Updated Pictures from Pulawat (and a few more from Lukenor)

As you can guess, we've arrived in Yap.  We've been here a few days and so far, we're really enjoying ourselves.  Check in was a breeze (less than 1 hour) and the people are extremely friendly.  I've already had an old guy stop me in the middle of the grocery store and tell me if we need any bananas or coconuts, to let him know....just let John know.

The weather is acting funky though.  Today, we've had winds up to 40 knots and lots of rain.  Not sure how long it's going to last, but at least we know our anchor is secure.  We haven't moved an inch.  And good thing too...we have a reef directly behind us and a giant mega-yacht (actually, two) on our port side.  It's a tight anchorage when you're next to million dollar boats and you have no insurance!

I've updated the pictures for Pulawat...hopefully you like them.  Click on the posts below to see the latest...

Anchored in Pulawat
More on Pulawat
The Other Village
Coconuts, Bananas, and Typhoons
Underway for Lamotrek

We also found a few pictures we forgot from Lukenor, so I'm posting them here.  If you wonder why we have so many pictures of Mariel, besides the fact that we love her, we told her to tell her mom to check in on the blog so she could see how she was doing....hopefully the message got there! Enjoy!

Mariel with one of the many little ones.

The night time celebration for the Bishop.

Simon's grandsons

Jake playing with the kids after they paddled to the boat.

Jake in his swimming pool (Andy was shark fishing....hehehe).

Underway for Lamotrek

The last few days have been uneventful in Pulawat...a good thing. Yesterday, we cleaned the boat, pulled our hooks out and went in to say our goodbyes. The winds looked good on Sunday, dying out a bit on Monday, so we decided to go ahead and leave.

Everyone seemed genuine in their thank you's and goodbyes. I like to think we helped a little here. Andy's final list of fix its and to dos were fiberglassing a boat, fixing a block, programming a gps, patching a water tank, sealing an old compass, loading movies onto laptops and providing the daily weather report. I made a friend towards the end there in a lady named Josaline. We exchanged recipes and a bit of food, so when we went in to say bye, I gave her one of my bracelets that I had recently made. She had made me some lai's (I have no idea how to spell that), and gave Jake a plastic beaded necklace and her husband, Tony, gave Andy a Trident Trumpet shell and a few fish he had caught that day. They were very nice people and when not around her husband, Josaline spoke perfect English. That made it easier to get to know her than some of the other ladies. I'm assuming it's tradition or a cultural thing, but whenever her husband was around, she spoke through him. But if she rowed out to the boat or I caught her by herself, we spoke like old friends. She is from Weno, in Chuuk, but has spent a fair amount of time in Guam. Pulawat is a bit small for her and I think she wants to go back to Guam. She has two older kids there in school and misses them quite a bit. And her little one misses McDonald's (so does mine, I told her)!

Josaline and two of her kids.

The old compass Andy sealed and cleaned up.  It was
manufactured in 1944.  Wouldn't you like to have that?

We're a few hours underway and things are looking like we might possibly be able to arrive tomorrow before sunset, which is our goal. It's 170 or so miles and the winds are so so... we'll see.

Keep the prayers and good thoughts coming for Palau...the forecast this morning said the typhoon was still on track for hitting there and winds were currently at 130 mph. Our friends have taken refuge in the Rock Islands...we're hoping for the best.

Some photos of the Catholic Church here (Jake thought Papa Mac would like these)...

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Coconuts, Bananas, and Typhoons

You can't see the lines, but they're there.

Did I say typhoons? Yep. Thank goodness for friends who watch the weather. Our very good friends, Richard and Lee on s/v Before, are in Palau and dropped us a little note (bomb) the other day about a tropical depression (possible typhoon) heading our way. It's original path had it going right over Pulawat. We considered heading south, as typhoons don't typically travel along the equator, but in the end, decided to move the boat to the little lagoon here and hunker down. We waited until high tide, as the water gets deep enough for us to move in (about 8 foot), and we motored into the lagoon to a spot in the SE corner. We put out all four of our anchors and tied a 600 foot line to a coconut tree on shore. We alerted the locals about the coming storm and began to pull our weather twice a day. As Richard kept us informed, we slowly realized we were going to be spared (I know, I'm being dramatic)!!! The storm did a lot of weird things, like slow down, speed up, change directions, etc. but eventually, it decided to go west. It passed us about 120 miles south last night and we only got 25-30 knot winds (no different than an active day in Majuro during the northeasterlies). But the track now shows it moving more northwest and heading straight for Yap and Palau. While we're out of danger, now Richard and Lee have to take cover in the Rock Islands. So we'll be watching our for them and saying a few extra prayers. Thank goodness for friends who watch the weather.

And thank goodness for family that doesn't! We didn't want to keep the information from our family, but knowing no one at home was watching the weather out here...we opted to wait until all was good before informing them. Hopefully they'll forgive us. Both families have had enough to worry about without unnessessary worry for us.



This storm is really strange though...it's late in the season and they rarely come this low in lattitude. Kind of a fluke thing. And really hard to track. We wanted to have a typhoon party, but we were lacking in the ability to go buy a keg and watch the weather channel. So we decided to cook popcorn and watch Surf's Up instead :).

His brother was hiding in the water but it made a cute picture. 

Some kids in their canoes paddling around our boat.
Canoes here are like bikes for the kids at home...everyone has one
and knows how to paddle.

So...Andy didn't go sailing on Wednesday. But we did manage to get in a hike to a Japanese lighthouse that was put up before WWII. We had a great little walk on the beach, eventually found the path to the lighthouse and spent our afternoon exploring the jungle. A perfect day for Jake.

The actual light in the lighthouse.  I believe they
said it was working up until 10 or so years ago.  Looks pretty rusted out
to me...

Going down the stairs in the lighthouse.

We're going to pull up our hooks tomorrow and move back to our original spot, getting us ready to move out early Monday morning (weather permitting of course). Andy was going to cash in a raincheck on the sailing for tomorrow, but one look at the pass this afternoon and the small canoe they'll be going out on and he decided to hold out for Lamotrek.

So, as we sign off, we're going to go eat a few of our (20 lbs) bananas, put a dent in the 2 dozen coconuts in our cockpit (while lacing with a bit of rum) and thank the Lord for giving us another wonderful day.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

The other village

That's Mayor Dale with the machete in
his hand.

Round 2 - The other village

Mayor Dale and his people have been very nice to us and very warm and welcoming. They still ask us to do a lot of stuff, but the attitude is different and therefore ours is different, making us much more eager to help. Apparently, there was a meeting yesterday (with both the Mayor and Joey), and the anchoring fee is not $50 (as quoted by Joey), or $35 (as quoted by the mayor and what we actually paid), but $25. The money should be collected by the Mayor and go towards the municipality, not just one village or chief. Makes no difference to us as we've already paid, but maybe it will be a little clearer for the next yacht that comes in here.


So far, Andy has spent an entire afternoon trying to fix a chain saw, with no success. He thinks it's the timing but we don't have the tools to confirm or fix it. He's patched up a water tank for the local school principle as well as programmed his GPS (it had him somewhere between Montana and Kansas). Andy has fixed a block on one of the outrigger sailing canoes and secured himself a position on Wednesday's sailing crew. He's really stoked about that one! Imagine sailing on one of the traditional built canoes with the locals! (Incidentally, I have asked him to take his hand held epirb - emergency beacon - as there has been more than one tale of an islander floating up on another atoll) The only job left undone so far is fixing the GPS for the "oldest master navigator" on the island(I know, funny right? Which came first the GPS or the Master Navigator?). We think it's probably just batteries.

Not too sure what's with the peace and gang signs, but
all the kids seem to like to use them in their pictures.
Melony is on the left.

George, one of the guys that translates for us with the mayor sometimes, rowed up to the boat last night with his three daughters. He is originally from Lamotrek and wanted us to take some letters to his sisters for him (no names, just ask around he said). He also brought another lava lava for me to buy. I got this one for half the price of the one Joey sold me...hmmmm.... George's 11 year old daughter, Melony, was one of the girls that sat on the boat the other day and stared at me while I made a bracelet. She's very beautiful and spirited but her English is lacking so our communication was pretty basic. She rowed out today to give us some more letters and some papayas George had promised us. This will be a much welcome change as the boat is slowing sinking from bananas and coconuts. She also made me a beautiful little headdress made out of some local flowers...very sweet. I think I might give her one of the beaded bracelets I've been making for people. I usually give them to the "woman" of the house, but she's been so sweet...

Jake climbing a tree to retrieve his very own
coconut.

While we were talking to the Mayor one day, we were told Jacinta wanted to meet us and we were sent to the kitchen house. There she was with a huge smile on her face and nothing on but a skirt. We had been told that the women in Lamotrek were very traditional and went bare breasted, covering nothing but their thighs...the most provocative part of the body here. But we hadn't expected it here in Pulawat. It seems that everyone over 50 is pretty traditional (i.e. no shirts), but the younger women wear the newer uniform of long skirt and t-shirt. Andy, not surprisingly, seems to think it should be the other way around. We had tried to prepare Jake for this as he's obviously not used to seeing so many boobies but I think we left something out.... When we got back to the dinghy, he said "Mommy? I wasn't surprised by the boobies, but I was surprised by something else."

"What was that?," I asked.

"I thought they would be BIG, not LONG and hanging."

Ha! So, that began a whole different conversation about sizes of boobies and why everyone is different. I bet you wish you were a fly on the wall for that one, huh?


It turns out the reason Jacinta wanted to meet us was to offer us to come back later in the day to give us some taro to try. It was the best taro we've eaten by far. Jake even liked it. It looked like she boiled it and pounded it, as is traditional, but not too much. Then put the coconut milk on it and gave it to us immediately! That last part is key. It goes sour pretty quickly and well, our taste buds (or stomachs) haven't adjusted to that yet.

Preparing Taro

The Master Navigator's hut.  Not many building codes here...

Today we're going to try to secure ourselves a guide for tomorrow to go up to a lighthouse they have here. They say it's through the jungle so it's not really feasible to go by yourself (if you don't want to get lost). We'll see if we can find any takers...

I have a feeling the next major update will be after the big sail on Wednesday. Apparently, there are people from other islands coming in tomorrow (possibly a big feast?), and who knows how many boats going out on Wednesday...we're just going with the flow. Stay tuned.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

More on Pulawat

Where do I start? I'm on information overload. Ok, I'll start with where I left off and
try not to skip around too much.

It turns out Joey had a change of attitude when we showed up to fix his boat. He was very grateful and well, just a different person. We also gained a little more insight on what appears to be a rivalry here on the island. I'm making some leaps here to fill in some gaps in the story but Joey told us that his family and ancestors own tons of land (relatively speaking) here on the island (he actually gestured to the whole island). Apparently, way back when, there were some "bad guys" here. They would kidnap the women, eat other people's food, and well, just weren't very nice. So Joey's ancestors got a group of men together - "army" - and snuck up on the bad guys and killed them all (as well as their families) so they wouldn't have that gene pool to worry about. And so it is, that he owns the land now. As for the mayor....well, I think it's a case of traditional meets new ways and they don't know yet how to live together. The idea of a mayor is fairly new here and typically, on the islands we've been to, you don't have a mayor and a chief. So they have a bit of figuring out to do. It seems civil enough though...we're spreading the love to both villages and so far, it's working out for us.

Andy putting a fiberglass patch on their boat.  Lots of
spectators....

Andy has spent a couple of days fixing Joey's boat and I think he's about done. I made them some ahi poke this morning with one of the tuna's we caught and the ladies really liked that (the sauce in particular). We've received 6 coconuts, a stalk of bananas, and two coconut crabs(actually, Andy just pulled up and it turns out they want to sell them to us for $15...I don't think so...no coconut crabs tonight). I also had the opportunity to buy one of the handmade lava lava's here(and I did). They strip the "skin" from the trees and they take part of the leaves and roots and whatever else and pound them to make dye. Then they weave these elaborate fabrics - elaborate in the sense that this is all made out of a tree and done by hand and it turns out to be a bona fide fabric - that they use for skirts or sell for wall hangings or what have you. It's beginning to be a dying art (ha ha, I just reread this and got my own joke), so my guess is they're becoming more scarce. I'm glad to get the opportunity to actually purchase one. I'm hoping I can catch them making one before we leave and get some pictures. Overall, my opinion on the gimme gimme attitude hasn't changed (see the incident on the coconut crabs after spending 2 days of hard work and at least $100 of materials and gifts), but I'm growing to like the individuals.

While Andy was working and I was socializing, Jake was playing with the kids in the water. They had a funny little game(and I'm sorry to say my overprotecting nature didn't really allow Jake to actively participate - he was more of an instigator or spectator). They took a piece of fabric and wet it. Then they would put it over their head and crouch down in the water and float on their backs, making a bubble of sorts over their faces and bodies. It looks like some sort of floating corpse. I could see all kinds of wrongs happening there and I wasn't paying 100%attention, so rather than have my own corpse to take home, I just encouraged Jake to splash around with them :). He seemed fine with that. The other game they were playing was for one kid to hold a big rock and the others try to jump on him to get it from him. A tug of war, hold your head under the water until you give it up type of game. I pretended not to notice whether Jake was playing or not. It's hard to encourage him to play and then to tell him he can't play... He's learning "good judgment" and "common sense."

I did learn something new today...a man's lava lava here in Micronesia is known as a mungca, with the enunciation on the "ca." I learned how to say bye (twice since we've been here) but for some reason it isn't sticking...I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Everyone watching us talk to the principal
when we were giving our supplies.

Joey is a teacher at the local school, so he sent a kid to show us the way and we gave our usual school supplies of paper, pencils, sharpeners, crayons, dictionaries and flash cards. What really needs to happen is for someone to just spend a few hundred bucks and load up on all that stuff for the whole school for a year. We can't carry that much on our boat and I'm not sure our budget could handle it for each island, but when we worked and had jobs, it wouldn't have been a drop in the bucket. I wonder what would happen if everyone did something like that for the local inner-city school (or any needy school) in the U.S.? I'm not turning into a softy here, but it's so amazing how much we have compared to these people. We are considered living "without" by so many of our friends and family. After all, we live in a small confined space, no dishwasher, washing machine, toaster, coffee maker, etc. all the comforts of home. But my gosh, we roll up in here and we might as well be Bill Gates or Oprah for all they know. These kids come on the boat and they just stare. Literally sit and stare at you and your stuff for hours. They live in tin sheds or shantys made out of pandanas leaves. They sleep on woven mats on top of layers of palm leaves. They have no running water and no electricity. Their clothes (if they're wearing any) are old and tattered. Thanksgiving was a good time to roll up in here. It brings things into perspective.

This is the school here in Pulawat...

Jake and I at a little shrine we found.  They
have many of these around here, much like in Mexico.

There is tons more to tell but I think I'm going to spread it out over the next few days. Maybe separate the info between the two villages... There's so much to take in, I just want to share it all. So stay tuned for more on canoes, bare breasted women, and our invitation to eat taro.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Anchored in Pulawat

We had a blissful 3 day/2 night sail to Pulawat. Yes, I said blissful. It started out slow, but just as we thought we would have to spend another night at sea, the winds picked up and we were sailing along at a consistent 7-8 knots. I think we even saw 10 kts at one point.

We traversed a rather tricky pass and quite shallow. It was high tide and the sun was behind us - we couldn't have had better conditions - yet the shallowest point under our rudders still showed 8 feet... woohoo. We anchored in the entrance of the lagoon, as the google earth pictures looked much more shallow than the charts for getting into the actual bay. Andy and Jake went to check it out in the dinghy with a depth sounder. People were waving on the land, so as not to be rude, they checked in with them. The mayor, Dale and his translator Stan, gave Andy a coconut and said we were more than welcome to stay as long as we like....for $35. No sweat, we were expecting this...so they came back to the boat to get me and our little gifts for the mayor.

The old meets the new

On our way in, we were met with two canoes with a man looking none too happy. He said he was the chief's nephew and we were to give him the money. His name was Joey and he wanted to see our permit and if we looked on the computer we would find his name as the person we needed to pay. He told us the fee was no longer $30, but now it was $50. But we could "pay it down" if we had other stuff to trade, like coffee, cigarettes, sugar, etc. He wanted to come to the boat to "see what we had." Um, no. We told him we would go back to the boat and get our permit and would meet him on shore. $35 later, we were down a knife, fishing line, fishing hooks, coffee, and a nice jack we caught on the way in. And we still had to go back to see the mayor.

We went back to the boat and got another knife, fishing hooks and lures and off we went. When we got back to the mayor in the men's meeting house and explained the situation, they said that Joey was wrong and this is a problem with all of the yachts that come in here (funny, that's what Joey said). But they were extremely nice and told us not to worry about it, they would work it out between themselves. Then they gave us some more coconuts and we talked.

I've left out a few things...this place is half way between primitive and half way between the Mortlocks...they still wear their lava lava's (think loin cloths), but they cut their wood with chainsaws. Speaking of chainsaws, Andy has an appointment to fix mayor/chief? Dale's chainsaw in the morning. They all paddle around in their traditional canoes, yet Andy has an appointment to fix Joey's fiberglass boat in the morning. It looks like his day is filling up!

Traditional Sailing Canoes, made here in Pulawat

So, tonight I have mixed emotions. This island has more of the feel of the Marshall's where is was gimme gimme and what can I fix for you, as opposed to the genuine happiness and appreciativeness of the Mortlock's that we just left. Mayor Dale and his crew seemed very welcoming, yet Joey and his klan were not quite as nice (not nice at all actually). The jury is still out. We've only been here a few hours and well, we're tired so maybe my judgment is a little off. We're going to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner of Tuna shashimi (we caught a nice skipjack on the way) and rice and the last of our cucumbers (don't worry, tomorrow I'll have time to make that pumpkin pie!). We'll wash it down with a nice coconut while watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Tomorrow is another day, a new perspective.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com