon us they just settled in.  The sky was grey and we got a little rain.  That was it.  Our journey had begun and in two days we would see Bikini!!

   Wotje

This was a WWII Wreck we passed.  We will need to check out later! :)

Thursday May 17^th, 2007

            My alarm went off just shortly before 3 am.  I turned on the propane stove to get the coffee going and checked out the night for hints of what the day may promise.  The stars were in full bloom with the Milky Way running right over us.  The wind was faint, but there was some wind.  With two gusts of wind hitting us as we began to pull up anchor we decided we would have wind enough to get us to Wotje, 75 nautical miles approximately from anchorage to anchorage.  Heading out across the atoll and through the pass at night was a bit nerve racking as coral can pop up anywhere and we were only going by the path we had made the other day coming in.  All went well though.  When we went to make our turn outside of the pass though the depth sounder read 60, then 50, 40, 30, "OK, we need to turn out!"  We could not see whether we were turning towards the reef or not, but if the water is getting shallow and is otherwise relatively deep other than the reef you decide you are going the wrong way. J  Soon daylight broke and a sunny day it was!  Very bright!  There was not a lot of cloud cover and by 9 am I needed to retreat to the aft bunk for some shade and a bit of breeze.  The sail was roily as expected as we were going slightly downwind.  We had a swell on our side though and the odd wave would crash over the side.  Our speed picked up over the day and we were soon sailing at 7 knots towards Wotje.  We arrived just after 1 pm and decided to fish the reef to the pass.  As soon as I turned to follow the reef we had a whole school of rainbow runners following the lures.  One bit Jon's lure or as we discovered after getting it aboard, it swallowed the lure.  As Jon was bringing in the fish shark appeared.  We thought that one of the sharks may try to take the fish and then one got close to Wade's lure.  We did land the rainbow runner, but then the school left as did the sharks.  We didn't get anymore bites.  Time was ticking, so we decided we better make our way through the pass.  There was a 2 knot current against us even though we were entering on a rising tide.  I had to start the motor and at 2000 rpms we were moving slow through the pass but making headway.  To get to the main motu of Wotje, meant the wind would be right on our nose!  We decided to zigzag and tack our way up.  The going was slow and we were reaching 5 pm and still had a good hour to go.  We decided to anchor in close at a nearby motu.  The first we looked at had a sunken ship in front of it.  We got close enough to have a look, but decided to get closer to Wotje and the next motu seemed to look like it would protect us from the wind better.  The wind was howling.  We had been fighting wind and white caps to gain this much ground we wanted to get out of it as much as possible or we would not sleep well concerned about the anchor holding.  We found a nice sandy patch with little coral nearby.  The wind still came at us, but the anchor was doing its job.  The guys were not as smart as me and then spent the sunniest part of the day out in the cockpit.  I asked Wade if he was going for the look of a tomato or beet.  They did get us here, so I am appreciative of that.  Beside when the sailing is like this, Jon is like a kid in a candy store.  You would not find him below seeking shade.  He would be worried to miss any moment of such great sailing. J  I made the guys fish and chips with onion rings.  The last of our potatoes.  We then all laid back to watch a movie and then off to bed.  This sun is beating us up! J

Before we could go check out the beach Jon and Wade helped some locals who were having some engine troubles.

Of course we went snorkeling!

sharks!

Just a small black tip shark along the water edge...

Friday, May 18^th, 2007

            "I don't know if I can go out in the sun today." Jon said as he woke.  I said, "You probably won't have to.  The skies are overcast.  It might be nice for walking the beach."  You see we cannot rest as there is too much to see.  We have three motus here that are all attached at low tide.  There are glass balls to be found among other items.  We heard on the SSB last night that another sailor found a glass ball the size of a beach ball in Maloelap yesterday.  We were just there!!  We have to find one now.  We all had our coffees and prepared for another busy day.  Just as we were ready to go, Jon decided that we should do an oil change on the outboard.  A good idea and he was probably right, with the desire to get to shore we were motivated to do an oil change, where if we left it, we most likely would not get around to an oil change.  With oil changed we jumped in the dinghy and headed for the beach.  A boat with some Marshallese men had gone by and anchored just in front of us.  We figured they may be going ashore to do copra or something.  Wrong.  They had engine trouble and where better to have engine trouble than near a yacht.  Implication – rich.  Daneen and Andy had a boat go by them twice in Aur and just happened to run out of gas as they went by. ??  They were all nice and supposedly the "assistant mayor" was a board and would like our permission form and money.  I said it was on the big boat and they did not push the subject as I said we would pay when we got to Wotje, the main motu tomorrow.  I question whether it was the assistant mayor??  Anyways, the guys got some tools and helped the men out.  There was a gasket missing and so they were squirting out gas.  Jon and Wade were able to do a temporary fix with a piece of cardboard and so we went to say our goodbyes.  Obviously a problem they have had for a while.  Then they could not get the engine started as the set-up they have for transferring gas from the gas can to the motor creates air pockets.  Not something we could fix.  Jon felt we should still help somehow, but by the time we had our dinghy turned around they were on their way.  Jon has such a kind heart.   We hit the beach and started our walk.  There are a lot of the black slugs or what ever you call them here.  At low tide between two motus there were many.  We all found a few shell treasures, but no glass balls.  When we reached the far end of the second motu, we took a break and went for a swim.  Wade was walking in the water about 100 yards further out along a sand bar and he said he had sand sharks coming up to him.  He asked us if we saw any.  No, as we bobbed refreshingly in the water. J  We started our walk again and separated a bit.  Jon checked out the end of the motu that he said was bombed heavily and wandered why.  The back side of the next motu was all shrubs which were good for capturing glass balls, or I would think so anyways.  Alas, no glass balls!  I had quite a shell collection by now though and with all the conch shells I found on the side facing the inside of the atoll, I had gathered plenty.  Wade found a basically brand new fishing net not unfolded yet and still tied up.  He figured maybe he could use it for trade.  The net is sitting in the dinghy right now.  We all had a drink on the big boat before going snorkeling.  We were all tired, but it was only 2:30 pm.  Like I said, there is lots to do!   The snorkeling was not as good as we were hoping but there were some interesting things.  We swam across one of the passes between motus and really felt the current.  We got out on the next small motu and did a walk around.  A few more shells, but no glass balls.  We decided at this point with the clouds getting thicker and the day moving on it was time to make our way back to Sonadora.  We never made it before the skies opened up and it began to rain.  Tired, we all clamored aboard and settled in for the evening.  None of us with little energy left.  A great day!  Let's do it again tomorrow!

Arriving at the main motu of Wotje atoll: Wotje

The acting mayor

War Relics galore!!

This building exploded from the inside out...