And then finally our propeller arrives, the wind is a bit less and more easterly, so we head off for Maloelap, 120 miles further north.
Once outside of Majuro’s pass the waves are everything else than comfortable, we are happy to have eaten already something and we count the hours. Luckily once behind the protection of Aur life becomes a lot better on board.

Maloelap

In the morning at 9 am we easily enter the pass and need a few tacks to reach Tarawa (Taroa) on the other side of the atoll.

Already from far the canon on the beach reminds us that a lot of war history has been written here in WW2.
Morowina, Forever and White Hawk are already here and we are spontaneously invited for coffee and cake on the Forever and extensive “Sundowner” on the White Hawk.

The next few days we explore the island, tip toe through the air plane cemetary in the jungle and get accompanied by a bunch of kids to see the bunkers on the other side of the island.

The whole ceremony takes a total of 2.5 hours, together with the hour waiting we have sat for a loooong time!!! Then we are asked to wait outside while everyone else goes home to get their contribution to the lunch.

One hour later lunch is served, lucky that we had a lot of cake in the morning. The plates consist of a lot of rice, bread, chicken, fish, a land crab and a thuna sandwich as well as mass from banana and coconut.

I really like the fish and eat some of the chicken, but it does have a lot of bones.

On the way back to the dinghy Reto tells me “I think the “chicken” with the big bones rather was a dog” – I swallow hard, “oh yes, that’s why the bones were so big…”

When Lan shows us the boy with the 6th little finger right next to the thumb and we see the pig with the deformed foot we reflect if the effects of the atomic tests also reached Maloelap…

We are shown to the lawn mower. It is one of these you can sit on and drive around “That’s it”. “Ok, so can you please start it?” “Oh, but then you need the key?” “Well, it would be better”… It takes another half hour only to get us the key…

And of course, it doesn’t even start. It takes a few hours until Reto finds the main defect: the safety switch of the break was stuck in addition to a broken fuse and some corroded contacts.

In the meantime more and more people show up with normal lawn mowers, the plane seems to come nevertheless. Once the electricity is running the original problem appears again, the mower stops after 10 min, we assume the carburator needs some cleaning.

As thanks we get 4 coconuts, we go home and feel exhausted and a bit frustrated.

When I see how little the crabs are I suggest to them “I give you the kava, but please let the crabs free”. Reto only laughs at me “But you are naive, they only will eat them themselves…” I realize that he`s right, we give them the Kava and as soon as they are gone we lanch our dinghy to set the crabs free in the bush on shore.

The next morning we decide spontaneously to continue further north to Ailuk because afterwards the weather forecast shows a lot of wind for 10 days, we don#t want to stay all that time in Maloelap.

Just outside the pass we catch two nicely sized rainbow runners and a little one that is allowed back into the water.

Once outside the atoll the seas is pretty rough again, we sail almost up wind which is not fun for She San and crew.
Somehow we survive and at 10 am the next morning we approach the southern pass of Ailuk. Though the passes further north are a lot wider and deeper we fear having the sun against us through the lagoon full with coral boomies.

The entrance is still easy, both sides of the reef clearly visible, but the end!!! We slowly approach with a speed of 2 knots and 4 knots current against us and slowly go over the shallow part. Uff, we made it – 3 meter was the minimum, so 1.7 meter of “reserve”..

Ailuk

A few hours later we let the anchor down in front of Ailuk Ailuk, the main village of the atoll. The anchorage is not very protected in northeasterlies, we roll like hell and almost feel like being on passage.

But we have to visit Anius and Emily on shore, we bought a dive mask and torch for them im Majuro and they are anxiously waiting to get them.

After a nice chat with them we go back to our shaking boat, but even being super tired we hardly can sleep. The next morning we say goodbye and promiss to come back for Anius’ birthday, then also the wind should calm down.

Vorbei an den wunderschönsten Inselchen mit türkiesblauer Umrandung segeln wir wie auf Schienen an der Innenseite des Atolls in Richtung Norden.

It doesn’t take long until two sailing canoes approach us. Ailuk is known for using the sailing canoes for most of the transfers within the lagoon, this is very smart and saves the expensive fuel.

But when the first canoe stears right up to She San I do get scared that the will hit us, see for yourself 😉

In front of the almost northernmost island we find a really calm and protected place, there we happily drop our anchor. First thing we bring the fish that we just caught to the man ashore, it is Jack who lives here and makes copra toghether with two boys and his son Jiko.

#shorts #Ailuk #Sailing #Canoe s #Marshall #Islands

We are happy that Julia speaks some English. She shows me how to pronounce the Marshallese words that I am trying to learn and doesn’t giv up to correct me.

We ask what she needs but she says she has everything, so we promiss to bring some clothes for her husband and come back with ice cream. Right away she promisses to make 2 hanimonos (local handicrafts) for me for a few days later.

In the evening we go with Jiko to hunt lobsters. With spear, gloves and an empty rice bag as well as our dive masks we follow him in the light of the flash light to the outer reef. But it blow 25 knots and it is high tide, the waves break over our heads, so we decide to postpone the adventure to another time.

We are happy to be only half an hour early this time, also the service is only 1.5 hours and afterwards we are spontaneously invited for lunch again.

This time I manage to only get one plate for the two of us, it is rice with porc and a yummy mass from pandanus and coconut. The porc is very well seasoned and cooked, even I have some less greasy bites and like it. Lynne explains to us, that usually they would have fish, but currently it is too windy to fish.

The following day is the start of the “Education Week”, we are invited again. After a lot of speaches it is also our turn, we learn that not only in church but also in school speaches are important.

Afterwards there is a small lunch and I am happy to have brought a chocolate cake cut in 48 pieces.

But the waves in the anchorage are even worse than the first time…
We spend the whole Friday at Anius’ house where Reto repairs the generator which has a burnt through coil. Then we realize that Education week final presentations only start after dark. We go back to the boat to get a flash light and almost capsize the dinghy in the waves.

So we decide to skip this adventure, stay on board and spend another night with little sleep.

So the next morning we congratulate Anius, admire how busy everyone is in the preperation of the food for the party, say good-bye and head back up north in our quite little anchorage.

And it was a good decision, the next two days it blows between 25 to 30 knots that wouldn’t have been good for both boat and crew…

We are busy with works on the boat and walks around the islands. There we one day find a ball of rope which we decide to rescue.

Piece after piece we disentange it and 2 days later we have it on board of She San.

We are happy about the new set of ropes and give our old ones away to Jack and Jiko.

…and directly in front of She San

Then we definitely have to say good-bye to Julie, Jiko and Julia and exchange a last time presents, ice cream and coconuts.

When I see the tears flowing down from Julie’s eyes my heart feels like breaking, it feels so hard to leave these lovely people…

I wave until I cannot see them any more but I still here little Julia crying out “Bye, Bye!”

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