October 31, 2008

Back in Majuro
At dawn Thursday morning we picked up the anchor and headed for the Wotje Atoll pass. The wind direction was fairly good, and stayed there all the way back here. Once clear of the pass, it was blowing a bit harder than predicted, but the sea state was far rougher than would normally be expected. In the 20 knots and less that we had, the sea looked more like a low end gale was blowing. 10 foot swells from the east piled up and broke as they converged with a northerly set, producing a violent motion on the boat. The leeward float kept stuffing into the waves as it hit the bottom of the troughs, shovelling hundreds of gallons of seawater up onto the cabin top, where it ran aft like a small tidal bore, then poured into the cockpit. It did that for the first 7 hours, tearing the forward net off the starboard side. After we made it to the latitude of Maloelap, even from 25 miles away, that atoll broke the easterly swell, so the ride improved considerably. Still not smooth, but quite a bit drier. Wit some squalls, and no moon, we kept the sail area small overnight, but were already at the southern end of Aur atoll by dawn Friday. With conditions a little better, we put up a bit more sail, and kept her moving fast, so that by 1:00 in the afternoon we were at the pass into Majuro. It's a long way straight upwind from there to the mooring field, so we spent until about 5:30 getting back to town. Ken from Moonbird saw us coming, cleaned up the line from our mooring, and handed it to us when we came in, making it an easy arrival. We had a tremendous time in Ailuk and Wotje, and were out there long enough to be ready for the big town here. Back to internet, stores, and an assortment of jobs, some of them even with pay! We got our absentee ballots sent to Florida, Express Mail, so they should be in the hands of the Supervisor of Elections by Tuesday. Now, if Ms. Dent there doesn't smell Democrat on them and hide them, we'll have had our say. Judging from how she managed the last election ("lost" 18000 votes from the more Democratic area of Sarasota County!) that's not a sure thing. But we do what we can.
Time to sort out Sequester and rinse out some of the salt. More soon. Ted