March 2024

Date: March 2024

Position: Enemanit, Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands, 7 07.75N, 171 18.49E

Captain Bonzo here with an update from Ari B!  For those of you who don’t know me, I am the Captain of Ari B, a multitalented stuffed dog, that speaks 5 languages, has sailed half way round the world and barks orders. I also write the newsletters for Alex and Carla.

When I last wrote to you in October, we had just made it to Tuvalu on our way to the Marshall Islands, our cyclone season destination. While waiting for suitable weather to go further north, a cyclone started forming to the west of Tuvalu, travelling towards Fiji and while it was moving away from us and didn’t pose a threat, the storm played havoc with the wind and wave conditions in Tuvalu, resulting in unsettled, squally weather and westerly swells that ran into the atoll virtually unchecked. Uncomfortable to say the least! The crew felt pretty exposed to the elements and not particularly safe, so along with 5 other boats we set sail towards Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass)/Marshall Islands at the first opportunity. Tuvalu is a good stopover, but we’re not sure if it’s a destination in it’s own right to be honest. Maybe if we had better weather we would feel different. Tuvalu just seemed to lack it’s own culture/ feel/ cuisine – restaurants served Chinese take away food, not particularly good, with a huge portion of rice and the same menu up and down the (only) road. Nice people though. We tried to buy some bananas, but none of the shops had any so we started asking people who had some in their garden and they gave us some for free and even threw some plantains in!

In any case, we left Tuvalu on the 17th Nov at 10.40 for the 700 mile trip to Tarawa (Kiribati) with a forecast of light SE winds which turned out to be SW winds, and the lack of forecast accuracy continued for the rest of the trip. This trans-equatorial passage is difficult from a forecast point of view, as you are passing through the doldrums, the equatorial area that is often full of squalls and variable and light winds, so it’s a bit of a lottery from a wind perspective.

We experienced a variety of conditions on our way to the equator, but were pleased that we managed to sail at least some of the time until we crossed the equator for the second time in our lives on the 22nd Nov at 14.05. It was duly celebrated with a tot of rum for Poseidon and one for us.

So far we had managed to sail east of the rhumb line (direct line to the destination), which we tried to do, as once we hit the northern hemisphere trade wind belt, we would encounter fresh NE winds, meaning we would be close hauled. So being further east meant we would have a better angle to the wind. That easting and the (unreliable) forecast resulted in our decision to abandon the stop in Tarawa, as it would have meant giving up almost 100 miles of easting and to go for Majuro in the Marshall Islands directly. At this point we had been motoring for over 60 hours and we were relying on the wind kicking in before running low on fuel.

A tense day followed as the promised wind didn’t arrive. We had been at sea for a week and had used 400 of our 600 liters of fuel and we really didn’t want to run out! Finally the wind kicked in a full 24 hours and 120 miles after it was promised, but at least is was from the right direction, so our saved easting worked out perfectly and we arrived in Majuro on the 26th November at 13.00 after 9 days at sea and 1,123 nautical miles.

Our friend Rob from SV Morwena was waiting to take our lines and secure us to a mooring buoy – what a feeling – rest at last. Since we left NZ in June we had sailed almost exactly 4,000 miles, adding to our trip total of 32,857 miles since we left the UK. It was time for a rest.

Incidentally we were the only boat not to stop in Tarawa and for once that worked out in our favour. Some of the other boats had difficult trips to Majuro, with two boats encountering non forecast storm force winds for over 24 hours (force 10, over 50 kts). We were happy to be in port!

Having arrived on a Sunday, we were told not to expect immigration and customs clearance that day, but to our surprise, the authorities turned up 2 hours later to check us in. They wanted to come alongside our freshly painted hull in their full size pilot boat (without fenders), so Alex said a resolute “NO” and made them clamber into our dingy and then on board. Turned out they were eager to check us in so they could collect their “overtime fee” for weekend and afterhours…… but they were very nice about it and we were happy to be in port!

Majuro is a quite typical Pacific capital, with ships coming and going constantly and what stands out is the enormous number of Chinese fishing vessels, which come into port to offload their catch to the motherships anchored in the lagoon, which process the fish and freeze it for transport. No wonder the fish stocks are collapsing, there are hundreds of tuna fishing vessels out there.  Have a look at a website that tracks all shipping:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:167.4/centery:19.0/zoom:4

The Marshallese enforce a fairly strict dress code, so when going into town Carla has resorted to wearing a local dress to make sure she doesn’t offend any of the locals. Mind you – yachties and homeless people seem to be the only ones that are walking around town – everybody else is in a car or taxi – even if it’s only a few hundred meters – maybe something to do with the many dogs, some of which are less than friendly…..

From a sailing point of view, there are a bunch of boats, some of which have been here since before Covid (the Americans can stay as long as they want) and so they have formed a little yacht club with weekly dinners and discount at the hardware store – a friendly and very helpful bunch of people. The club also maintains a few moorings at an island some 5 miles from the capital – a great way to escape town and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Carla had planned to fly to the UK from Majuro if the visa situation worked out, so after consulting immigration she was told she could fly out after having applied for a 12 months cruising visa and could return on that visa. We checked, and rechecked with various people and all sounded fine, so she booked her flight for the following Sunday and the crew set about getting the various bits together for the visa application (health check, police check, photos, cover letter etc etc.) and we managed to put the application in 4 days after arriving (some cruisers told us it took them 4 weeks…) – and off she went to see Mum in the UK.

Alex in the meantime was on a constant immigration chase to push the visa application along while simultaneously chasing permits to visit the outer atolls. A week after the applications were in, he was summoned to meet with the director of immigration to discuss the application.

Duly attending, Alex was led into an office to meet the very polite director, who opened the meeting with the statement “Really, your visa application should have been done before you entered the country”…. GULP!

Alex found himself covered in cold sweat as he considered the implications of the statement and explained to the director that we had been planning to come to the Islands for almost 2 years, and that all research and information available stated that the cruising visa should be applied for upon arrival – that he stated to the officers from the outset that we wanted to apply for the cruising visa, nobody said a word about that being a problem and that he was very sorry if he was causing an issue, but we had followed all the info available (including their own website, and our email enquiries went unanswered). After a stressy 15 minutes it became clear that the director wanted to help and was trying to figure out how to do that within their own rule book and ended the meeting telling Alex that they will process the application regardless – Phew!!! Didn’t need that at all……. Incidentally, the next crew applying for the same visa didn’t encounter any issues.

The Marshall islands, while independent since 1986, are closely affiliated with the USA and travel and visa restrictions do not exist for US citizens. Majuro even has a US postcode for the US postal service to send items to – and it’s considered domestic mail. That even goes for Amazon so it’s brilliant for us cruisers to order items on Amazon and pick them up from the post office in Majuro 10 days later – no customs, no couriers, no nothing – brilliant! But why this situation exists is less brilliant. Ever heard of the Bikini atoll? It was the site for US atomic testing post WW2, and is only 300 miles or so from Majuro. To give you the back ground would take too long here, but it’s worth reading, so here’s a link:

https://www.history.com/news/nuclear-bomb-tests-bikini-atoll-facts

Christmas and New year came and went and Carla returned from the UK early January, after having a horrendous trip back, getting stuck in Honolulu for 3 days. We had received our permits to visit the outer islands so now all we needed was a decent weather window and to provision the boat for three months. There are no shops in the outer islands so we needed to be fully stocked and self sufficient.

So a bit about provisioning. We have two small freezers, (think of a freezer compartment above a small fridge), a small front opening fridge (about half the size of a undercounter domestic one), and a chest fridge which is roughly the same size as the front opening one. We fill the freezers with meat that we debone so it takes up less room. Carla also made a huge pot of beef ragu and canned it so we can store it outside of the fridge and use it for pasta, chilli, lasagne etc. She also canned some lamb rogan josh and a beef rendang. We carry tinned butter that keeps forever and also still had three tins of duck confit from French Polynesia…still in date! And a fois gras…still in date. The hardest part is fresh fruit and vegetables, preferably that haven’t been chilled as they keep much longer. We managed to find fresh local cherry tomatoes, cucumber ($4.50 each!), snake beans (very long green beans), carrots, cabbages, peppers, potatoes, onions, garlic, butternut squash(we still had from Fiji), romaine lettuce hearts (lasts ages in the fridge), apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons and bananas. The cucumber wrapped in clingfilm last several weeks in the fridge and the green vegetable fresh bags work well for the other vegetables. Potatoes, onion and garlic are kept in the dark, the butternut squash and fruit are in hanging nets on the saloon. In addition we have lots of dried fruit (mango, banana, strawberries, raspberries, nueroberries), tinned fruit and vegetables, sundried tomatoes and peppers in a jar. Dried stores include rice, flour, pasta, lentils, pulses, couscous, milk powder to name just a few. Carla always provisions really well and we have all the spices and condiments to make just about anything, even in the middle of nowhere. To add to our fresh stocks she sprouts mung beans and various seeds and even had a plant pot full of rocket and bok choy!

At last a weather window appears, not the best but we are desperate to leave and take it. It actually worked out really well and we were able to lay a direct course to our first stop Maloelap. We had a decent overnight sail, caught mahi mahi and arrived the next afternoon. We were greeted by the local policeman, who checked our permit and offered us a tour around the island with it’s many WW2 artefacts. The Japanese turned this island into a fortified bunker, with many concrete structures still standing – even if only in ruins. Check out some details of the atoll at this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maloelap_Atoll

We had a nice time on the island, with the people being open and friendly if they spoke English – the other ones were a bit on the shy side …

While doing our tour with the policeman, a local guy approached us, using the policeman as a translator. He was having trouble with his generator and couldn’t run his freezer. Turned out he filled two stroke mix into a 4 stroke genset. So Alex returned the next day with his toolset and set to clean the carburettor and wider fuel system and the exhaust, which was clogged up from the smoky fumes of 2 stroke mix - and after about an hour the genset resumed service. You’ve never seen a happier man – Alex that is, he was so happy to be able to help this remote community! And as a thank you we were invited for a lunch next day with fresh fish and a breadfruit dish that could also have been used as filler in a renovation project – but tasted great – and the crew loves this kind of local interaction. The family’s daughter was the local teacher and came to lunch to help with translations. We left with full bellies and arms laden with limes, drinking and eating coconuts.

After snorkelling the Japanese shipwreck in the lagoon and more interesting walks exploring the island, we moved up atoll to spend a few days at an uninhabited island – no village, but 3 guys doing copra – still a source of income in these remote parts. After presenting them with a bit of cake and a few fishhooks we received more drinking coconuts and plantains than we could eat. Again, people very open and friendly and happy to trade.

Of course the crew knew that trading was the way of the outer atolls, so Ari B was fully stocked with fishing gear, reading glasses, kids toys, wd40, kava, coffee, milk powder, flour and lots of little bits we could bring to the islanders. Their supply ship typically only comes every 5 months and sometimes not for a year, so they are very keen on the items they can’t get normally.

After 3 days there was a good weather window to do another overnight sail to Ailuk, our selected destination to hang out for a couple of months and relax. We set off late morning and arrived outside Ailuk the next morning, going slow to allow the sun to go higher in the sky to aid visibility when entering the poorly charted atoll. Alex isn’t keen on moving inside the atolls outside the hours of 10-1400 or so unless we have a previous track. As it turned out the charts were TOTALLY wrong and we relied on satellite imagery and good old mark 1 eyeball.

We also had caught 3 mahi mahi on this short overnighter and we only fished for a couple of hours! Welcome back to the northern hemisphere!!!! Since we left Panama 4 years ago we only caught one or maybe 2 mahi mahi in what must be approx. 10,000 miles of sailing in the South Pacific – and now 3 in 2 hours!!

One to replenish our freezer, one for the fridge and number 3 went ashore as a present to the village. In return we got a sack full of drinking coconuts.

Ailuk was attractive to the crew as the orientation of the atoll is such that there’s good protection from the NE trade winds that constantly blow at 20 knots, and because it’s only 14 miles long, so if the wind changes it’s not too far to a better anchorage.

A fellow yacht arrived about a month after us and were kind enough to bring us a few fresh things to replenish our stocks. We went back to the village to meet them and to trade some more supplies with the locals. They make beautiful basketry out of totally natural materials from the island. We left with two beautiful turtle wall hangings, some limes, drinking coconuts and a bunch of plantains big enough for an army. Carla read somewhere that the stalks give off a gas that speeds up ripening so we tied clingfilm over the end of the stalk and it worked. They lasted several weeks until they started to ripen by which stage we were all starting to look like plantains!

Ailuk didn’t disappoint. The anchorage in the north east corner is super well protected and drop dead gorgeous, has 3 nice islands to walk around, good fishing and great snorkelling. Heaven.

Ashore we “adopted” the pigs of the local guy (who only comes here once every few weeks) and we feed them coconuts on a daily basis – since more than half of the 30 strong population are tiny little things and very cute. Carla decided to name a few of them “Tiny, “Foxy” and “Hazel”. Alex didn’t want to be outdone and calls his ones Roast, Crackling and Caraway…..

He’s probably hoping that his daily feeding will earn him a cut when the next one is on it’s way to the local cooking pot.

Our onboard stocks are still full of coconut cream and powder since we can collect coconuts on demand, so we do all our cooking with fresh coconuts and Carla has a permanent bottle of coconut water in the fridge, which she loves!

And from a fruit perspective, we harvest Pandanus, which require boiling and then scraping to remove the fruity pulp that is inside the fruit. If you try to eat it raw it’s like chewing a brush. Makes a good dental floss!

A few miles down the atoll the crew also found an island with a good supply of sustainable land crabs and purslane, a herby superfood that can be cooked or eaten raw like a salad and it’s delicious.

So you see one can live remotely for a good while without making compromises on the food side, so we intend to stay a total of 2 ½ months, or until the beer runs out – according to Alex.

It’s now Eater Sunday and we are back in Majuro to pick up Amazon purchases, service engines and get Ari ready for the trip back to Fiji. Our trip back down from Ailuk saw us cover the 225 miles or so in 34 hours and the fishing was epic – 4 mahi mahi (one returned and one given away), one wahoo (freezers and fridges are now full) and two massive bites that ended in lost or damaged gear – and the trip was topped off with a pod of dolphins playing around Ari’s bow in the approach to the atoll – great sailing, even if it was upwind for the majority of the way. After the extended time in the outer atolls, the crew was looking forward to a meal out in an airconditioned bar with beer on tap!

We’ll wait out the rest of the cyclone season here in Majuro and are planning to head towards Fiji in the second half of April.

We’ll let you know via facebook when we are heading off so you can track us via our website if you wish https://www.sy-arib.com/track-us, otherwise we will be in touch again from a new country, until then

Ari B out

Passage to Majuro

Majuro

Maloelap Atoll

Ailuk Atoll