April 10, 2008

Anchor down in Aur;
After several days of somewhat frenzied boat preparation, we dropped the mooring lines in Majuro Thursday afternoon. The forecast was for relatively benign weather conditions; 15 knot easterly breeze with occasional rain squalls, and a quarter moon to provide some light until after midnight. We had a couple of hours crossing the lagoon to re-establish our sea legs, then followed the Kalalin Channel out to the open sea. Spike had said that his 4 trips had consistently been choppy, with the roughest water within a few miles of Majuro. He and Angela, along with 3 Aur residents taking a ride home, took Spike's catamran, Holokai, out the pass about 40 minutes ahead of us. We could see their running light a few miles ahead of us all night. True to reports, we got a good bit of heavy spray on deck, particularly during the first hour, and the motion was uncomfortable right up until we sailed in behind Aur Atoll. But once we settled in, Karen took first off watch to get some sleep, and I could watch the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross rotate around Polaris and the Southern Polar Region as the hours passed. We did shorter watches than usual, relieving every 3 hours, and passed through 2 squalls with some concern, but no need even to change the sail plan. We had to keep boat speed down under 5 knots to avoid reaching Aur in the dark, so we set only the double reefed mainsail and the staysail. After each squall there was a lull in the wind when I unfurled some of the jib as well, to keep steerage way on the boat. The timing was near perfect, and we reached the south pass into Aur lagoon at about 7:30 in the morning. The wind direction made it difficult to sail through the pass, so we started the motor for a few minutes until we were inside the reef. Then it was an hour and a half of smooth lagoon sailing up to Tabal village. The anchorage is a bit deeper than I like, and getting the anchor and chain back up from 45 feet will be a bit of a workout for the old man, but it looks worth the effort. We delivered several bags of fresh fruit and vegetables to the chief, complements of the Mieco Beach Yach Club, the yacht Seal, and ourselves. They were most gracious, and appreciative of the potatoes, cabbages, oranges, apples, and flour. They'll take the sting out of throwing the big feast on Sunday. Today was a slow recovery day from the trip up, tomorrow will be a fishing trip in the morning and a lobster hunt late at night. Sunday will be church and feasting, Monday a succession of sports and games. We may take Tuesday as a recovery day before the return sail to Majuro, or if we're well rested and ready we could head out. Entering Majuro Atoll at night is quite doable as Kalalin Pass is a lighted ship channel. Tabal is a nice contrast to Majuro though, extremely clean and more openly friendly. Not much outboard motor traffic here, with gasoline at $10/gallon. Motors are for business only. The talk keeps going back to the need to revive the sailing outriggers for intra-lagoon transport. Maybe we can help that happen.
Time to sleep, as tomorrow is a big day. More reports soon. Ted