TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Monday afternoon

We spent a couple of pleasant nights anchored off Palau Banggi. It rained quite a bit while we were there and it was good to get the salt washed off SD. We got underway at 0700. Unfortunately the wind was light and we were close hauled, motor sailing the 20-miles to Kudat. The trip was uneventful and we arrived around noon. We are anchored at a place called “the pond”. It is a marina basin, part of a fancy hotel, outside of town that is supposed to be a full scale marina some day. But for now it’s a great place to anchor, med style, to the sea wall. There are several other cruisers here, a couple of whom we met in Micronesia. It’s good to cross paths with familiar yachts again.

The main purpose for coming to Kudat is to take advantage of its inexpensive ship yard. We hope to haul out Sand Dollar for an anti-fouling paint bottom job and minor rudder repair. Tomorrow we’ll see what the prospects are, check in with the officials and get a look at the town.

K and K

Saturday morning

We completed crossing the Sulu Sea this morning. Other than having to do a lot of motor sailing, it was a very good passage. The Sulu Sea can be a tempest at times, so we consider ourselves fortunate to have traversed it in one of its calmer states. Our plan is to anchor off an island called Pulau Banggi which is about 15 miles NE of Kudat for RR. If it turns out to be pleasant, we may stay through Sunday and then head to Kudat first light Monday.

Ken and Katie

Thursday was a full day of motoring through the heart of the weak low pressure system we are in. But Friday morning gave us perfect conditions to fly the asymmetrical spinnaker. So up it went and off went the engine. yippee! Sea is calm, sun is hot, but the light breeze is cool. Hope this weather holds for a while. The eggs and corned beef hash for breakfast sure hit the spot. 160 miles to go.

K and K

We departed Bonbonon Bay Wednesday morning; the weather was a picture perfect for it. Our good friend Bruce escorted us out the bay in his nine meter trimaran. We had good sailing for the first 24-hours and was able to log 120 miles under the keel until the wind went missing. Since then, we’ve been motoring on a sea of glass. All is well aboard. 250 miles to go.

Ken and Katie

Sail Yacht Sand Dollar

P.S. You can follow our track at www.shiptrak.org Call Sign: N4KS

BoBo the booby has made a full recovery from whatever the heck his problem was. We suspect that our original diagnosis of “soggy bottom” was correct. A neighboring yachtie stopped by to pick up some books and we asked if he’d gotten a chance to check out our buddy. From the cockpit, where we hang out, we can’t see the foredeck, as the dodger windshield is covered to block the sun, so our friend moved forward to get a look.

He peered at the foredeck a few moments, then said, “Where is he?” Checking for ourselves, we noted that BoBo had indeed jumped ship. About 5 minutes earlier we had seen a charcoal-colored bird fly by at close quarters, & from the cockpit we had hollered, “See, BoBo? That’s what you’re supposed to do!” In retrospect, we realize that it probably was BoBo himself, buzzing the boat before departing for the wild blue yonder.

We washed off the souvenirs he left us, and praised God for a happy ending.

We are enjoying a lovely calm summer in beautiful Majuro lagoon while we continue to prepare for our long-awaited trip to the States. Sun is warm, breezes light, water perfect for our daily swims.

Yesterday afternoon I spotted a small charcoal-colored seabird in the water near Sand Dollar, seeming to be trying for lift-off without much success. I called to him, and to my amazement, he paddled over to the boat & hopped right up onto the boarding ladder. There he sat, on the shady side of the boat, soaking wet & shivering in the breeze. He kept looking up toward the deck as if he wished he were there, but couldn’t quite process a boarding plan. He didn’t mind my proximity, but when I reached to pick him up, he responded with some nervous little “keep-away” pecks at my hand. Ken eventually lifted the ladder, bird & all, & parked him in the sun on the foredeck. He preened briefly in the warmth, then promptly went to sleep.

Later, we put out some water & sardines in case he fancied a nosh; Ken suggested that he might enjoy the sardines in Tabasco sauce, but we opted for the plain ones instead.

During the night a significant rain squall came through, which no doubt left him cold & wet all over again, but he came through it with flying colors. Except that he’s not actually flying. In the morning, there he sat, mostly dry and apparently none the worse for the experience. In fact, he seems to have made himself quite at home. He hasn’t moved from the ladder except to turn around to face the wind, and he hasn’t eaten anything. Still perched on his original rung, he’s preening & flapping his wings & occasionally talking to himself. And pooping. Lots of pooping. Good thing we have a deck wash!

We have ID’d him/her as a juvenile brown booby, and have given him/her the unisex name of BoBo. He flaps his wings and stands on both feet without obvious sign of injury, so why he hasn’t jumped ship remains a mystery. Our original thought was that he was too wet for take-off, but now he’s dry & still shows no inclination to leave. I guess time will tell. Stay tuned!

We got underway from Likiep at Noon, May 27, with fine weather for the two day trip back to Majuro.  The wind had a northerly component to it, which was very much appreciated since we were headed southeast.  The first six hours were beautiful, but then rain started to fall.  The squalls didn’t have a lot of wind in them, so we didn’t have to mess with sail changes.  Later in the evening the northerly component was gone and we were beating to windward.  We set the windvane to stear at 40 degrees apparent wind, but by the next morning we were ten miles off the rumbline.  We set the windvane for 30 degrees apparent wind and hoped to get a lift from the wind.  As Sand Dollar bashed and pounded through the waves, it finally came late in the afternoon and we were able to climb a couple of miles on the plus side of the rumbline.  Because of the sloppy/confused sea conditions, the trip was not fun.  We had to secure all of the hatches and it was hot and humid down below; thank goodness for our fans!  We were very glad to see the tops of Majuro’s coconut palm trees on the second morning.

We are leaving SD on a mooring here and flying back to the U.S. June 17th to visit our families.  We return to Majuro August 8th.  Our current plan is to depart the Marshall Islands, drop down to the South Pacific and head to the Solomon Islands (1,200 miles southwest) soon after our return.

It was one year ago today that we cast off our dock lines.  No regrets; it’s been a great year!

Ken and Katie

Likiep is unique in that it was purchased from the High Chief jointly by Portuguese (DeBrum) and German (Capelle) families in the 1800’s. Therefore, it had a lot of European influence and the English language is more widely spoken than other RMI atolls. There is a hotel on the main island, Likiep Plantation Haus, owned and run by Joe DeBrum. When we arrived, we anchored a right off of LPH and Joe gave us a very warm welcome, taking our hands & saying, “Welcome to your home!”. The anchorage is in a small bay; beautiful, calm and well protected. As usual, we were the only yacht in the atoll.

The sandy bottom shelves quickly offshore, dropping off to 40 or more feet, so we were anchored quite close to the beach, all the better to admire the beautiful village scene. Likiep’s early residents planted a lot of very large shade trees, which the locals call lukwej, to serve as protection for the homes & land from the waves & winds of big storms. These trees line the village shore all the way around the lagoon, and they make a charming view from the water, as well as providing welcome shade from the tropical sun.

The island next to the isle of Likiep is Lado, and offers spectacular snorkeling; we saw an exceptional number of reef fish in shades of blue, green, purple, yellow, & turquoise.. The variety is seemingly endless, with fish striped like tigers, spotted like leopards, and some decorated like race cars in bright colors accented with neon blazes & lightning bolts. We were even fortunate enough to encounter a sea turtle, which I believe was a hawksbill; she had a lovely shell pattern, & swam with surprising speed.

In our Likiep anchorage, the aquatic life centered around a huge school of sardines, which hung around just off the beach, relocating occasionally a few yards left or right. Fishermen with cast nets & small boys with fishing poles would easily nab these little guys & use them for bait to catch bigger fish. A couple of the bigger fish ended up in Joe’s skillet as part of a tasty dinner he fixed for us! Seen from underwater, the sardine school was an astonishing sight, appearing as a solid wall of fish, from the water’s surface to as far down as the eye could see.

Joe was the perfect host, taking us for a scenic tour in his little pick-up truck and stopping at intervals to point out items of local interest. With the two of us facing backward perched on lawn chairs in the bed of the truck, our heads were higher than the cab, & Joe would call out from time to time to warn of low-hanging branches.

Joe has a seemingly endless supply of local stories & entertaining anecdotes. We spent some very enjoyable times with him either on the hotel porch or under the shade of one of the big lukwej trees by the beach, gazing out at the tranquil turquoise lagoon while a mother hen & her baby chicks peeped around our feet. Tough life!

As hard as it was to say farewell to this tropical paradise, weather dictates much of our agenda, and when a favorable weather window appeared on our 8^th day, we reluctantly took our leave. We couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful visit, and we’ll never forget Joe and our Likiep island home.

After spending a week in the beautiful calm anchorage of Wotje, we sailed seven miles north to the much smaller village of Wormej. It was a delightful sail as we passed closely to many beautiful, small islands along the way. We dropped the hook on a sand bottom in the usual crystal clear water about 100 yards off shore. This anchorage turned out to be much less protected than Wotje’s, so we dropped a second hook to pull us away from some coral heads and give us additional security. We were warmly greeted by the villagers – the usual herd of kids were waiting for us on the beach. We visited the World Teach volunteer teacher, Sarah, whom we originally met at Christmas time back in Majuro. She is a warm, friendly person with a big smile on her face. While waiting for her to get out of class, I took a look at the schools single sideband high frequency radio transceiver. I discovered that it had problems. The antenna coupler wasn’t working, therefore hardly any radiation was getting to the antenna. After opening it up, it appeared that a lizard or two had taken up residence inside of it. A bunch of little white egg shells and droppings were all over the inside of it. The antenna coupler was beyond my repair capabilities, so I went to plan B. I took the coupler out of the system and tuned the dipole antenna (by adding around 3’ of wire on each end) to the frequency utilized by the RMI out island education system. I also made some changes to the settings of the transceiver (ICOM 718). It worked and the teachers were ecstatic! I also made a minor repair to the solar charger controller and showed them how to keep the battery topped off with water. It was a fun project and it appears we scored some big points. We paid our respects to the island’s Lirooj (Queen) and gave her a few small food gifts. We found out later that this was much appreciated as apparently this custom is not always followed by visitors. We were offered rain water and it was great to use it for catching up on two weeks of laundry. Our own drinking water supply was in good shape, but not enough for such luxuries as laundry or showers. Just before we left, we were asked to attend a going away ceremony. This was put on by the ladies and we were the honored guests. It consisted of speeches, singing, and we were given ten baskets of local food; BBQ fish, dried fish, coconut crap, drinking coconuts, breadfruit, pandanus fruit, to take with us on our journey. Wormej was wonderful! We were sad to leave, but it was time to move on to another atoll about 75 miles west of Wormej – Likiep. We were able to break up the trip in two legs by anchoring off an island in the west end of Wotje. This left 50 miles to get to Likiep’s pass, which we thought we could do if we got underway at sunrise. The trip to Likiep was the best we’ve experienced so far in the RMI. The wind was lest than 10 knots which required us to motor-sail, but we averaged 6-knots and reached Likiep’s beautiful pass by 3 PM the same day. After getting SD in anchor mode, we relaxed and then got a good night’s sleep in the very calm, sheltered anchorage. We’re looking forward to going ashore today. Photos will be posted when we return to Majuro in a couple of weeks. Ken and Katie P.S. If you would like a bird’s eye view of the atoll we’re at, just plug our position (0950N 16918E) into Google Earth.

Wormej Village, Wotje Atoll, Marshall Islands We lost one today: “Elusive” a 44-foot sailboat, 250 miles out of New Zealand bound for Fiji, went down in calm weather conditions. The good news is, the three people on board (mother, father, son) were rescued by the yacht “Scarlet O’hara” that happened to be only a few miles away. Elusive was a J-44. The owners never found the source of the rapid leak, but suspect it had something to do with the rudder since they lost steering right before it happened. The Pacific Seafarers ham radio net played a big roll in the rescue operations. The net controller and relay stations did an outstanding job coordinating communications between the rescue yacht and the New Zealand Rescue Center. The net is a volunteer effort and is much appreciated by the cruising community. We were able to monitor all of the communications and our hearts go out to the family of Elusive. It’s a good reminder to put as much as you can in the “black box”, because you never know when you’re going to need some good luck. Ken and Katie