October 17, 2008

Anchor Down in Wotje
Last nights passage from Ailuk to Wotje was pretty interesting, with a full moon, light wind, and no rush. We took it slow to avoid arriving at Wotje in the dark, although even with the cloud cover, the moon was so bright it would be hard to describe last night as dark. Even moving slowly, and with so little wind that there was almost no wind wave pattern, it felt quite rough. The boat would often buck abruptly, or fall in a hole, and continuously pitched quickly from side to side. I had plenty of time to analyze what was going on, and could watch carefully the swell patterns. Swell is a series of long, smooth waves formed a long distance from where it is being seen, usually the result of a powerful, long lasting storm, or an established strong wind pattern, like the trade winds. There is always going to be an easterly swell here, from the trades, but last night I identified a second pattern from the northwest, and another from the southeast. With all those swells merging and crossing, the surface was pretty confused, and I now think that's a normal situation here in the Marshalls. That would explain why all the yachts report rougher than expected passages here. With a normal trade wind blowing, it would take a pretty good eye to pick up all those different swell trains, but anyone can feel them! Then about midnight we ran into a series of small rain squalls. They didn't have a lot of wind in them, but it did change directions pretty quickly, and with the boat only moving at 3 knots, when we were headed by a wind shift, we'd just stop dead in the water. A couple of times I just had to back the rudder against the stop, and wait until the boat drifted backwards. Then it would turn away from the rudder, the sails would fill, and we'd proceed. I was much happier when the squalls drifted away and left us to plod on southeast. Not long after dawn I could see Wotje, and we skirted the east end. By 11:00 we had found the pass on the south side, and with a fortuitous wind shift could sail right into the lagoon. Then we hit some squalls that DID have some wind in them, blowing hard right from the east end, where the town is located. So we spent 3 hours beating up the lagoon with reduced sail, until we got close to the village. The wind gods gave it up, and we sailed into the anchorage moving just about fast enough to be able to steer. The anchorage here is well protected and moderately shallow, with a beautiful sand bottom. We soon had the dinghy in the water, and located the mayor to clear into the atoll. He was most gracious, took our fees and gave us some coconuts to drink, and a couple of nice fish for dinner. He had his son show us to the high school, where we made arrangements for students to pick up the packages their families had sent from Ailuk. This is a bigger island than Ailuk, and we got all the walking we wanted just getting to and from the school, so a cool off swim before dinner was in order. One of the boys from the school mentioned shark activity in the lagoon, so we'll check on that with the locals before we spend a lot of time in the water. For now, we'll catch up on the lost sleep from last night, and see what the dawn brings. Ted