June 26-28
After breakfast and some after-passage cleanup, we went with Westward in one dinghy to shore, taking the jugs of water and some bags of clothing donated for distribution in the outer islands by a group in Majuro. We found the acting chief, Hiram, and the others at their family complex, and exchanged names and pleasantries. Hiram spoke pretty good English, as did a coup
The village is a small but sprawling village running along the shore. There is a beautiful beach with turquoise water, and the village is shaded with palm trees and breadfruit trees. Most of the houses are small, from what we saw they are mainly used to keep things dry... cooking, sleeping, and eating are done outside in outbuildings. Most of the houses are equipped with a small 220-watt solar array on a pole, with a small charge controller/inverter/distribution panel.
One of Westward's contacts in Majuro works for the Marshall Islands Public Works department, and they had asked Stephen to check up on the Wotho watermaker. It had just been installed for the village a few weeks before. So our first stop on our "village tour" was at the watermaker. It was an interesting affair, "a watermaker in a box", built by Spectra, powered by 2 large solar panels and 2 L16 golfcart batteries. The "salt" water supply was being taken from the old village well--a brackish well. The output was a long thin plastic tube that they ran into the big plastic tank, equipped with a faucet. They run the watermaker every day until the tank is topped off. Anyone in the village needing drinking water, just brings a jug and taps the tank.
A quick taste test on the water coming out of the watermaker, and a listen to the pump going, and both Stephen and Dave felt that it wasn't quite operating properly. After a round of emails with Majuro, and second visit to the watermaker, Stephen confirmed that something wasn't quite right. But it was making water that was a lot better quality than the brackish well water they had before. He spent a couple of hours with the guy who was in charge of the watermaker, going over proper procedures for running and flushing the system. He relayed the info back to Majuro, with some suggestions on what might be wrong, and suggestions on proper training of the islanders, and a simple manual in Marshallese.
Meanwhile, Dave and I got asked to take a look in Hiram's family radio shack. Their radio had been "acting up". A quick look at the knobs revealed that the mic gain was really high. We dialed that back and got a good radio check from someone on another atoll. The outer island Marshallese have quite a radio network going--basically an open party line on 8113.5.
As soon as they found out that we knew something about radios, several more decrepit radios were produced from around the village. We tried to see if there was something easy/obvious that was wrong with them, but basically we're not electronic techs, and couldn't help them with their broken radios. The did ask us some questions about the proper length for an inverted V antenna for their 8113.5 frequency. After a look in our reference material in my computer, we drew a diagram for a proper inverted V, and gave them the formula for proper antenna length based on the frequency they wanted to talk on.
Our limited information on Wotho indicated their were about 80 people on the island, but right now there is only 23, and they are expecting a plane from Majuro to take a few more of the villagers to Majuro. We didn't get a good grasp of whether this was normal summertime "vacation", or actually an evacuation of the vulnerable people from the drought-stricken northern atolls. Nobody seemed to be too concerned, one way or the other.
The day before we left, we spent an interesting morning in the village trading for glass fishing floats and shells. We had seen the glass floats in Majuro for sale in the $50 range, so we knew that was what the "city" price was. But we got ours for a couple of squid-type fishing lures, a jar of instant coffee, a can of Corned Beef, and an old snorkeling mask. It was a little confusing as to who owned what thing we were trading for, but in the end, us and Westward each had a big glass ball and a couple of nice shells, and Westward had a couple of small glass balls. Everyone was smiling and felt they had "made out" in the trade, plus all felt it had been an entertaining morning.
We spent one evening with an old guy from the village, out walking on the reef for lobster. Stephen set this up, and didn't question the time that the guy said we were going to go. When I heard about it, I didn't think it was the right time, because it wasn't "low tide rising" as we'd been told on other islands. But the old guy assured us it would be good, so we went anyway--2 villagers and Dave, Stephen, and I motoring out with our tiny 5hp motor, in the dark, to an island about 2 miles away. We beached the dinghy, made our way around to the windward side, and faithfully walked the reef with gloves, nets, and headlamps, and saw nary a lobster. We surmised later that the islanders would normally go out just before dark, and just hang out waiting for the right tide. But in our case, the right tide would have been about 1am, and we weren't interested in sitting in the sand waiting for 3-4 hours. But we all enjoyed the excursion anyway--once we were back safe and sound on our boats.
Though we would have enjoying hanging out at Wotho and exploring some more, we had a date at Bikini to go diving with the M/V Windward, so we moved on--leaving Friday afternoon for another easy overnight to Bikini.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Kwajalein to Wotho Atoll
June 28, 2013
We left the North Pass at Kwajalein (the closest one to Roi-Namur) at about 11am on Tuesday morning. The conditions, finally, were GREAT for diving, and not so great for sailing. Isn't it always that way??!! We briefly discussed staying another day to take advantage of the calm conditions, but all our dive gear was packed away, and we're on a mission to get back to Bikini by Saturday.
Challenger had sailed south back to Ebeye a few days before--with plans to hook back up with us in a week or two.
So it was just us and Westward II. While in Majuro in May, in the midst of a severe drought in the northern atolls, Westward II had volunteered to carry a bunch of water to distribute to islands in need, in 1-gallon jugs. They had packed their aft head with water. They also were given several large bags of clothing by a ladies group in Majuro. They had thought they'd been able to distribute these items within a week or two of loading them onboard, but their prop problems changed their plans, and they ended up in Kwajalein. Now 6 weeks later, they were anxious to get the stuff out of their aft head.
So we scheduled a stop in remote Wotho Atoll. Wotho is about 100 miles WNW from Kwaj--just a short overnight sail. Because of the light conditions, we left in the morning, hoping for a morning landfall at Wotho. Our first hour on passage, the wind was light enough that Dave and I hauled out the Code Zero sail from the forepeak and got it all ready to go. Our ETA at Wotho was about noon the next day, and we wanted to get in earlier than that.
Not a half an hour after we got the Genoa furled and the Code Zero set, the wind started picking up to a steady 10-15 (from 5-10 knots). We held on for a few minutes with the Code Zero, surfing down the face of the swell at about 8 knots. But it looked like the wind was there to stay, so we furled the Code Zero and put the Genoa back out. We enjoyed a nice evening of steady breeze and were making 5-6 knots. By the middle of the night, the wind had picked up another knot or two, and we were doing 7.5 knots, with an ETA at Wotho about 4am. We kept taking in more and more of the genoa, trying to slow down. But if we reduced sail too much, we'd roll a lot. And besides, it was beautiful sailing conditions--the seas were laying down and we had about 12-14 knots on the beam, and a full moon.
So we rounded the southern tip of Wotho about 5am. It was Dave's watch, and he rolled in the genoa and sailed slowly in the lee of the atoll, arriving at the "pass" about 7am. That was still too early to head in to an unmarked pass, with no real charts, looking straight into the sun. But we did it anyway.
We have a fairly good Google Earth picture of the area (converted to a chartlet by GE2KAP and pulled into our Maxsea/OpenCPN charting programs), and felt confident we could get into the village anchorage safely. It just so happened that Westward II got there ahead of us, so we had the novel experience of following someone ELSE in. It was easy--the pass was a wide opening. The bottom jumped from "bottomless" to about 60 feet in the space of one boat length, and then it gradually shallowed up to about 45 feet. With the sun low on the horizon to the east (roughly the direction we were going), the visibility wasn't great, but we went slowly and could see well enough in the clear water.
An hour later, we dropped anchor off the beach south of the small village, on the island in the NE corner of the atoll. An hour or so later, the "acting chief" was alongside in a small boat, along with a couple of his brothers. He checked our paperwork, to make sure we had the appropriate permission from the Marshall Islands Internal Affairs to stop in their atoll. There is no charge for stopping at Wotho, so no money changed hands. The acting chief, Hiram, invited us ashore to look around.
We left the North Pass at Kwajalein (the closest one to Roi-Namur) at about 11am on Tuesday morning. The conditions, finally, were GREAT for diving, and not so great for sailing. Isn't it always that way??!! We briefly discussed staying another day to take advantage of the calm conditions, but all our dive gear was packed away, and we're on a mission to get back to Bikini by Saturday.
Challenger had sailed south back to Ebeye a few days before--with plans to hook back up with us in a week or two.
So it was just us and Westward II. While in Majuro in May, in the midst of a severe drought in the northern atolls, Westward II had volunteered to carry a bunch of water to distribute to islands in need, in 1-gallon jugs. They had packed their aft head with water. They also were given several large bags of clothing by a ladies group in Majuro. They had thought they'd been able to distribute these items within a week or two of loading them onboard, but their prop problems changed their plans, and they ended up in Kwajalein. Now 6 weeks later, they were anxious to get the stuff out of their aft head.
So we scheduled a stop in remote Wotho Atoll. Wotho is about 100 miles WNW from Kwaj--just a short overnight sail. Because of the light conditions, we left in the morning, hoping for a morning landfall at Wotho. Our first hour on passage, the wind was light enough that Dave and I hauled out the Code Zero sail from the forepeak and got it all ready to go. Our ETA at Wotho was about noon the next day, and we wanted to get in earlier than that.
Not a half an hour after we got the Genoa furled and the Code Zero set, the wind started picking up to a steady 10-15 (from 5-10 knots). We held on for a few minutes with the Code Zero, surfing down the face of the swell at about 8 knots. But it looked like the wind was there to stay, so we furled the Code Zero and put the Genoa back out. We enjoyed a nice evening of steady breeze and were making 5-6 knots. By the middle of the night, the wind had picked up another knot or two, and we were doing 7.5 knots, with an ETA at Wotho about 4am. We kept taking in more and more of the genoa, trying to slow down. But if we reduced sail too much, we'd roll a lot. And besides, it was beautiful sailing conditions--the seas were laying down and we had about 12-14 knots on the beam, and a full moon.
So we rounded the southern tip of Wotho about 5am. It was Dave's watch, and he rolled in the genoa and sailed slowly in the lee of the atoll, arriving at the "pass" about 7am. That was still too early to head in to an unmarked pass, with no real charts, looking straight into the sun. But we did it anyway.
We have a fairly good Google Earth picture of the area (converted to a chartlet by GE2KAP and pulled into our Maxsea/OpenCPN charting programs), and felt confident we could get into the village anchorage safely. It just so happened that Westward II got there ahead of us, so we had the novel experience of following someone ELSE in. It was easy--the pass was a wide opening. The bottom jumped from "bottomless" to about 60 feet in the space of one boat length, and then it gradually shallowed up to about 45 feet. With the sun low on the horizon to the east (roughly the direction we were going), the visibility wasn't great, but we went slowly and could see well enough in the clear water.
An hour later, we dropped anchor off the beach south of the small village, on the island in the NE corner of the atoll. An hour or so later, the "acting chief" was alongside in a small boat, along with a couple of his brothers. He checked our paperwork, to make sure we had the appropriate permission from the Marshall Islands Internal Affairs to stop in their atoll. There is no charge for stopping at Wotho, so no money changed hands. The acting chief, Hiram, invited us ashore to look around.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Diving in North Kwajalein - Part 2
In the week or so that we were in the Roi-Namur area of Kwajalein, we managed to do 8 wreck dives. "A week of diving and you only made 8 dives!?" you say. Yes, it's quite a process to make a pair of dives.
First, there's the motor down to the dive area, and get the dive gear set up and loaded into the dinghies (about an hour and a half to two hours).
The real challenge is motoring out in the dinghies to the dive site (marked accurately, we hope, by a GPS waypoint) and getting an anchor set. For safety's sake, we always try to take more than one dinghy. All our dinghies are of a size that 4 people with dive gear would be too cramped, so we ended up 2 by 2 in sometimes 3 dinghies.
Most of the airplane wrecks are in water over 100 feet deep. We could have chosen to "live boat" the dive in pairs (where one pair stays on the surface with the dinghies and the other goes down, and then switch off). But instead, Westward II volunteered to drop their big (for a dinghy) Danforth anchor with 250 feet of heavy polypropylene line on it. So the procedure we used was this. Dave and I would take the GPS and try to sit as still as possible over the waypoint in our dinghy, and Stephen and Selena from Westward II would motor upwind in their dinghy and drop the anchor, with the idea that they'd end up right over the waypoint when they dropped back on the anchor. It mostly worked. Once the anchor was set, we would then tie (with 2 separate lines) to the back of Westward II's dinghy. When Jerry on Challenger was with us, sometimes he would set his (smaller) Danforth anchor, and then tie up as well. None of us wanted to surface and find one or more $5,000 dinghies gone, so redundancy was the name of the game.
Soggy Paws' dive anchor is an inadequate (for this kind of diving) folding claw-type anchor, that we usually hand-set in a good spot. We would drop this straight down to hang just off the bottom (so it wouldn't get snagged on anything) to use as a marker as to where the dinghies actually were.
So figure another hour to get out to the dive site, anchors set, dinghies rafted up, gear on, and in the water ready to descend.
With the water over 100 feet deep, and visibility only about 40-50 feet, we couldn't tell from the surface whether we were in the right spot. At least once we went on a dive and never saw the airplane we were supposed to be diving on. That one was a big one--it's hard to miss a C-46 cargo plane!! Visibility was not that great that day, and we were using a vector from another airplane. We turned around too soon, but Steve and Selena kept going and found it OK, with only minutes to spare on their bottom time.
But most of the time, the waypoint was accurate enough, and our navigational skills good enough, that we found what we were looking for fairly quickly. Several times we even found "extra airplanes". Basically, there are airplanes strewn all over on the bottom in that area, so it's unlikely to go down and NOT find any airplanes at all.
That said, here is what we managed to see in our 8 dives:
1. Japanese Zero - shot down in Feb 1944 during the Battle of Kwajalein
2. 4 SBD dive bombers (we actually saw 6 on this dive).
3. F4U Corsair (there were a couple of SBD's around the F4U as well)
4. B-25 twin engine bomber
5. C-46 twin engine cargo plane (we didn't find it, but Westward II did)
6. 13 SBD's (we stopped counting at about 7 or 8, but there were "planes everywhere")
7. The "Sand Island Wreck", an old wooden German freighter
8. Japanese Ship Eiko Maru #2 - sunk in Jan/Feb 1944
Plus of course, the two airplanes side-by-side in 25-35' feet, half buried in the sand, right next to where we anchored.
For the wrecks in 100+ feet of water, our bottom time is limited to about 10-15 minutes. We all have dive computers that tell us when we must start ascending to stay within the "no decompression" dive tables. Then we have to ascend slowly and stop at around 20 feet for 5 minutes to let the nitrogen slowly release from our tissues before surfacing. This is called a "safety stop". So total dive time is usually around 25 minutes.
Then--almost as hard a time as getting the anchor down, is pulling the anchor by hand in 100 feet of water. Even though we checked it just before we started our ascent, to make sure it would come free easily, at least once the anchor got stuck on something on the bottom, and we had to leave a buoy on it, and come back later to dive down and free it up.
With such deep dives, we needed to spend 2 hours on the surface to "off-gas" the nitrogen before we did another dive. Lunch time!! So by the time we finished our 2nd dive, it would be about 4:30 and time to head for the anchorage again. Some days we only got one dive in--mostly because of weather issues (wind or squalls).
When they scrapped these planes, they just pushed them off a barge into deep water, and many of them landed nose-down. The SBD's were obsolete and already superseded by the Helldiver, by the end of the war, that's why there are so many of them on the bottom here.
It was pretty cool. We took lots of pictures. We hope to share them with you some day soon! In the meantime, the two dive sites I listed in the previous post have some pictures of some of the planes.
First, there's the motor down to the dive area, and get the dive gear set up and loaded into the dinghies (about an hour and a half to two hours).
The real challenge is motoring out in the dinghies to the dive site (marked accurately, we hope, by a GPS waypoint) and getting an anchor set. For safety's sake, we always try to take more than one dinghy. All our dinghies are of a size that 4 people with dive gear would be too cramped, so we ended up 2 by 2 in sometimes 3 dinghies.
Most of the airplane wrecks are in water over 100 feet deep. We could have chosen to "live boat" the dive in pairs (where one pair stays on the surface with the dinghies and the other goes down, and then switch off). But instead, Westward II volunteered to drop their big (for a dinghy) Danforth anchor with 250 feet of heavy polypropylene line on it. So the procedure we used was this. Dave and I would take the GPS and try to sit as still as possible over the waypoint in our dinghy, and Stephen and Selena from Westward II would motor upwind in their dinghy and drop the anchor, with the idea that they'd end up right over the waypoint when they dropped back on the anchor. It mostly worked. Once the anchor was set, we would then tie (with 2 separate lines) to the back of Westward II's dinghy. When Jerry on Challenger was with us, sometimes he would set his (smaller) Danforth anchor, and then tie up as well. None of us wanted to surface and find one or more $5,000 dinghies gone, so redundancy was the name of the game.
Soggy Paws' dive anchor is an inadequate (for this kind of diving) folding claw-type anchor, that we usually hand-set in a good spot. We would drop this straight down to hang just off the bottom (so it wouldn't get snagged on anything) to use as a marker as to where the dinghies actually were.
So figure another hour to get out to the dive site, anchors set, dinghies rafted up, gear on, and in the water ready to descend.
With the water over 100 feet deep, and visibility only about 40-50 feet, we couldn't tell from the surface whether we were in the right spot. At least once we went on a dive and never saw the airplane we were supposed to be diving on. That one was a big one--it's hard to miss a C-46 cargo plane!! Visibility was not that great that day, and we were using a vector from another airplane. We turned around too soon, but Steve and Selena kept going and found it OK, with only minutes to spare on their bottom time.
But most of the time, the waypoint was accurate enough, and our navigational skills good enough, that we found what we were looking for fairly quickly. Several times we even found "extra airplanes". Basically, there are airplanes strewn all over on the bottom in that area, so it's unlikely to go down and NOT find any airplanes at all.
That said, here is what we managed to see in our 8 dives:
1. Japanese Zero - shot down in Feb 1944 during the Battle of Kwajalein
2. 4 SBD dive bombers (we actually saw 6 on this dive).
3. F4U Corsair (there were a couple of SBD's around the F4U as well)
4. B-25 twin engine bomber
5. C-46 twin engine cargo plane (we didn't find it, but Westward II did)
6. 13 SBD's (we stopped counting at about 7 or 8, but there were "planes everywhere")
7. The "Sand Island Wreck", an old wooden German freighter
8. Japanese Ship Eiko Maru #2 - sunk in Jan/Feb 1944
Plus of course, the two airplanes side-by-side in 25-35' feet, half buried in the sand, right next to where we anchored.
For the wrecks in 100+ feet of water, our bottom time is limited to about 10-15 minutes. We all have dive computers that tell us when we must start ascending to stay within the "no decompression" dive tables. Then we have to ascend slowly and stop at around 20 feet for 5 minutes to let the nitrogen slowly release from our tissues before surfacing. This is called a "safety stop". So total dive time is usually around 25 minutes.
Then--almost as hard a time as getting the anchor down, is pulling the anchor by hand in 100 feet of water. Even though we checked it just before we started our ascent, to make sure it would come free easily, at least once the anchor got stuck on something on the bottom, and we had to leave a buoy on it, and come back later to dive down and free it up.
With such deep dives, we needed to spend 2 hours on the surface to "off-gas" the nitrogen before we did another dive. Lunch time!! So by the time we finished our 2nd dive, it would be about 4:30 and time to head for the anchorage again. Some days we only got one dive in--mostly because of weather issues (wind or squalls).
When they scrapped these planes, they just pushed them off a barge into deep water, and many of them landed nose-down. The SBD's were obsolete and already superseded by the Helldiver, by the end of the war, that's why there are so many of them on the bottom here.
It was pretty cool. We took lots of pictures. We hope to share them with you some day soon! In the meantime, the two dive sites I listed in the previous post have some pictures of some of the planes.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Diving in North Kwajalein - Part 1
We have been up at the north end of Kwaj for about 10 days now. The first couple of days, the wind was blowing so hard, it was not possible to go out into the atoll and dive the wrecks.
We did manage to sneak in a dive in on the Japanese Zero the first afternoon we arrived. It is in about 60 feet, just off the entrance channel to the Roi Base area. It was close enough that we went by dinghies when the wind eased off to 15-17 knots for a few hours. We took pictures, but unfortunately, we do not have internet here, so we can't share them.
For you armchair divers and future Marshalls divers, the best place to start following along with us (and get waypoints) is at the Kwajalein Scuba Club website. They have done a really good job of listing information about all the known wrecks within Kwajalein Atoll. Sometimes they also cross link to Dave Fortin's excellent website, which has a wreck page for each known wreck. Unfortunately, Dave Fortin was based at the south end of the atoll, so his info on the Roi area wrecks is a little thin, but he does have pictures of some of them.
http://kwajaleinscubaclub.com
Even though Roi-Namur is a restricted military base, part of the Ronald Reagan Missile Test Range, we were told we could go right up into the anchorage area (200 feet from the beach on the base). When the wind is blowing out of the ENE (the normal direction), this anchorage is scenic and reasonably protected. Nice sand bottom in about 20 feet. The closer you tuck in to the generators, the more protected you are. There was already one cruising boat here, plus a Roi-based boat on a mooring, but we still managed to get 3 more 40+ boats up in the anchorage. But Opus, the first boat, definitely had the best spot. If the wind picks up, or shifts further south than about 080 degrees, you end up with a nasty chop in the anchorage.
We were anchored right off this beautiful beach lined with palm trees, but could not go ashore. However, we found that we COULD go ashore on what's known as the Yokahama Pier--the pier about quarter mile east--where the ferry and the small boats come and go from. What's more, we found that there, we could use the washing machines, shop at the little store (Tue-Thur-Sat), get water in jugs, buy ice, and sometimes buy diesel/gasoline. This is all in a gated compound at the base of the pier. It is there for the use of the Marshallese that live on "3rd Island" (proper name Ennubirr). Our anchorage spot: 09-20.17N / 167-20.35E
With the wind forecast to blow 18-20 knots for a couple of days, there was no reason to stay in the Roi-Namur base anchorage (and several reasons to leave). So our little group (Westward II, Challenger, and Soggy Paws) moved down to the island known locally as 6th Island. It's proper name is Edgigen, but since no one is sure how to pronounce it properly, everyone just calls it 6th Island.
We are not sure why this is the most popular local anchorage, other than it is 4 miles from the base and the giant radar there, well protected from ENE to ESE, is uninhabited, and has a nice sandy beach, which we CAN go ashore on. There are several islands between the base and 6th island which look also reasonably protected.
3rd Island, where the Marshalese workers live, like Ebeye, is densely populated with Marshalese. The ferry from Roi-Namur runs back and forth daily between the base and 3rd Island, bringing workers to the base. And bringing their wives/girlfriends, etc (free) to the little compound to do the laundry, shop, and hang out.
We hung out at 6th Island for a few days, waiting for the wind to die down. We dove a few of the bommies that are very close--and marked with white "isolated danger" bouys. These coral mounds typically come up from the bottom of the lagoon (90-120 feet deep) to where they are usually visible from the surface (and Google Earth). Some are as shallow as 5 feet at the top, others come up to 25 feet. The bommies close in to the eastern edge of the atoll make good foul-weather dive spots, especially on a rising tide, when the clear water outside the atoll is pouring in. However, the coral growth varies--some better than others--and the fish life is minimal. In 3 or 4 dives, we only saw one or two sharks and almost no big fish. We did see a number of turtles, however.
We did a little beachcombing on 6th Island. Dave and I walked in the shallows around the north end of the island, and found some WWII-era debris. We couldn't identify the one large metal object--maybe something from a landing craft from the assault on Kwajalein in Feb 1944, but we did find the heavy bronze end cap from a 5" shell, and some bullets and other bits of debris. Stephen on Westward II said he found similar stuff around the south end of the island. Anyone interested in a short summary of the Battle of Kwajalein should check Wikipedia.
We also had a nice evening ashore on 6th Island, having a barbecue on the beach (and burning our paper trash).
Finally the wind started easing off so we could dive the airplane wrecks that are mostly located on the inner western edge of the atoll, a few miles south of Roi-Namur. Looking at Google Earth, we spied a narrow sand ledge close to the first wrecks we wanted to dive. These turned out to be a decent anchorage in mild conditions, only 2.5 miles from Roi Namur and 3 miles from 6th Island. So for a few days, we did a daily "commute" to the dive area in our sailboats. Our anchor spot was at 09-21.088N / 167-26.409E, dropping the anchor in about 30-45 feet, in sand, on an upslope, and hanging back in about 15 feet sand, with the reef only 100 yards behind us. Challenger and Westward II anchored about 50 yards either side of us. With winds LESS than 15 knots, this is OK as a day anchorage only. If the wind gets up higher, it's quite unnerving being there, backed up to the reef. And at least one day, we waved off from anchoring there when the winds ended up a couple knots higher than the forecast. Needless to say, we all backed down hard and snorkeled our anchors before we left to go diving in the dinghies.
As we went to drop our anchor, Dave said "we can't drop here, there's a coral head". So we edge a boat-length right and dropped. When I went out to snorkel our anchor, I discovered the "coral head" was actually 2 airplanes, side-by-side facing up the sand bank in about 25-35 feet of water. These were not on any waypoint list we had, and were there first of 3 or 4 "new" airplane wrecks we discovered. These would make very good hookah-depth dives or novice diver dives--assuming the don't get covered up periodically by sand.
Only one of the airplane wrecks in the Roi area (the Zero), that we know of, are actual WWII downed planes. Most of those in the "airplane graveyard" are ones discarded by U.S. forces, after the end of the war. After capturing Kwajalein in January 1944, the U.S. set up an airfield and a maintenance facility on Roi-Namur. We could tell the 2 planes we found were discarded planes, as they had an airplane prop sitting in the cockpit, rather than out front where it belongs.
This is getting long... and it's time to go diving again (a nice sunny day)... I'm going to send this off and continue with our diving in Part 2.
We did manage to sneak in a dive in on the Japanese Zero the first afternoon we arrived. It is in about 60 feet, just off the entrance channel to the Roi Base area. It was close enough that we went by dinghies when the wind eased off to 15-17 knots for a few hours. We took pictures, but unfortunately, we do not have internet here, so we can't share them.
For you armchair divers and future Marshalls divers, the best place to start following along with us (and get waypoints) is at the Kwajalein Scuba Club website. They have done a really good job of listing information about all the known wrecks within Kwajalein Atoll. Sometimes they also cross link to Dave Fortin's excellent website, which has a wreck page for each known wreck. Unfortunately, Dave Fortin was based at the south end of the atoll, so his info on the Roi area wrecks is a little thin, but he does have pictures of some of them.
http://kwajaleinscubaclub.com
Even though Roi-Namur is a restricted military base, part of the Ronald Reagan Missile Test Range, we were told we could go right up into the anchorage area (200 feet from the beach on the base). When the wind is blowing out of the ENE (the normal direction), this anchorage is scenic and reasonably protected. Nice sand bottom in about 20 feet. The closer you tuck in to the generators, the more protected you are. There was already one cruising boat here, plus a Roi-based boat on a mooring, but we still managed to get 3 more 40+ boats up in the anchorage. But Opus, the first boat, definitely had the best spot. If the wind picks up, or shifts further south than about 080 degrees, you end up with a nasty chop in the anchorage.
We were anchored right off this beautiful beach lined with palm trees, but could not go ashore. However, we found that we COULD go ashore on what's known as the Yokahama Pier--the pier about quarter mile east--where the ferry and the small boats come and go from. What's more, we found that there, we could use the washing machines, shop at the little store (Tue-Thur-Sat), get water in jugs, buy ice, and sometimes buy diesel/gasoline. This is all in a gated compound at the base of the pier. It is there for the use of the Marshallese that live on "3rd Island" (proper name Ennubirr). Our anchorage spot: 09-20.17N / 167-20.35E
With the wind forecast to blow 18-20 knots for a couple of days, there was no reason to stay in the Roi-Namur base anchorage (and several reasons to leave). So our little group (Westward II, Challenger, and Soggy Paws) moved down to the island known locally as 6th Island. It's proper name is Edgigen, but since no one is sure how to pronounce it properly, everyone just calls it 6th Island.
We are not sure why this is the most popular local anchorage, other than it is 4 miles from the base and the giant radar there, well protected from ENE to ESE, is uninhabited, and has a nice sandy beach, which we CAN go ashore on. There are several islands between the base and 6th island which look also reasonably protected.
3rd Island, where the Marshalese workers live, like Ebeye, is densely populated with Marshalese. The ferry from Roi-Namur runs back and forth daily between the base and 3rd Island, bringing workers to the base. And bringing their wives/girlfriends, etc (free) to the little compound to do the laundry, shop, and hang out.
We hung out at 6th Island for a few days, waiting for the wind to die down. We dove a few of the bommies that are very close--and marked with white "isolated danger" bouys. These coral mounds typically come up from the bottom of the lagoon (90-120 feet deep) to where they are usually visible from the surface (and Google Earth). Some are as shallow as 5 feet at the top, others come up to 25 feet. The bommies close in to the eastern edge of the atoll make good foul-weather dive spots, especially on a rising tide, when the clear water outside the atoll is pouring in. However, the coral growth varies--some better than others--and the fish life is minimal. In 3 or 4 dives, we only saw one or two sharks and almost no big fish. We did see a number of turtles, however.
We did a little beachcombing on 6th Island. Dave and I walked in the shallows around the north end of the island, and found some WWII-era debris. We couldn't identify the one large metal object--maybe something from a landing craft from the assault on Kwajalein in Feb 1944, but we did find the heavy bronze end cap from a 5" shell, and some bullets and other bits of debris. Stephen on Westward II said he found similar stuff around the south end of the island. Anyone interested in a short summary of the Battle of Kwajalein should check Wikipedia.
We also had a nice evening ashore on 6th Island, having a barbecue on the beach (and burning our paper trash).
Finally the wind started easing off so we could dive the airplane wrecks that are mostly located on the inner western edge of the atoll, a few miles south of Roi-Namur. Looking at Google Earth, we spied a narrow sand ledge close to the first wrecks we wanted to dive. These turned out to be a decent anchorage in mild conditions, only 2.5 miles from Roi Namur and 3 miles from 6th Island. So for a few days, we did a daily "commute" to the dive area in our sailboats. Our anchor spot was at 09-21.088N / 167-26.409E, dropping the anchor in about 30-45 feet, in sand, on an upslope, and hanging back in about 15 feet sand, with the reef only 100 yards behind us. Challenger and Westward II anchored about 50 yards either side of us. With winds LESS than 15 knots, this is OK as a day anchorage only. If the wind gets up higher, it's quite unnerving being there, backed up to the reef. And at least one day, we waved off from anchoring there when the winds ended up a couple knots higher than the forecast. Needless to say, we all backed down hard and snorkeled our anchors before we left to go diving in the dinghies.
As we went to drop our anchor, Dave said "we can't drop here, there's a coral head". So we edge a boat-length right and dropped. When I went out to snorkel our anchor, I discovered the "coral head" was actually 2 airplanes, side-by-side facing up the sand bank in about 25-35 feet of water. These were not on any waypoint list we had, and were there first of 3 or 4 "new" airplane wrecks we discovered. These would make very good hookah-depth dives or novice diver dives--assuming the don't get covered up periodically by sand.
Only one of the airplane wrecks in the Roi area (the Zero), that we know of, are actual WWII downed planes. Most of those in the "airplane graveyard" are ones discarded by U.S. forces, after the end of the war. After capturing Kwajalein in January 1944, the U.S. set up an airfield and a maintenance facility on Roi-Namur. We could tell the 2 planes we found were discarded planes, as they had an airplane prop sitting in the cockpit, rather than out front where it belongs.
This is getting long... and it's time to go diving again (a nice sunny day)... I'm going to send this off and continue with our diving in Part 2.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Another stop in Candyland
We spent Friday night anchored off Ebeye, to socialize with Westward II. They had been stuck in Kwaj while we were in Bikini, to deal with their broken prop. The day we arrived, a new prop was winging it's way via DHL from Canada to Ebeye. Stephen was tracking the progress via the internet on an hourly basis. Turns out it went via Seoul, Korea and Hong Kong, but did arrive in Kwaj and get delivered to them at the wharf on Ebeye by the Ebeye postmaster.
On Saturday morning we pulled into Kwaj Base (about 3 miles south of Ebeye), on another sponsored visit by Rick and Sue from s/v Panacea, who are working in Kwaj. We were again greeted on the dock by the security team, complete with a very eager drug-sniffing dog. But this time we knew the drill and a friendly security guy handed us our badges and we were done.
We were dismayed to find that a few days previously, Rick had severely injured his bicep (while cleaning up Panacea after their trip back from Bikini), and was in Hawaii waiting for surgery. Sue was planning on flying to Honolulu to be with him for the surgery, on the next flight out (Tues). This meant we'd have to check out of the base before Sue left. But Geoff, one of the Panacea crew on trip to Bikini, agreed to pick up the sponsorship for our visit.
We had a busy few days at USAKA (US Army Kwajalein Atoll) pronounced "you-saka" by the residents.
- A few good meals at the Louis Zamperini Dining Hall ($7 all you can eat meals)
- A Burger King meal and a pizza meal at the Food Court
- A windy day of diving wrecks (Asakaze Maru and Prinz Eugen) using a boat hired from Ebeye
- A nice meal aboard Soggy Paws for Sue and Geoff, and exchanging photos of our Bikini trip
- A day trip to USAKA by Stephen and Selena on Westward II, to buy SCUBA gear and eat pizza
- Stocking up at the Shopette, the tiny Exchange, and the Surfway grocery store.
- Trying to catch up and get ahead on our internet banking, etc
- Checking out the mooring we plan to use when we leave Soggy Paws in Oct/Nov
- Topping off our water tanks
- Repairing the leaky closed chocks
The short term plan is for us to spend about 2 months "out island", so I needed to get caught up from our 2-3 weeks away, and then get 2 months ahead on paying bills, and managing tenants at our rental. Dave thinks I'm just doing Facebook when I'm on the internet, but he has no idea how much time it takes to stay on top of our finances and rentals (he hasn't written a check or looked at bill in 7 years). Plus of course, there's the SSCA correspondence, personal correspondence, and keeping track of where our cruising friends are.
For such a high-tech base, the internet situation is ridiculous, and is the only serious downside to being in the base area. Out at Ebeye, only 3 miles away, the Marshall Islands Telco has great wifi at not-too-bad speed. But on base, wifi is probably seen as a serious security risk. So the only wifi available is in the Food Court, and I can't pick it up on the boat. So we have to lug our laptops into the Food Court to get internet. In the off-meal hours, there are more people in the Food Court doing internet than there are eating.
Other than the Food Court, residents get their internet in their quarters by... *gasp* ...dialup!!. Yes, the antiquated dailup system has not been replaced by cable internet like the rest of the United States. It's not that the internet pipe isn't available. There is super high speed internet available on base for work-related purposes--however, there are serious restrictions on using the work network for personal use.
Because we are not residents of the base, we cannot shop at the Surfway grocery store by ourselves. I had to get Geoff to escort me through the checkout line and use his ID. But we could shop at the Shopette (a kind of convenience store/liquor store) and the tiny Exchange using our retired military ID card...this quirk is probably because the government subsidizes one store and the contractors subsidize the other store. (I believe the numbers of people on base are about 20 true U.S. Army personnel and about 2,000 contractors).
Fortunately, we had done a huge restocking in Majuro, so I only needed a few things, plus the fresh fruits and veggies. The base gets a weekly flight with fresh veggies from Hawaii, so it's pretty fresh. (In contrast, Ebeye, a few miles away, is restocked by ship from Guam every 2 weeks). At least on the base, we didn't have to schlep our groceries by hand back to the base.
Transportation on the base is interesting. There are only a few official cars. Everyone else gets around on "beach cruiser" bicycles. Almost every bike has a good sized basket on the handles or a pair over the rear wheel. For big things, people have bicycle carts (like modified dock carts). For even bigger things, you borrow a car or rent a golf cart with a small truck bed for a couple of hours. Some people have carts modified to suit their special purpose... some have dive tank racks built in, some have fishing pole holders built in, and some are made for kids or animals.
Since there is no ATM on Ebeye, Challenger and Westward II handed us their debit cards to get some cash for them. We left the base with our pockets bulging!
Dave spent some time with Geoff, working on Panacea's alternator and starter (had gotten wet with salt water and quit working on their trip back from Bikini). They didn't manage to get either one working, but got them off the engine, thoroughly doused with Corrosion X, and boxed up and sent to Hawaii to be rebuilt.
When Sue left to join Rick in Honolulu, she left us the key to their quarters, and Dave and I spent two pleasant evenings hanging there--hot showers, air conditioning, and Armed Forces Network TV!!
We finally pulled out of USAKA on Wednesday, June 10, and joined our friends on Challenger, Westward II, and Trigger, anchored off Ebeye.
On Saturday morning we pulled into Kwaj Base (about 3 miles south of Ebeye), on another sponsored visit by Rick and Sue from s/v Panacea, who are working in Kwaj. We were again greeted on the dock by the security team, complete with a very eager drug-sniffing dog. But this time we knew the drill and a friendly security guy handed us our badges and we were done.
We were dismayed to find that a few days previously, Rick had severely injured his bicep (while cleaning up Panacea after their trip back from Bikini), and was in Hawaii waiting for surgery. Sue was planning on flying to Honolulu to be with him for the surgery, on the next flight out (Tues). This meant we'd have to check out of the base before Sue left. But Geoff, one of the Panacea crew on trip to Bikini, agreed to pick up the sponsorship for our visit.
We had a busy few days at USAKA (US Army Kwajalein Atoll) pronounced "you-saka" by the residents.
- A few good meals at the Louis Zamperini Dining Hall ($7 all you can eat meals)
- A Burger King meal and a pizza meal at the Food Court
- A windy day of diving wrecks (Asakaze Maru and Prinz Eugen) using a boat hired from Ebeye
- A nice meal aboard Soggy Paws for Sue and Geoff, and exchanging photos of our Bikini trip
- A day trip to USAKA by Stephen and Selena on Westward II, to buy SCUBA gear and eat pizza
- Stocking up at the Shopette, the tiny Exchange, and the Surfway grocery store.
- Trying to catch up and get ahead on our internet banking, etc
- Checking out the mooring we plan to use when we leave Soggy Paws in Oct/Nov
- Topping off our water tanks
- Repairing the leaky closed chocks
The short term plan is for us to spend about 2 months "out island", so I needed to get caught up from our 2-3 weeks away, and then get 2 months ahead on paying bills, and managing tenants at our rental. Dave thinks I'm just doing Facebook when I'm on the internet, but he has no idea how much time it takes to stay on top of our finances and rentals (he hasn't written a check or looked at bill in 7 years). Plus of course, there's the SSCA correspondence, personal correspondence, and keeping track of where our cruising friends are.
For such a high-tech base, the internet situation is ridiculous, and is the only serious downside to being in the base area. Out at Ebeye, only 3 miles away, the Marshall Islands Telco has great wifi at not-too-bad speed. But on base, wifi is probably seen as a serious security risk. So the only wifi available is in the Food Court, and I can't pick it up on the boat. So we have to lug our laptops into the Food Court to get internet. In the off-meal hours, there are more people in the Food Court doing internet than there are eating.
Other than the Food Court, residents get their internet in their quarters by... *gasp* ...dialup!!. Yes, the antiquated dailup system has not been replaced by cable internet like the rest of the United States. It's not that the internet pipe isn't available. There is super high speed internet available on base for work-related purposes--however, there are serious restrictions on using the work network for personal use.
Because we are not residents of the base, we cannot shop at the Surfway grocery store by ourselves. I had to get Geoff to escort me through the checkout line and use his ID. But we could shop at the Shopette (a kind of convenience store/liquor store) and the tiny Exchange using our retired military ID card...this quirk is probably because the government subsidizes one store and the contractors subsidize the other store. (I believe the numbers of people on base are about 20 true U.S. Army personnel and about 2,000 contractors).
Fortunately, we had done a huge restocking in Majuro, so I only needed a few things, plus the fresh fruits and veggies. The base gets a weekly flight with fresh veggies from Hawaii, so it's pretty fresh. (In contrast, Ebeye, a few miles away, is restocked by ship from Guam every 2 weeks). At least on the base, we didn't have to schlep our groceries by hand back to the base.
Transportation on the base is interesting. There are only a few official cars. Everyone else gets around on "beach cruiser" bicycles. Almost every bike has a good sized basket on the handles or a pair over the rear wheel. For big things, people have bicycle carts (like modified dock carts). For even bigger things, you borrow a car or rent a golf cart with a small truck bed for a couple of hours. Some people have carts modified to suit their special purpose... some have dive tank racks built in, some have fishing pole holders built in, and some are made for kids or animals.
Since there is no ATM on Ebeye, Challenger and Westward II handed us their debit cards to get some cash for them. We left the base with our pockets bulging!
Dave spent some time with Geoff, working on Panacea's alternator and starter (had gotten wet with salt water and quit working on their trip back from Bikini). They didn't manage to get either one working, but got them off the engine, thoroughly doused with Corrosion X, and boxed up and sent to Hawaii to be rebuilt.
When Sue left to join Rick in Honolulu, she left us the key to their quarters, and Dave and I spent two pleasant evenings hanging there--hot showers, air conditioning, and Armed Forces Network TV!!
We finally pulled out of USAKA on Wednesday, June 10, and joined our friends on Challenger, Westward II, and Trigger, anchored off Ebeye.
Back to Kwajalein
We finally left Bikini on June 5. The wind wasn't perfect for a sail back to Kwaj, but it was as good as it was going to get. The wind had shifted towards the north another 5 degrees and dropped a few knots (065 deg at about 17 knots). We waited an extra day to let the seas go down some, but it wasn't enough. And if we waited any longer, we'd find the wind strengthening again.
We left Enyu, the southern island at Bikini, about 2pm, in company with Challenger. We had hoped to be able to make the course for Roi Namur at the NE end of Kwajalein atoll. But when we got out there and saw the huge seas, we opted for the easier course--to go west around the NW tip of Kwaj, and down "the back side". This allowed us to sail on a close reach rather than hard on the wind, and was a much more comfortable course.
The first afternoon and evening was pretty nasty. We were close-hauled in fairly high winds (18-22kts across the deck) and big seas, so the leeward deck was aslosh with water pretty much all the time. We had a double-reefed mainsail, the staysail, and a tiny bit of genoa out--trying to find a speed that didn't pound into the seas too much.
Our closed chock on the leeward side, which is sealed into the deck with caulking, sprang a leak and was draining salt water into our dish cupboard. This has always been a leaky spot for us, and we have a bowl strategically placed in that cupboard to catch drips. But this cereal bowl wasn't cutting it in these conditions. I noticed water dribbling out of the cupboard underneath the sink and investigated. The area under the sink was aslosh too. So we put a big tupperware box under the leak in the cupboard, and checked it and under the sink every 30 minutes, bailing if necessary. And of course, picture this with the boat heeled 15-20 degrees and getting tossed around in the big waves. And of course, it was while I was trying to cook dinner also... Not fun.
But, on the other hand, we were happy it wasn't happening on the other tack, as that closed chock drains into a bunch of electronics (our nav station, etc).
By dawn the next morning, the wind had moderated some, and we eased out a bit more sail. We could make 6.5 knots comfortably, and were going to round the NW tip of Kwaj before sunset. Most of the afternoon we were only seeing 15-18 knots across the deck.
Once we rounded the corner, we needed to harden up (sail closer to the wind) to stay close in sailing down the in the lee of Kwajalein. We had a fairly pleasant dinner, sailing on the level, no seas, and making our course. But through the 2nd night, the wind dropped and shifted back east, until about 4am, Dave gave up sailing and started the engine.
We motored in through South Pass about 8am, and were at anchor off the island/town of Ebeye, next to our friends on Westward II by mid-day on Friday, June 7.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In the Marshall Islands for the summer.
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com
At 06/14/2013 10:18 PM (utc) our position was 09°20.17'N 167°30.35'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
We left Enyu, the southern island at Bikini, about 2pm, in company with Challenger. We had hoped to be able to make the course for Roi Namur at the NE end of Kwajalein atoll. But when we got out there and saw the huge seas, we opted for the easier course--to go west around the NW tip of Kwaj, and down "the back side". This allowed us to sail on a close reach rather than hard on the wind, and was a much more comfortable course.
The first afternoon and evening was pretty nasty. We were close-hauled in fairly high winds (18-22kts across the deck) and big seas, so the leeward deck was aslosh with water pretty much all the time. We had a double-reefed mainsail, the staysail, and a tiny bit of genoa out--trying to find a speed that didn't pound into the seas too much.
Our closed chock on the leeward side, which is sealed into the deck with caulking, sprang a leak and was draining salt water into our dish cupboard. This has always been a leaky spot for us, and we have a bowl strategically placed in that cupboard to catch drips. But this cereal bowl wasn't cutting it in these conditions. I noticed water dribbling out of the cupboard underneath the sink and investigated. The area under the sink was aslosh too. So we put a big tupperware box under the leak in the cupboard, and checked it and under the sink every 30 minutes, bailing if necessary. And of course, picture this with the boat heeled 15-20 degrees and getting tossed around in the big waves. And of course, it was while I was trying to cook dinner also... Not fun.
But, on the other hand, we were happy it wasn't happening on the other tack, as that closed chock drains into a bunch of electronics (our nav station, etc).
By dawn the next morning, the wind had moderated some, and we eased out a bit more sail. We could make 6.5 knots comfortably, and were going to round the NW tip of Kwaj before sunset. Most of the afternoon we were only seeing 15-18 knots across the deck.
Once we rounded the corner, we needed to harden up (sail closer to the wind) to stay close in sailing down the in the lee of Kwajalein. We had a fairly pleasant dinner, sailing on the level, no seas, and making our course. But through the 2nd night, the wind dropped and shifted back east, until about 4am, Dave gave up sailing and started the engine.
We motored in through South Pass about 8am, and were at anchor off the island/town of Ebeye, next to our friends on Westward II by mid-day on Friday, June 7.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In the Marshall Islands for the summer.
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com
At 06/14/2013 10:18 PM (utc) our position was 09°20.17'N 167°30.35'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Enjoying Bikini Atoll
We arrived at Bikini Atoll several hours behind our friends on Panacea, but still having had the best 24 hour run on Soggy Paws ever. Our noon-to-noon run was 160 nautical miles, or an average of 6.7 knots. The fast run was due to perfect winds--just ahead of the beam--at perfect speed--12-14 knots--and maybe a little current helping out. Also, we were trying to make sure we made it before sunset on the 2nd day, so kept our speed up more than normal.
We arrived in plenty of time to sail all the way up to Bikini Island, in the NE corner of the atoll, and anchor next to our friends on s/v Challenger (arrived a couple of days before) and Panacea (arrived a couple of hours before).
The next morning, we went in with the guys from Panacea and presented our permit for Bikini to the guy in charge. There are only about 6 people at Bikini Atoll... a couple of guys working for the U.S. Department of Energy, monitoring radiation and other projects, and a couple of guys representing the Bikini Council--making sure that visitors check in and obey the rules.
The guy in charge, Nario, a Filipino hired by the Bikini Council, took our Bikini permit, and after we talked with him for a few minutes, handed us the keys to the utility truck, so we could do a self-tour around the island. There are roads (check it out on Google Earth) all the way around the Bikini Island. Rick from Panacea drove (pics to follow, sometime), with Dave as "shotgun" and me and Blair and Geoff, crew on Panacea, hanging out on the benches in the back.
We also met the crew of s/v Trigger, a South African catamaran, who was ashore doing some repair work on a computer in the compound.
We had a great time touring around the island--stopping at viewpoints and trying to imagine what it was like when 40,000 U.S. personnel were on Bikini for Operation Crossroads.
For those who don't know... Bikini Atoll was the site for several Atomic Bomb tests, starting in 1946--less than a year after the 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The purpose of the testing was to assess what an atomic bomb could do to Navy ships, and also to flex our atomic muscles a little--for the rest of the world. For Operation Crossroads, the Navy moored about 20 ships in a tight group in Bikini Lagoon, and then (a) dropped an atomic bomb from an airplane and (b) detonated an atomic bomb under the water (in two different tests). For the tests, there were all kinds of instrumentation on the "target" ships, as well as on mooored barges nearby and also ashore on the land areas surrounding the lagoon. There were also test animals (pigs, goats, sheep) placed on the target ships to assess what might happen to personnel aboard ships.
In the end, about 10 large ships were actually sunk and remain on the bottom of Bikini Lagoon--the most famous being the Aircraft Carrier Saratoga, and the Japanese Battleship the Nagato.
In 1989, Dave, as part of Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1 in Hawaii, took part in a large operation headed by the U.S. National Park Service, to locate the wrecks and document their status. The idea was to give the displaced Bikinians a trade that would take them off the American dole--dive tourism. The Navy located the ships, the U.S. Park Service documented them, and (within a couple of years) a "dive hotel" was set up on Bikini Island. (picture millions of U.S. dollars expended here). If you're interested in reading about this (both the testing, and the effort to re-find the ships), find a copy of Ghost Fleet by Jim Delgado (Dave is mentioned in this book several times).
This Dive Bikini operation was moderately successful for a few years, but in 2007, "Air Marshall Islands" folded--their last plane being unflyable--leaving a group of dive tourists stranded on Bikini for over 2 weeks. Since then, the only way to dive Bikini Lagoon is via a live-aboard ($$$) dive boat. And the rules are such, that, even when we show up in a private boat in Bikini, it is prohibitively expensive to dive here. The current rules require us to bring with us 2 Marshalese "Bikini representatives", pay their salary and expenses, AND pay $100 per person per day to dive the wrecks, plus we must have a Recompression Chamber and Oxygen with us. Ridiculous requirements for a low-budget cruiser.
So we are here NOT diving the wrecks--this time. We've been working with a couple of other dive-mad cruising boats to hook up with the liveaboard dive boat, the M/V Windward, when they are here in Bikini in June and July. We are still working out the details, but it looks like it might be possible for us to make a few dives with them (we still haven't worked out the price, however). Diving these wrecks can be very challenging... they are very deep--most of them are way over the Open Water Diver limit of 60 feet, and even over the Advanced Open Water Diver limit of 120 feet. Many of the divers who spend in the neighborhood of $10,000 to come dive here on the Windward, are advanced "tech" divers, diving tri-mix gas and rebreathers. We're not doing that. (see this link: http://lust4rust.co/Bikini-Atoll-Diving-Trip.html)
So, what have we been doing all this time?? We have done a lot of looking around the Operation Crossroads bunkers and old structures. We've also spent some time looking around the newer structures built for the dive tourism operation (now mostly abandoned). We've been beachcombing--looking for Japanese glass balls on the beach (we found 2 baseball sized ones, and LOTS of plastic bouys). We've been lobstering (Dave and I got 11 lobster, threw back 3 females, and ended up with 8--the whole rest of the group got 4 between them)... walking in the shallow water a low tide on the windward reef with headlamps, nets and tickle sticks. We've done a lot of "bommie" diving--on the coral heads scattered around the lagoon. Jerry and Ulyana on Challenger spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the caretakers at Bikini Island, playing pool in the rec room.
Panacea only had a week's vacation, and they left yesterday to bash their way to windward back to Kwajalein. We think the weather is a bit too boisterous, and so we're going to wait here a few days for the wind to swing more NE and calm down a little.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In the Marshall Islands for the summer.
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com
At 06/02/2013 8:08 AM (utc) our position was 11°36.73'N 165°33.00'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
We arrived in plenty of time to sail all the way up to Bikini Island, in the NE corner of the atoll, and anchor next to our friends on s/v Challenger (arrived a couple of days before) and Panacea (arrived a couple of hours before).
The next morning, we went in with the guys from Panacea and presented our permit for Bikini to the guy in charge. There are only about 6 people at Bikini Atoll... a couple of guys working for the U.S. Department of Energy, monitoring radiation and other projects, and a couple of guys representing the Bikini Council--making sure that visitors check in and obey the rules.
The guy in charge, Nario, a Filipino hired by the Bikini Council, took our Bikini permit, and after we talked with him for a few minutes, handed us the keys to the utility truck, so we could do a self-tour around the island. There are roads (check it out on Google Earth) all the way around the Bikini Island. Rick from Panacea drove (pics to follow, sometime), with Dave as "shotgun" and me and Blair and Geoff, crew on Panacea, hanging out on the benches in the back.
We also met the crew of s/v Trigger, a South African catamaran, who was ashore doing some repair work on a computer in the compound.
We had a great time touring around the island--stopping at viewpoints and trying to imagine what it was like when 40,000 U.S. personnel were on Bikini for Operation Crossroads.
For those who don't know... Bikini Atoll was the site for several Atomic Bomb tests, starting in 1946--less than a year after the 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The purpose of the testing was to assess what an atomic bomb could do to Navy ships, and also to flex our atomic muscles a little--for the rest of the world. For Operation Crossroads, the Navy moored about 20 ships in a tight group in Bikini Lagoon, and then (a) dropped an atomic bomb from an airplane and (b) detonated an atomic bomb under the water (in two different tests). For the tests, there were all kinds of instrumentation on the "target" ships, as well as on mooored barges nearby and also ashore on the land areas surrounding the lagoon. There were also test animals (pigs, goats, sheep) placed on the target ships to assess what might happen to personnel aboard ships.
In the end, about 10 large ships were actually sunk and remain on the bottom of Bikini Lagoon--the most famous being the Aircraft Carrier Saratoga, and the Japanese Battleship the Nagato.
In 1989, Dave, as part of Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1 in Hawaii, took part in a large operation headed by the U.S. National Park Service, to locate the wrecks and document their status. The idea was to give the displaced Bikinians a trade that would take them off the American dole--dive tourism. The Navy located the ships, the U.S. Park Service documented them, and (within a couple of years) a "dive hotel" was set up on Bikini Island. (picture millions of U.S. dollars expended here). If you're interested in reading about this (both the testing, and the effort to re-find the ships), find a copy of Ghost Fleet by Jim Delgado (Dave is mentioned in this book several times).
This Dive Bikini operation was moderately successful for a few years, but in 2007, "Air Marshall Islands" folded--their last plane being unflyable--leaving a group of dive tourists stranded on Bikini for over 2 weeks. Since then, the only way to dive Bikini Lagoon is via a live-aboard ($$$) dive boat. And the rules are such, that, even when we show up in a private boat in Bikini, it is prohibitively expensive to dive here. The current rules require us to bring with us 2 Marshalese "Bikini representatives", pay their salary and expenses, AND pay $100 per person per day to dive the wrecks, plus we must have a Recompression Chamber and Oxygen with us. Ridiculous requirements for a low-budget cruiser.
So we are here NOT diving the wrecks--this time. We've been working with a couple of other dive-mad cruising boats to hook up with the liveaboard dive boat, the M/V Windward, when they are here in Bikini in June and July. We are still working out the details, but it looks like it might be possible for us to make a few dives with them (we still haven't worked out the price, however). Diving these wrecks can be very challenging... they are very deep--most of them are way over the Open Water Diver limit of 60 feet, and even over the Advanced Open Water Diver limit of 120 feet. Many of the divers who spend in the neighborhood of $10,000 to come dive here on the Windward, are advanced "tech" divers, diving tri-mix gas and rebreathers. We're not doing that. (see this link: http://lust4rust.co/Bikini-Atoll-Diving-Trip.html)
So, what have we been doing all this time?? We have done a lot of looking around the Operation Crossroads bunkers and old structures. We've also spent some time looking around the newer structures built for the dive tourism operation (now mostly abandoned). We've been beachcombing--looking for Japanese glass balls on the beach (we found 2 baseball sized ones, and LOTS of plastic bouys). We've been lobstering (Dave and I got 11 lobster, threw back 3 females, and ended up with 8--the whole rest of the group got 4 between them)... walking in the shallow water a low tide on the windward reef with headlamps, nets and tickle sticks. We've done a lot of "bommie" diving--on the coral heads scattered around the lagoon. Jerry and Ulyana on Challenger spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the caretakers at Bikini Island, playing pool in the rec room.
Panacea only had a week's vacation, and they left yesterday to bash their way to windward back to Kwajalein. We think the weather is a bit too boisterous, and so we're going to wait here a few days for the wind to swing more NE and calm down a little.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In the Marshall Islands for the summer.
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com
At 06/02/2013 8:08 AM (utc) our position was 11°36.73'N 165°33.00'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
Monday, May 27, 2013
On Our Way to Bikini Atoll
Well, I kept thinking I'd get time to blog at least one more post about Majuro, and then another one on our trip from Majuro to Kwajalein, and then another one on our short stay at Kwaj Army Base. But... if I wait til I have time to write all those posts to catch up to the present, I'll just get further behind. And we plan to re-visit both Kwajalein and Majuro in the next few months.
Suffice it to say that we enjoyed both Majuro and the Kwaj Base--for short term stays. The base reminds me of a cross between Key West and Kennedy Space Center. Key West because of the island atmosphere and the fact that the primary transportation on island is bicycles--primarily "Keys Cruiser" type bikes--fat tires, big seats, and big handles. KSC because there is a minimal government presence and most of the people work for one contractor or another. More on Kwaj later.
We are currently on passage from Kwajalein Atoll to Bikini Atoll. We are having a very fast ride--a beam reach in 15 knots of wind. We are heavily reefed--2 reefs in the mainsail and only half of the genoa out--and we are still doing about 7 knots. We could go faster, but we just don't need the speed that much and are much more comfortable at 6.5-7 knots than we would be at 8 knots. The total distance from Kwaj Base to Bikini Island is about 225 nm. We left at the crack of dawn yesterday and expect to be in by late afternoon today. This may well be our fastest passage ever.
Though we have the windward side of our excellent cockpit enclosure down, and the cockpit is mostly dry, it's very salty out there from the salt spray getting sucked in on the leeward side of the cockpit. And of course, the occasional huge wave that slaps us and forces water in the cockpit around the enclosure.
So I am down below at the Nav station, eating crackers and cheese (breakfast). Dave is asleep in the salon on the couch--he's strapped in with a "Lee Cloth"--a piece of cloth we use to keep us on the narrow couch when we heel and/or the waves are big.
Our friends on s/v Challenger arrived in Bikini 2 days ago, direct from Majuro, but we haven't had a chance to talk with them by radio yet, other than to confirm they arrived safely (Jerry is terrible with radio skeds).
On this trip from Kwaj, we are sailing in company with s/v Panacea. Rick and Sue from Panacea are cruisers we met last year at the SSCA Gam in Melbourne, and they are currently working on Kwajalein. They sponsored us to allow us to get into the restricted area at Kwajalein. This is a big responsibility, as they are totally responsible for our behavior in the regulated environment of the Kwaj Base. If we violate the rules, the sponsor can lose his job and get kicked off the island. Rick and 2 buddies are taking Panacea for a week's trip to Bikini, while Sue saves her vacation time for their next trip off island.
Our friends on s/v Westward II, who we hadn't planned to see until mid-June, came into Kwajalein unexpectedly a few days ago because one of the blades on their 3-bladed fixed prop sheared off while motoring at sea. Rick from Panacea shook the bushes at the Kwajalein Yacht Club, and managed to find them a 2-bladed propeller to use for the short term, while they wait for a new prop to be shipped in. Even though this prop is too small, and spins the wrong way for their engine, it at least lets them move about a little bit. They just have to use their transmission in reverse. (it is a Hurth, so they can just run in Reverse to go forward).
Steve and Selina from Westward II are Aussies, and don't have an official US Visa for the Marshall Islands, so we can't get them on the Kwaj Base. But they are anchored off Ebeye Island, a few miles from the Base, and within VHF and ferry contact. There is also internet (NTA wifi) and cell phone coverage there, plus a decent grocery store. They are staying put this week while we run off to Bikini with Panacea (we have another trip planned to Bikini in June with Westward II).
Bikini Atoll is THE destination that Dave had in mind when he bought Soggy Paws. At least 15 years of his life has been focused on getting us here. Every time we've been diving anywhere, Dave has said to me "Just wait til we get to Bikini, it will be better there." So we are both very excited about finally reaching Bikini. More later...
-----
At 05/26/2013 10:57 PM (utc) our position was 11°01.09'N 165°50.76'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
Suffice it to say that we enjoyed both Majuro and the Kwaj Base--for short term stays. The base reminds me of a cross between Key West and Kennedy Space Center. Key West because of the island atmosphere and the fact that the primary transportation on island is bicycles--primarily "Keys Cruiser" type bikes--fat tires, big seats, and big handles. KSC because there is a minimal government presence and most of the people work for one contractor or another. More on Kwaj later.
We are currently on passage from Kwajalein Atoll to Bikini Atoll. We are having a very fast ride--a beam reach in 15 knots of wind. We are heavily reefed--2 reefs in the mainsail and only half of the genoa out--and we are still doing about 7 knots. We could go faster, but we just don't need the speed that much and are much more comfortable at 6.5-7 knots than we would be at 8 knots. The total distance from Kwaj Base to Bikini Island is about 225 nm. We left at the crack of dawn yesterday and expect to be in by late afternoon today. This may well be our fastest passage ever.
Though we have the windward side of our excellent cockpit enclosure down, and the cockpit is mostly dry, it's very salty out there from the salt spray getting sucked in on the leeward side of the cockpit. And of course, the occasional huge wave that slaps us and forces water in the cockpit around the enclosure.
So I am down below at the Nav station, eating crackers and cheese (breakfast). Dave is asleep in the salon on the couch--he's strapped in with a "Lee Cloth"--a piece of cloth we use to keep us on the narrow couch when we heel and/or the waves are big.
Our friends on s/v Challenger arrived in Bikini 2 days ago, direct from Majuro, but we haven't had a chance to talk with them by radio yet, other than to confirm they arrived safely (Jerry is terrible with radio skeds).
On this trip from Kwaj, we are sailing in company with s/v Panacea. Rick and Sue from Panacea are cruisers we met last year at the SSCA Gam in Melbourne, and they are currently working on Kwajalein. They sponsored us to allow us to get into the restricted area at Kwajalein. This is a big responsibility, as they are totally responsible for our behavior in the regulated environment of the Kwaj Base. If we violate the rules, the sponsor can lose his job and get kicked off the island. Rick and 2 buddies are taking Panacea for a week's trip to Bikini, while Sue saves her vacation time for their next trip off island.
Our friends on s/v Westward II, who we hadn't planned to see until mid-June, came into Kwajalein unexpectedly a few days ago because one of the blades on their 3-bladed fixed prop sheared off while motoring at sea. Rick from Panacea shook the bushes at the Kwajalein Yacht Club, and managed to find them a 2-bladed propeller to use for the short term, while they wait for a new prop to be shipped in. Even though this prop is too small, and spins the wrong way for their engine, it at least lets them move about a little bit. They just have to use their transmission in reverse. (it is a Hurth, so they can just run in Reverse to go forward).
Steve and Selina from Westward II are Aussies, and don't have an official US Visa for the Marshall Islands, so we can't get them on the Kwaj Base. But they are anchored off Ebeye Island, a few miles from the Base, and within VHF and ferry contact. There is also internet (NTA wifi) and cell phone coverage there, plus a decent grocery store. They are staying put this week while we run off to Bikini with Panacea (we have another trip planned to Bikini in June with Westward II).
Bikini Atoll is THE destination that Dave had in mind when he bought Soggy Paws. At least 15 years of his life has been focused on getting us here. Every time we've been diving anywhere, Dave has said to me "Just wait til we get to Bikini, it will be better there." So we are both very excited about finally reaching Bikini. More later...
-----
At 05/26/2013 10:57 PM (utc) our position was 11°01.09'N 165°50.76'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Diving in Majuro
Though we did a lot of work in the 10 days that we were in Majuro (repairs, provisioning, Marshalls paperwork), we managed to fit in 4 dives.
The first dive we did was in the South Mooring field. There are a bunch of sunken ships, some of which the moorings were tied to. So after a short talk with Matt Holly, who's mooring we were on, us and Westward II did a dive on the wrecks. We tied our dinghies to an empty mooring, went down the mooring line to the first wreck, and then followed Matt's lines around to several other wrecks. (Matt has conveniently tied the wrecks together with 1/4" line, so once you've found one, it's easy to find the rest. There was a small island freighter, a fairly big fishing boat, a ~50' steel sailboat, and (I forget the other one). In a 40 minute dive we managed to survey all 4 of them. Starting mooring waypoint: 07-06.166N / 171-44.220E.
Those wrecks were interesting, but not "historic". Dave was keen to dive on some World War II era stuff, especially the Hellcat he had heard about. An American guy named Matt Holly had done a document for the Marshall Islands Historic Preservation Office in Majuro, detailing all the wrecks he had found in the Majuro lagoon. We had this document, but the Hellcat wasn't in it (it was found while Matt was searching for a commercial ship's anchor, after the Majuro document was produced). Nobody seemed to have a waypoint for it (at least no one that was willing to give it to us). But Dave had a discussion with Mike Terlep, the Chief Archaeologist for the HPO. Dave invited him to go dive on the Hellcat with us, if he could help us get a waypoint for it. Mike used his contacts with other divers on the island to get the exact waypoint for the Hellcat. Dave and Stephen from Westward II took Westward's dinghy out with a fish finder in it to verify we had the right location. (There are a lot of dive "waypoints" floating around the Marshalls diving community that are plotted off old paper charts and end up being pretty much useless).
So the 5 of us set out the next day--a fairly windy and overcast day--to dive the Hellcat. Matt's research indicates this was a disabled/scrap plane that was probably just pushed off the back of an aircraft carrier. It is nose down in about 110 feet of water, but the tail sticks up to about 60 feet. With the correct waypoint it was easy to locate. We had to use Westward's 22-lb danforth to anchor near it, 200 feet of line. Our "dive anchor" (a small folding anchor we usually hand-place on a rock) was completely inadequate. Dave and Mike both took pictures of the Hellcat. We'll share them some day when we have time and internet. Waypoint 07-05.468N / 171-22.304E in 105 feet. Drop your anchor well upwind of it so you don't damage the wreck.
The 3rd dive was on the Martin Mariner. This is a World War II era big seaplane. Matt's research indicates that it had been bombed and sunk while on it's mooring. The waypoint given in the HPO document plotted in the middle of the street, so we knew that wasn't right. Dave got some directions from Matt (500 yards off a hotel), and in a certain depth water. We dropped anchor where we thought it should be, and luckily ended up right next to part of the wreckage. (Visibility inside the lagoon isn't that great, so if we HADN'T lucked out, it would have been tough to find.) It was just Dave and I on this dive, so we wandered around taking pictures of the widely scattered debris. Unfortunately, this wreck is in an area where fishing boats sometimes anchor, and we could see the wide swath that the current boat's anchor line was making. The "Historic Preservation Office" isn't doing a very good job of preserving these "historic" wrecks. Waypoint 07-05.570N / 171-22.587E -- anchor just N and E of this waypoint, not on it, in about 60-65' sand.
Like everywhere in the Majuro lagoon, we found lots of other debris, and sometimes it's difficult to tell what's part of the wreck, part of another wreck, or just "trash heap".
The final dive we did was on "The Parking Lot". This is a World War II dumping ground, where a bunch of no-longer-needed trucks were pushed off a barge in about 40-60 feet. It is 1.5 miles NNW of the yacht mooring area. Tie to the pole on the reef at 07-07.25N / 171-21.04E, then go out in the sand S and E of the pole--look for piles of debris, or lines running across the bottom. Once you find one, there is usually a line to another. We found a number of trucks, but since we DIDN'T follow the lines around, Matt says we missed a couple. But we did see an old fire truck, and an ambulance, and a jeep or two. There was also a variety of modern-day junk scattered around on the bottom--several washing machines, etc.
Matt's place--just inshore of the South Mooring Field--has some other interesting stuff on the bottom. We snorkeled a more modern Beech light twin airplane at approx: 07-06.304N / 171-22.429E in about 20 feet of water.
There is a bunch of more stuff to dive on in the Majuro lagoon, but we just didn't have time. We hope to come back later in the summer and dive on the DC-3 (off the yacht moorings at Enemonit (sp?)).
There is a guy that will rent gear and fill tanks, located just to the N of Matt's place on shore. His name is Brian. He also works on the Indies Trader (dive boat to Bikini Lagoon), but I think he has someone minding the compressor when he's away on dive expeditions. Cary off Yacht Seal also will do paid dive expeditions, if you'd rather go diving in a proper dive boat instead of your own dinghy. Contact Cary and Karin on VHF Channel 68, on the Yokwe Net (6224 at 0745 local), or by email at yachtseal@hotmail.com. There is also at least one other dive operation I found on the internet, operating out of the Marshall Islands Resort (MIR).
The first dive we did was in the South Mooring field. There are a bunch of sunken ships, some of which the moorings were tied to. So after a short talk with Matt Holly, who's mooring we were on, us and Westward II did a dive on the wrecks. We tied our dinghies to an empty mooring, went down the mooring line to the first wreck, and then followed Matt's lines around to several other wrecks. (Matt has conveniently tied the wrecks together with 1/4" line, so once you've found one, it's easy to find the rest. There was a small island freighter, a fairly big fishing boat, a ~50' steel sailboat, and (I forget the other one). In a 40 minute dive we managed to survey all 4 of them. Starting mooring waypoint: 07-06.166N / 171-44.220E.
Those wrecks were interesting, but not "historic". Dave was keen to dive on some World War II era stuff, especially the Hellcat he had heard about. An American guy named Matt Holly had done a document for the Marshall Islands Historic Preservation Office in Majuro, detailing all the wrecks he had found in the Majuro lagoon. We had this document, but the Hellcat wasn't in it (it was found while Matt was searching for a commercial ship's anchor, after the Majuro document was produced). Nobody seemed to have a waypoint for it (at least no one that was willing to give it to us). But Dave had a discussion with Mike Terlep, the Chief Archaeologist for the HPO. Dave invited him to go dive on the Hellcat with us, if he could help us get a waypoint for it. Mike used his contacts with other divers on the island to get the exact waypoint for the Hellcat. Dave and Stephen from Westward II took Westward's dinghy out with a fish finder in it to verify we had the right location. (There are a lot of dive "waypoints" floating around the Marshalls diving community that are plotted off old paper charts and end up being pretty much useless).
So the 5 of us set out the next day--a fairly windy and overcast day--to dive the Hellcat. Matt's research indicates this was a disabled/scrap plane that was probably just pushed off the back of an aircraft carrier. It is nose down in about 110 feet of water, but the tail sticks up to about 60 feet. With the correct waypoint it was easy to locate. We had to use Westward's 22-lb danforth to anchor near it, 200 feet of line. Our "dive anchor" (a small folding anchor we usually hand-place on a rock) was completely inadequate. Dave and Mike both took pictures of the Hellcat. We'll share them some day when we have time and internet. Waypoint 07-05.468N / 171-22.304E in 105 feet. Drop your anchor well upwind of it so you don't damage the wreck.
The 3rd dive was on the Martin Mariner. This is a World War II era big seaplane. Matt's research indicates that it had been bombed and sunk while on it's mooring. The waypoint given in the HPO document plotted in the middle of the street, so we knew that wasn't right. Dave got some directions from Matt (500 yards off a hotel), and in a certain depth water. We dropped anchor where we thought it should be, and luckily ended up right next to part of the wreckage. (Visibility inside the lagoon isn't that great, so if we HADN'T lucked out, it would have been tough to find.) It was just Dave and I on this dive, so we wandered around taking pictures of the widely scattered debris. Unfortunately, this wreck is in an area where fishing boats sometimes anchor, and we could see the wide swath that the current boat's anchor line was making. The "Historic Preservation Office" isn't doing a very good job of preserving these "historic" wrecks. Waypoint 07-05.570N / 171-22.587E -- anchor just N and E of this waypoint, not on it, in about 60-65' sand.
Like everywhere in the Majuro lagoon, we found lots of other debris, and sometimes it's difficult to tell what's part of the wreck, part of another wreck, or just "trash heap".
The final dive we did was on "The Parking Lot". This is a World War II dumping ground, where a bunch of no-longer-needed trucks were pushed off a barge in about 40-60 feet. It is 1.5 miles NNW of the yacht mooring area. Tie to the pole on the reef at 07-07.25N / 171-21.04E, then go out in the sand S and E of the pole--look for piles of debris, or lines running across the bottom. Once you find one, there is usually a line to another. We found a number of trucks, but since we DIDN'T follow the lines around, Matt says we missed a couple. But we did see an old fire truck, and an ambulance, and a jeep or two. There was also a variety of modern-day junk scattered around on the bottom--several washing machines, etc.
Matt's place--just inshore of the South Mooring Field--has some other interesting stuff on the bottom. We snorkeled a more modern Beech light twin airplane at approx: 07-06.304N / 171-22.429E in about 20 feet of water.
There is a bunch of more stuff to dive on in the Majuro lagoon, but we just didn't have time. We hope to come back later in the summer and dive on the DC-3 (off the yacht moorings at Enemonit (sp?)).
There is a guy that will rent gear and fill tanks, located just to the N of Matt's place on shore. His name is Brian. He also works on the Indies Trader (dive boat to Bikini Lagoon), but I think he has someone minding the compressor when he's away on dive expeditions. Cary off Yacht Seal also will do paid dive expeditions, if you'd rather go diving in a proper dive boat instead of your own dinghy. Contact Cary and Karin on VHF Channel 68, on the Yokwe Net (6224 at 0745 local), or by email at yachtseal@hotmail.com. There is also at least one other dive operation I found on the internet, operating out of the Marshall Islands Resort (MIR).
Monday, May 20, 2013
Majuro Arrival
(Note, this post is 10 days late... I'm catching up!)
We arrived at the East end of Majuro conveniently at about 6:30am on Friday, May 10 (the exact day we targeted when we left Fiji in mid-April).
From the east end of the atoll, it's 12 miles WNW to the pass, and then another 12 miles back ESE to the town and anchorage area. We managed to pick up the morning VHF net on Channel 68 (at 0730 am) and introduce ourselves to the cruisers.
The wind had picked up to the 15-20 knot range overnight, out of the ENE, so the trip from the pass to the town was a motor-sail into a fairly brisk wind. But it was in nice calm conditions. We stayed close to the northern side of the atoll and short tacked our way into the anchorage. Our friends on Westward II had picked out a good mooring for us in the South Mooring Field, and met us in their dinghy to help us pick up the mooring.
The check-in was easy. Majuro has an SSCA Cruising Station, Karin and Cary on the sailboat Seal. We had emailed them a few weeks ago to introduce ourselves, and talked to them at least once on the HF net on our way up from Fiji. They answered our call on the VHF (CH 68) and used their phone to call Customs and Immigration, and arrange for the officials to come meet us at the dinghy dock (aka Shoreline) at 2pm. Karin warned us that they may not show, so if we hadn't found them after about 20 minutes, we should set out in a taxi to find their offices. Westward II took the time to describe the process in detail, and pointed out the buildings we needed to go to. They said that the taxi drivers knew where everything was, so just to tell them (however, we did find a bit of a communications problem--we got mis-delivered twice in that first day). It is helpful to know which building you are actually looking for.
The Customs guy was waiting for us at the appointed time. He took our Tarawa clearance papers, and then said we were done. We didn't have to fill anything out, or pay any money. He called the Immigration guy when we were finished with him, and told us that he (the Immig guy) wasn't coming. We should take a taxi downtown to the Immigration building. So we walked out onto the main road, hailed a shared taxi, and told them to take us to Immigration.
The transportation situation in Majuro is yet another variation from the scooters in Funafuti, and the mini buses in Tarawa. Here, there is no bus system (with one exception, mentioned later). Everyone gets around using either their private cars, or via shared taxis. We were gratified to find that most taxis are well air conditioned. The trip from the dinghy dock to the Immigration building is a flat 75 cents per person. And you may be sharing the taxi with up to 2 other people at any given time. The cars are mostly medium-to-small American or Asian cars (Japanese, Korean, etc). It's fun to be squished into the back seat with two large Marshalese ladies!!
The taxi driver delivered us to the "Capitol Building", which is the wrong place. Customs is in the Capitol Building, but Immigration is in a different building. So we had to fork over another $.75 each to get down to Immigration. This was also reasonably quick--we had to fill out a short form, and hand over our crew list and passports. A couple of minutes later, they handed us back our stamped passports.
That was it. We were complete with our formalities by 3pm. So then Dave and I went our separate ways--Dave to the "Ministry of Internal Affairs", to start the paperwork required to visit the outer atolls, and me to the NTA (telecommunications) building, to try to get a cell phone sim and internet.
It was Friday afternoon and I REALLY wanted to get my internet and cell phone set up. The NTA lobby was full (turned out to be 'last day to pay your bill on time') and it was very confusing as to which clerk could help me and who was in what line. There was a 'Take a Number' machine with no numbers in it. But eventually I got to the right person around 4:30, and filled out the paperwork and got a telephone sim card ($15), and an NTA internet account ($5). I bought $20 worth of cell phone time, and tried to pay for the monthly internet fee, but the lady told me I'd be billed and pay next month (she was wrong, it turned out).
Meanwhile, Dave found the Internal Affairs building and submitted the paperwork to get approvals to visit 17 atolls (pretty much every atoll in the Marshall Islands that could be visited by a private yacht), including Bikini. There is no cost to get approvals to go, but when you do actually go, most atolls charge a fee to visit. The fees range from $25 to $250 (Ailingalaplap). The people at Ailingalaplap are crazy--no yacht is going to pay $250 to visit their atoll. We heard a rumour they were revising their fee, but couldn't get confirmation of this from anyone official.
We met back at the dinghy dock at 5pm--just in time to zoom back out to the boat, take a quick shower, and head ashore for dinner with Westward II.
Just before we left to go eat, Ants (a guy) from s/v Breakfee rowed over and handed us a nice welcome package from the Mieco Beach Yacht Club. This included a number of tourist brochures, a map of the town, a Yachties Yellow Pages, and an application to join the MBYC ($30 a couple). Plus a nice canvas bag (like the Jacklines bags given out at the SSCA Gams) with a Majuro logo on it. A very nice welcome indeed!
-----
At 05/10/2013 1:21 AM (utc) our position was 07°06.22'N 171°22.34'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
We arrived at the East end of Majuro conveniently at about 6:30am on Friday, May 10 (the exact day we targeted when we left Fiji in mid-April).
From the east end of the atoll, it's 12 miles WNW to the pass, and then another 12 miles back ESE to the town and anchorage area. We managed to pick up the morning VHF net on Channel 68 (at 0730 am) and introduce ourselves to the cruisers.
The wind had picked up to the 15-20 knot range overnight, out of the ENE, so the trip from the pass to the town was a motor-sail into a fairly brisk wind. But it was in nice calm conditions. We stayed close to the northern side of the atoll and short tacked our way into the anchorage. Our friends on Westward II had picked out a good mooring for us in the South Mooring Field, and met us in their dinghy to help us pick up the mooring.
The check-in was easy. Majuro has an SSCA Cruising Station, Karin and Cary on the sailboat Seal. We had emailed them a few weeks ago to introduce ourselves, and talked to them at least once on the HF net on our way up from Fiji. They answered our call on the VHF (CH 68) and used their phone to call Customs and Immigration, and arrange for the officials to come meet us at the dinghy dock (aka Shoreline) at 2pm. Karin warned us that they may not show, so if we hadn't found them after about 20 minutes, we should set out in a taxi to find their offices. Westward II took the time to describe the process in detail, and pointed out the buildings we needed to go to. They said that the taxi drivers knew where everything was, so just to tell them (however, we did find a bit of a communications problem--we got mis-delivered twice in that first day). It is helpful to know which building you are actually looking for.
The Customs guy was waiting for us at the appointed time. He took our Tarawa clearance papers, and then said we were done. We didn't have to fill anything out, or pay any money. He called the Immigration guy when we were finished with him, and told us that he (the Immig guy) wasn't coming. We should take a taxi downtown to the Immigration building. So we walked out onto the main road, hailed a shared taxi, and told them to take us to Immigration.
The transportation situation in Majuro is yet another variation from the scooters in Funafuti, and the mini buses in Tarawa. Here, there is no bus system (with one exception, mentioned later). Everyone gets around using either their private cars, or via shared taxis. We were gratified to find that most taxis are well air conditioned. The trip from the dinghy dock to the Immigration building is a flat 75 cents per person. And you may be sharing the taxi with up to 2 other people at any given time. The cars are mostly medium-to-small American or Asian cars (Japanese, Korean, etc). It's fun to be squished into the back seat with two large Marshalese ladies!!
The taxi driver delivered us to the "Capitol Building", which is the wrong place. Customs is in the Capitol Building, but Immigration is in a different building. So we had to fork over another $.75 each to get down to Immigration. This was also reasonably quick--we had to fill out a short form, and hand over our crew list and passports. A couple of minutes later, they handed us back our stamped passports.
That was it. We were complete with our formalities by 3pm. So then Dave and I went our separate ways--Dave to the "Ministry of Internal Affairs", to start the paperwork required to visit the outer atolls, and me to the NTA (telecommunications) building, to try to get a cell phone sim and internet.
It was Friday afternoon and I REALLY wanted to get my internet and cell phone set up. The NTA lobby was full (turned out to be 'last day to pay your bill on time') and it was very confusing as to which clerk could help me and who was in what line. There was a 'Take a Number' machine with no numbers in it. But eventually I got to the right person around 4:30, and filled out the paperwork and got a telephone sim card ($15), and an NTA internet account ($5). I bought $20 worth of cell phone time, and tried to pay for the monthly internet fee, but the lady told me I'd be billed and pay next month (she was wrong, it turned out).
Meanwhile, Dave found the Internal Affairs building and submitted the paperwork to get approvals to visit 17 atolls (pretty much every atoll in the Marshall Islands that could be visited by a private yacht), including Bikini. There is no cost to get approvals to go, but when you do actually go, most atolls charge a fee to visit. The fees range from $25 to $250 (Ailingalaplap). The people at Ailingalaplap are crazy--no yacht is going to pay $250 to visit their atoll. We heard a rumour they were revising their fee, but couldn't get confirmation of this from anyone official.
We met back at the dinghy dock at 5pm--just in time to zoom back out to the boat, take a quick shower, and head ashore for dinner with Westward II.
Just before we left to go eat, Ants (a guy) from s/v Breakfee rowed over and handed us a nice welcome package from the Mieco Beach Yacht Club. This included a number of tourist brochures, a map of the town, a Yachties Yellow Pages, and an application to join the MBYC ($30 a couple). Plus a nice canvas bag (like the Jacklines bags given out at the SSCA Gams) with a Majuro logo on it. A very nice welcome indeed!
-----
At 05/10/2013 1:21 AM (utc) our position was 07°06.22'N 171°22.34'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)