My apologies for the lack of posts lately. Due to my laziness and a few
technical difficulties (Andy accidentally erased my last post I had ready),
we’re a little behind. So this
post is a conglomeration of the past week or so – several unrelated activities.
One of the most exciting things since we’ve been here has
been Jake getting to ride on a surfboard behind a boat. Our friends on Love Song have the use
of a fast motorboat (Alan is fixing it for the owner) and they have some wake
boards, knee boards, etc. They
pulled Jake behind on their surfboard while he hung onto the rope. He was so excited – one of the best
times he’s had yet.
Thanksgiving was ok.
It was a potluck and most of you know how I feel about potlucks. Andy was one of four people cooking
half a turkey (all our oven will hold) and he also volunteered for scalloped
potatoes. I decided to make dinner
roles so we ended up cooking all day like we would on a normal
thanksgiving. But we like cooking
for the most part, so that was the highlight. The potluck itself was typical, but we’ve made a few good
friends here so time spent with them was appreciated.
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| Andy, carving his turkey. |
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| As usual at big potlucks like this, there was tons of food. |
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| Lena, Gabriella, and Anna enjoying their day out on the boat. |
There’s a couple here that we’ve met who is adopting a
Marshallese boy. They have three
little girls and their new addition makes four. They’re from Missouri and this is the first time their kids
have ever been to the ocean. So we
decided it might be nice to take them out on the boat. They were trying to get to Eneko but
the hotel charges $50 a person. We
go out there all the time, so we told them to come along with us on
Saturday. The weather held out for
us and it proved to be a really good time. We borrowed some snorkeling gear and life jackets for the
girls, while they brought along lunch for us all. The girls got to drive the boat and they went snorkeling for
the first time ever. It was quite
a treat for everyone…even us. I
was telling Laura that it was nice to talk to someone from home who wasn’t a
cruiser every now and then. We get
stuck in a rut with our same old boat conversations so it’s nice to be normal
for a change. The ride back wasn’t
the greatest – into the wind with 25 knots – but hopefully the rest of the day
made up for it.
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| The initial dinghy ride to the boat... |
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| Jason with little Levi, the newest addition to their family. |
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| The girls LOVED driving the boat. |
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| They all took turns. |
Today, we’re doing boat chores and being a little lazy. It’s raining again and there’s not much
motivation to go ashore just yet.
The rainy season is supposed to be over in November and the winds start
to blow more consistently then.
The winds are starting to blow, but the rain hasn’t subsided just yet,
but it looks like maybe we’re in the transition phase.
We’re still working on getting to Kwajalein – actually, not
making much progress – hopefully we’ll be heading out soon. They just had elections here so we have
to wait until all the officials are finished counting votes before we get our
permits for the outer islands (limited manpower).
On a semi-positive note… the investigator from Tarawa has
been writing us and they have arrested three people in conjunction with our
robbery in Tarawa. They haven’t
recovered anything yet, but are still looking. So even if we don’t get anything back, at least we have a
little satisfaction knowing that the guys got caught.
More random pics....
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| Jake has become quite useful...bailing water out of the dinghy after a big rain. |
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| Naomi and John on s/v Renova |
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| Leslie and Phillip on s/v Carina |
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| An example of some trash we often come across on the various motus. It's a shame what washes ashore. |
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| But all you have to do is look up a little and it's really beautiful. |
