No matter where you are going - there you are!

Majuro, Marshall Islands

Latitude: 07°06.18'N Longitude: 171°22.44'E

23 June 2008

 

I had to make an unscheduled dive in the middle of nowhere to free Anton's super-strong fishing line out of both props.  DHARMA BUM III was moving up and down like a high-speed elevator, while images of "Jaws" kept swimming through my consciousness.  It had to be done, though.  Mike Fallis had told me in the British Virgin Islands that the monofilament fishing line would melt, if I used the engine and that it would cause damage, if not removed immediately.  So in I went. 

 

The water was almost as clear as air and while I didn't see any sharks around - I guess by the time you see one of these pelagic sharks, it is pretty much too late anyway - there was a whole swarm of little pilot fish swimming between the two hulls.  Those were remarkably smooth, by the way, as we had beached the boat on Bikeman Island in Tarawa and gave it a proper cleaning.  Holding an extremely sharp diving knife in one hand (I did not want to get entangled in the almost invisible fishing line and drown myself in such an inconvenient place), it took me about twenty minutes to free my props.  I was very glad to be back aboard again. 

 

~~~~~

 

With two reefs in the main and the Genoa only about 50% unfurled, we set off again.  At best logging 153 nautical miles from noon to noon, it took us three days from Tarawa to just before Majuro, but as the wind had been blowing from the NNE, we were too far off to the west and had to start tacking.  Also, we decided to go the other way around the atoll and pass the Taiwan research farm in Laura.  The weather had been quite pleasant for a while, which is a bit unusual around here.  So far no big squalls and nothing breaking on the boat.  A very nice feeling, I can tell you!

 

About an hour after I had gotten off watch, these circumstances changed and we were faced with a powerful squall, which blew with up to 40 knots.  Also, it forced us to change our course, which was unacceptable as there was the outer reef in the way.  So, instead of fighting against it and tacking like crazy - hard work, you know - we decided to take all sail down and get some rest instead. 

 

As soon as it got light, we could see that the skies looked very ominous indeed.  Although there was no squall nearby, it was overcast in every direction all the way to the horizon and the clouds appeared torn and tattered.  Not good.  Did we perhaps miss a bit of "pink haze" the evening before?  Anyway, if we wanted to make it in daylight to the mooring field, we had to get going. 

 

You can probably imagine what happened next...   Right, as soon as we were inside the pass, a squall with maximum windspeeds of 45 knots came from dead ahead.  Although I had both engines (two 40 HP Volvos) running almost at full tilt, we made zero progress.  The tidal current combined with the force of the squall were simply too much.  Fortunately we weren't driven backwards either, but I still kept hoping for all this nonsense to end.  That took a full two hours, which we consider slightly overdoing it.  I had been wearing diving goggles, peering ahead to look for purse seiners, ferries or other ships, was soaked to the bone, shivering and exhausted.  Moreover, I seemed to be getting seriously sick.  Muscle pain everywhere, sore throat, headache, couldn't breathe - the works. 

 

I was extremely grateful when the wind went down to about 30 knots and Liping offered to take over.  In spite of all the mayhem, I went straight to bed and fell asleep.  When I woke up, I called Jerry on PO'O INAROA to ask whether he could assist with picking up the mooring.  I wasn't sure whether I could have handled it alone.  If nobody would have had time for that, I would have dropped the anchor and waited until I felt better.  Fortunately Jerry was as helpful as always. 

 

When he saw the state the boat was in, his comment was something like:  "Oh boy!  Looks like you have lots of things to play with in the next few days."  The bow was strangely deep in the water, the stern correspondingly high up, the trampolines were torn again, and the chain had escaped once more through the holes where the water should drain out of the anchor locker.  But all that had to wait.  I was simply too sick and tired. 

 

It took almost two weeks for that to get better and I was seriously considering to go to the doc.  And then there was my good friend from Nauru, Johnny Willis, displaying symptoms similar to those of my friend Huang Jianhong in Tarawa, who had been diagnosed with dengue fever.  Fortunately Johnny didn't have it. 

The only thing we did those first few weeks was to go to the party celebrating the Dragonboat Festival, which the people from Taiwan celebrated at the Uliga restaurant.  For the first time in many years, I could not avoid chewing betelnut and drinking twelve year old Johnny Walker Black Label.  It was only a very small sacrifice.  ;-)  Another thing we did, was visit Huang Jianhong's brother Huang Jianming to deliver a box of dried sea-cucumbers (bêche-de-mer) and other delicacies from Kiribati.  I pumped out about 1134 liters of water from the forward starboard compartment and soon found out why it was in there.  Not only had the through-hull become loose and let in incredible amounts of water, but the wire of the "Rule-A Matic" float switch had corroded right in the middle, which was the end of that particular bilge-pump system.  I was beginning to get seriously annoyed with said float-switches and vowed to change to another brand as soon as humanly possible. 

 

This has been done by now and hopefully I won't have any similar troubles again.  (Ha! Ha!  It's a boat, remember?  And b-o-a-t is a four letter word for a reason!  ;-))  On 18 June my 48th birthday was coming up and we decided to celebrate it with only a few local friends on DHARMA BUM III.  We cleaned out the gigantic Igloo Marine 94 cooler and proceeded to fill it with Sake from Japan, sparkling wine, white wine, red wine (all from Australia), numerous bottles of homebrew and XXXX-Bitter, Johnny Walker, Vodka and the like.  And, of course, copious quantities of ice to keep things nicely cold.  Soon we had eleven people from six nations on board:  Vincent Reimers from the Marshall Islands, Johnny Willis and his children from Nauru, ambassador Bruce J.D. Linghu from Taiwan, American Russ from the yacht HUEGELIG, three refrigeration specialists from the Philippines and ourselves.  Most of the guests had either brought more drinks or food, so that we could have started another party the next day without having to re-supply.  The conversation was lively and the Filipino-style liver-and-tongue dish, as well as the Tongan curry and a Chinese-style Chicken soup with ginger and rice a la Liping had everybody going for seconds.  Nobody went home hungry, that's for sure.  Still, it was the middle of the week and everybody had to go to work.  The last guests left around 10:30 pm and by midnight we went to bed as well.  A great party and a wonderful day, even if I do say so myself. 

 

A surprise arrived by eMail from Lee Sails in Hong Kong.  Although they had budgeted eight weeks for the building of my new Genoa, they had it ready for shipping in only three weeks!  A most remarkable company.  The next few weeks, we will mostly work on the boat, spend time with our local friends and teach our (by now almost 4 1/2 year old) daughter Aurora Ulani.  Today she finished lesson 101 of Calvert School and we are absolutely amazed at how well organized and thought-out the lesson plans and teaching materials are.  We are both teachers and we don't say this lightly.  In fact, the only other system that has me similarly impressed is the Cambridge University / Royal Society of Arts (RSA/UCLES) course for teacher-training and certification.  Both of these outfits come with our very highest recommendations. 

 

Anyway, our little sailor-girl has another 59 lessons to go before going on to the next grade.  She can hardly wait and often begs us to speed up the process.  Still, English is but her second language and her Mandarin-Chinese is *way* better than her English.  And although I start reading German to her every day even before breakfast, her third language is sadly lacking behind.  Still, we are stubborn - persistent? - and we won't stop teaching her all three languages as long as she seems to be able to handle it.  So far, so surprisingly good. 

 

~~~~~

 

Once our floating home is reasonably ship-shape again, we'll set off for Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, Palau and the Philippines.  As the western part of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is in the typhoon belt, we have to be very careful with our timing.  I just heard on the BBC World Service, that several people died in the Philippines as a result of a typhoon.  

 

Then there is our upcoming visit to Germany to consider.  I haven't seen my parents and three brothers for four years.  We would like to spend Christmas as well as the 50-year wedding anniversary of my parents with them.  We might leave the boat in the Philippines or we might leave it in Taiwan.  If we get a reasonable offer, we might even sell it.  Visa and logistics pose more than the usual problems, so in that respect it would be easiest to do everything in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  Liping hasn't seen her family in four years either and in Taiwan she can get the ever growing mountain of required documents and permits a lot easier then elsewhere.  And slowly we have to start thinking about setting up a business again, whether in Kunming, somewhere else in China, Vietnam, Taiwan or maybe even in Germany. 

 

Thanks to the monthly newsletter of Bill Gross from PIMCO, I wasn't caught with my pants down during the recent financial unpleasantness.  The slide of the dollar was wholly expected and taken advantage of.  However, commodities prices are skyrocketing and we still have to put our daughter through school, university, grad-school and all that.  And although theoretically (very important word, that) we could live on the boat for another 40 years or so before our money runs out, we both don't feel comfortable doing that.  What if we smash the boat on a reef somewhere?  What if we suddenly have major unexpected expenses?  It goes on and on.  And while I am confident that I could start from scratch at 50, I wouldn't want to try that at 60.  And I certainly wouldn't want to live on a boat at 70, although some of my yachtie-friends are older than that and are still doing fine.  (Now I know what ambassador Bruce meant, when he said that I worry too much :-)  

 

I don't even really know what I *want*.  Is it really that important to assuage the feeling of homesickness I have for the nature, black bread, and customs in Germany?  (It's been 26 years, after all...)  Is it worth to endure decades of cold feet, miserable weather, absurd government regulations and an astronomical cost of living, just so that Aurora Ulani can grow up in Germany?  On the other hand, do I really want to live in foreign countries forever, never getting more than the gist of a conversation and feeling more and more alienated and lonely with each coming year?  Right now, I feel like throwing the dice as Liping is willing to go wherever I would like to go.  What was that again?  "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making plans."  Yeah, right. 

 

~~~~~

 

Ever read "The Stone Canal" by Ken MacLeod?  By no means new, published in 1996, and I just re-read if for the third or fourth time.  I wish I had the two main characters here in the "Shoreline" pub over a substantial amount of Coopers Homebrew to talk for a fortnight about the universe and everything.  Not that this would solve much, but it could be amusing and one or two new thoughts might be unearthed.  Well, I am sure Anton, Johnny, Vincent and the rest of the boys will be there tonight.  I am looking forward to that. 

 

--

Holger Jacobsen
S/V DHARMA BUM III
YACHT-IN-TRANSIT
P.O. Box 283
Majuro MH96960
Marshall Islands

Phone +692-4550473