#Woleai atoll #Micronesia #FSM

                                                                                                                         16 - 23th of March, 2013

We set sail around 3pm for the short 120 mile sail west to Woleai Atoll from Olimarao island.  The forecasted  were showing winds to ease to 15 knots out of the east so we set the screecher sail and expected a slow 20 hour passage.  Instead of easing the winds did the opposite and increased to over 25 knots!  With a breeze like this Downtime was really moving and surfing down the swells at over 11 knots at times! Needless to say we were going way to fast to fish and just sat back and enjoyed the smooth downwind ride.

Around 10 pm with the winds still blowing strong we decided to change sail and slow the boat down so we would not pass up our destination during the early morning hours.  Furling this huge sail can be quite a challenge in high winds like we were experiencing and I was not looking forward to going on deck and wrestling with it while the boat going 10 knots and sliding down waves in the dark.  We were lucky tonight and everything rolled up like it was supposed to and the dreaded job was done in 15 minutes and Downtime was now cruising along at a comfortable 7 knots.  Having cover nearly 80 miles in the first 8 hours of the trip we had just 40 to go and were due to arrive a 7 am at the south pass into the atoll.

As we approached the island we were hailed on the radio 4 miles out by a watchful eye on shore who asked us our vessel name and intention.  This was a first in a long time that we had been spotted so far out and we were impressed that they were watching their waters so closely.   After entering the lagoon we were handed over to a guy name Tommy who would be our go to guy for the week and he gave us directions into the anchorage.  After we got settled we were contacted by him again and he welcomed us ashore to meet the chief.  We lowered SD and went ashore after breakfast and were greeted with a beautiful lei and a warm handshake.  There are several villages on Woleai and Chief Francis lives on the south end of the island.  We met in a circle under a men’s canoe house with the 78 year old blind Chief and few other village leaders.  Everyone we meet gets the condensed version of our travels and most are amazed by all the places we have been.   We gave the Chief a zip lock full of tuna filets and a hat and he welcomed us to stay on the island as long as we like.

After all the formalities were done we set off to do our favorite thing on a new island, find the kids and hand out gifts and candy.  Soon after we arrived at the elementary school our bags were empty and we were surrounded by smiling faces.  Most the kids spoke English and it was fun to throw a Frisbee and blow bubbles with them. The elementary school has about 120 kids and  there is also a separate high school with another 200 students from here and also a few surrounding islands like Likiep and Elato.  The dress code is loin cloth for the boys and lava lava for the girls and everyone is topless including the teachers.

Five 8th grade girls from the elementary school showed us the way to the high school, down a path that took us through the jungle and across the island.  I was thinking as I walked among them that if I was 15 again and walking through the jungle with 5 top less girls that I would be the luckiest man alive…..

We met with the principle’s at both schools and gave some supplies to the grade school and accepted an offer do a presentation of our travels to the high school.   I have to say that it looks like they are doing a good job teaching and they have enough resources to do their jobs.  The kids are very well mannered and are attentive in class.

We made it to church on  Sunday and caught the end of the service.  It is kind of hard to get motivated to get to church and sit there for hours listening to a language you do not understand….. So we just show up late and meet with the people afterwards.

The night before I had asked permission from the chief to be able to teach some of the boys how to wake board and he said it would be fine after church to go have some fun.  I met the kids on the beach at 10 and the fun began in the rain.  I had 40  5th and 6th grader boys ready to go!  I started the first load of 5 kids on  the wakeboard.  The second kid who tried got up after 2 tried and went a few hundred feet!  I thought great now I have a teacher who can help me explain to the other kids…..WRONG!!  I was only able to get 1 out 15 kids up so I switched to the much easier surfboard, where they could just lay on it and be pulled across the water behind SD.  I kept encouraging them to try and stand and only one brave soul hung ten for a few hundred feet before he wiped out.  I tried telling them all that  it is OK to let go of the rope when they crashed, but most held on for dear life and became human torpedoes!

There were big things going on at the high school with the arrival of 24 new computers filled with tons of information.  John Bush a computer tech from Hawaii and longtime island volunteer was just finishing up the installation.  The mainframe was state of the art and will supply limited information to these students who most of have never operated  a computer.   They are still a long way from having internet but that is not all that bad considering what a waste of time it can be…..instead the mainframe is loaded with all the national geographic issues, the latest world book encyclopedia’s and lots of other useful information that can broaden these kids view of the world.

A few days later we returned and John set up a projector and Daria and I showed the high school kids where we were from.  Daria had lots of great picture from St. Petersburg and I dug up a few of the cows back in Kansas.  Next we showed them a few places like Maccu Pichu, the Mayan ruins in Belize and then shots from the Panama Canal and  New Zealand.  I think they had the most fun with shots we took on their own  islands since they rarely see pictures of themselves let alone projected life size on the wall.  It was good times sharing with all these kids and we were loudly applauded after each presentation.

The winds had been calm for a few days so we  contacted Tommy to see if he could find us a dive guide.  We were in luck, Morgan had recently returned from Yap and is a professional dive guide with over 2000 dives in his log.  We set it up for Monday after we had our presentations at the school and hoped for sunshine.  The weather cooperated and we did two good dives along the pass.  We spotted lots of things with the help of Morgan who could find a needle in a haystack!  We saw several moray eels,  octopus, starfish, a flounder that I thought was sand until it moved, nudibranch, sea stars and even a few pieces of discarded artillery from WW2.   It was strange to see a 5 inch shell laying on the ocean floor knowing it was most likely fired at some unlucky ship so many years ago.

Wolbai Atoll has 8 islands surrounding a beautiful lagoon.  Inside the shallow lagoon  are two small island that might have been candidates for the Corona Beer commercial with a few swaying palm and white sand beaches.  The main island is Woleai which was occupied by over 7000 Japanese troops during the war.  Chief Francis remembers the war vividly and told me that when the troops were here there was not a tree left on the island and you could see from one end to the other.  Like many other islands in the pacific it has a runway built on and has many concrete bunkers doting the landscape.  All the locals were evacuated to Yap during the war and he told me he went to school there until one day when bombs fell on the island and blew up the schools and that was it for school for a while.  Very few locals were killed during the war itself and the only casualties were from people playing with hand grenades they found afterwards.  The Japanese were not as fortunate….he told me only 3000 of the 7000 walked on the ship after the war the rest remain buried on the island.

 Every afternoon the men gather around at 5 to drink tuba (palm wine) and discuss what went on that day and they all seem to want the new visitors at their villages circle for the night. There are 5 circles on main island.  I have learned on thing and that is to bring your own cup and drink slowly!

The men were sitting around one night and discussing fishing and turtle hunting, neither of which they were having much success at lately.  It seems turtles are harder to find and there are not many large fish left on the reef.  I had seen the boat come in and there were 7 or 8 guys with spear guns and maybe 50- 4-6 inch long fish on the ground that they were dividing…not much meat for all that work…..Things used to much much better….

Being a farmer I asked the question of what they were doing to sustain their resources?  Their answer was that they closed certain parts of the reef to fishing certain times of the year.  I asked them to explain how they thought this was helping when obviously a few months was not really helping the catch size…..I took the floor and presented the idea of closing certain parts of the reef for years not months so that fish could mature and actually become old enough to reproduce.  Then they would spread to other parts of the reef and replenish it.  The idea was well received and they said it made sense….but implementing it will be a whole other mater in itself….The next idea I had was how they could harvest more and larger turtles….The practice now is to catch and kill everything you see no matter what size or time of the year it is.  It is even fair game to track the females onto the shore and kill them when they are nesting and laying eggs!  Sadly the eggs are a bonus and they dig them up and eat them too!  What chance does a turtle have when only 2 or 3 eggs will develop into a mature turtle undisturbed in the wild….now with hunting [practices like these it is ZERO!` A turtle lays 70 to 80 eggs and most baby turtles are picked off on their way to the ocean or are eaten by sharks or fish before they are 3 months old.

I suggested to the chief that it would be in everyone’s best interest to stop digging up the nests and taking the eggs and to also stop  killing the females during nesting season.  Another idea was instead of eating the eggs they should gather them and move them to one of their uninhabited islands and protect them.  They also need to build a pen to keep them safe for the first 6 months of their life and feed them.  When they are big enough to survive turn them loose and in 2-3 years these same turtles will return weighing hundreds of pounds.  Only then after a female lays its eggs can they harvest them for meat having created a sustainable farming program.  Again the idea made sense to them…but time will tell if future generations will even know what a turtle looks like……

It seemed every time we went ashore we were given fresh flowers by some one… Wednesday was Raymond’s birthday one of the teachers at the high school and he invited us ashore for a small party. Daria made some chocolate cupcakes and I put together some fishing gear for a present.  Both were very much appreciated and soon  Daria was covered in flowers again.  There was no shortage of tuba either….but I was still in pain from the night before when I almost drowned in the stuff at another party!  We made a short night of it and went back to Downtime early.

The next day we met Tommy and he took us around to see the war ruins.  We saw a few planes in the jungle and some old equipment rusting away.  Most the building were bombed to smithereens and only foundations remained .  Walking through the jungle we saw many craters where bombs had dropped which now were taro gardens where the plants like to grow in standing water.

Our week here was quickly coming to an end and we told Tommy we planed to leave on Saturday.  Next thing we knew a going away party was being planned at the main village.  There was one other boat leaving on Friday so, Thursday night it was.

The culture here is much different than back in the states and only the men showed up to the party!  The women obviously spent many hours preparing the food and flowers but the men served it to us.  The younger guys had been out fishing all morning and our meals had one small fried fish and boiled taro in coconut sauce and had enough food for two people!

The tuba flowed freely and the guys from the other boat brought a few cases of beer so there was plenty to drink. We brought some yellow fin tuna which the men sliced and ate raw, a favorite of theirs.

It seemed that everyone that showed up brought flowers and soon we had 2 or 3 lei’s and 4 or 5 head bands stacked up on our heads.  I had never seen so many flowers!

The next night we asked John to bring down the projector so we could do a slide show at the church for the village.  There had to be 70 or 80 people sitting around as Daria and I showed them pictures of our travels.  We were glad we could share our world with them since they were so generous with sharing theirs.

Our last night on the island Raymond invited us over again and had another bunch of fresh flowers for us to wear.  Wow what an amazing experience!  The generosity and love these people showed us will be treasured for a life time!

In our next adventure we will be stopping Ulithie Atoll the 4th  LARGEST atoll in the world!

Until then, Peace!
Pete and Daria

#Lamotrek #FSM

The sail to Lamotrek from Puluwat was just over 170 miles and the winds were predicted to clock north again so we stayed well north of the rum line to be ready for the shift this time to eliminate having wind on the nose. Well the shift never came and all our planning did was add a few extra miles to the trip.

We had been sailing on a broad reach with the big reacher sail out all night long and at one point were only going 4 knots with only 10 knots of wind. At that speed we would not arrive until 8 pm, well after dark. A few hours later the winds picked up and we were going 7 knots again and were due to arrive by 2 pm so sometime you just have to be patient and wait for the wind to show up.

I put the lines out at dawn and in a few hours the fish started biting! We hooked a few Mahi to start with and were able to get them aboard while keeping the sail up. Then an big black marlin came by and took the bait! This fish was not happy and at one point was charging the boat jumping wildly and heading strait for us! About 50 feet away he turned away and took off leaping through the air. While he was doing this I was frantically winding in the 1000 feet of slack line he had stripped off the reel while we were rolling up the sail. I knew better than to get him to the boat to quickly and let the pole do the work and reeled in the slack when he quit fighting. It took about 40 minutes for the fish to tire out and then we were able to get him along side the back steps and take a few pictures and get the hook out of his bill and let him go to live another day. If we can let these magnificent fish go unharmed we do, others that either swallow the hook or drown we put in the freezer and give away to the islands.

A few hours later we had 3 more Mahi strikes and got them all aboard. This made 11 mahi, 1 marlin landed and 2 marlin, 1 wahoo and 4 mahi that got away in the last 700 miles!! Some of the best fishing we ever seen on Downtime!

We entered the pass mid afternoon on 1st of March and decided to anchor next to Pugue Island for the night and make our way the last 8 miles south to the main island next day.

In the morning we moved south and anchored in front of the village on Lamotrek. There was already one other boat here which we had met in Puluwat, Kite and another due to arrive in the morning, Flow which is being sailed Around the World by 2 Norway girls!

We were greeted by Francis the brother in law of the chief that passed away who paddled out and collected our landing fee of $20 per person. We were warmly welcomed to the island and were then free to go ashore.

Lamotrek is famous for their hand woven lavalava's (a wrap around skirt) that the ladies make on ancient looms that they use to weave the high quality cloth in a rainbow of colors. It takes them up to 3 days of waving to make one lavalava and they sell them for $30. You can also find the authentic traditional ones made from banana fibers for up to $100, using a time staking process that has been passed down for generations.

The other thing that is famous for is that this lavalava is the only thing the women are allowed to wear! No tops!! For a western man this was hard to get used to at first and the sunglasses stayed on! The only time women are allowed to wear a shirt is when they are working the taro fields. All visitors who stay longer than 2 weeks have to dress like local people (topless and lalalava/loincloth). It's one of many tricky rules of Lamotrek.

Many men of the village are busy building a new outrigger sail canoe. The design is one of the biggest made to date and is almost 30 feet long. The bottom of the hull is carved out of a single piece of flawless mahogany that was brought over from the island of Yap. The side planks are cut from huge breadfruit trees and also are also of perfect quality without a single knot. The planks are first rough cut with a chainsaw and then painstakingly trimmed with a adz. The planks are bent by blocking each end and getting the biggest men in the village to stand on the middle and then a rope is tied across with a block in the middle to maintain the bend. Once the correct bend is achieved the time consuming task of trimming the edge of the plank begins. They us a red dye painted on the edge of the lower board and set to upper plank on top and the dye transfers contact points and then they trim the points with an adz until there is a uniform paper thin gap between the two planks. When the gap is perfect they use a series of holes along the planks edge to bind the two together with twine and pound a tapered peg into the lashing to cinch the two planks together tightly. Later when all the planks are complete they with take them back apart and put a sealer between them made from the sap of the breadfruit tree. Although if they had 3M 5200 sealant they would gladly use that too!

A canoe this size will take thousands of hours to complete with the help of the 30 -40 men working every day for months, all the while being directed by the Master Carver who is always present. The sails will be hand sewn, another huge project with cloth donated by a cruiser from Australia. They hope to have the project finished by May and I felt lucky to have the process explained to me and to have seen such a project under way.

This is by far the busiest and most productive island we have been to. We saw other men busy building fish traps, a project that takes 50 to 100 hours each to complete. The traps are made from hundreds of individual sticks tied together with hundreds of feet of string and thousands of knots. The traps are 3-5 feet square and a foot and a half high with a tapered entrance on one side where the fish go in and are caught. Each trap is a work of art and intricately made. The men who were neither building the canoe or fish traps were busy planning the construction of a fishing lodge on a uninhabited island 30 miles away on Olimarao. A shelter to stay in when they go out to the island to fish and hunt turtles. A single building 16x20 with a concrete floor and walls with a water storage cistern and covered with a corrugated metal roof. All the building materials were ordered and delivered by the ship that arrived this week. They were all sitting in a circle going through the materials list when they asked if I had grinder or hacksaw blades to cut rebar with. They were in luck I had both which I donated to the project. The next issue was getting the portable generator running that had been in storage for 4 years! A few hours later the carburetor was cleaned and the motor service with the engine running smoothly.

When the women are not weaving or in the taro patch they are preparing meals over an open fire in a cooking area separate from the home. Usually just a small roof covering the fire and blocked on one side to keep the wind out. Hanging from the roof are an assortment of pots and pans with their charred black bottoms from the coconut husk fire. The meals are simple and most include taro, breadfruit or rice when they can afford it. Fish is seasonal and some times they do without and other times when plenty full it is hung to dry for later. The pigs are saved for special occasions as well as sea turtles which are one of the island favorites. Chickens and dogs roam the islands and often find themselves on the menu also.

Every afternoon at about 3 pm the men get together where the canoe is being built ("man house") and drink tuba, the naturally fermented wine from the coconut tree. The juice drips into a small container that is tied to the main fruit bearing branch at the top of the tree. The branch that would usually produce the coconuts is tied off early in its development and is trimmed back 3 times a day and drips out the tuba into the small container tied to the branch. This liquid is then fermented a short while and has about the same alcohol content as wine about 10%. It is amazing to see the young guys climb the trees and collect the juice, they make climbing the 30 foot tall trees look easy!

This same juice can have yeast mixed in be left to ferment and made into a strong alcohol which most of they export to the main island of Yap. I was thinking if they could build a small still then may be they could run their our board motors on pure ethanol!

A few days after we arrived the first ship in 5 months finally arrived and delivered much needed supplies. The Priest was also aboard and during his short stay here performed two weddings and several first communions. It was a privilege to be included in these ceremonies and to be able to see a traditional wedding. The young kids who took their first communion looked beautiful and were dressed in white clothes, turmeric powder on the skin with flower lei's and had bright colored head bands.

One afternoon while I was onshore with the men fixing the generator and properly taste tuba, Daria had a small get together aboard Downtime with Michaeila and several other girls. She's shown them some pics, music and of course served tea and sweets which she baked day before. Soon there were 15 kids swimming around the boat and everyone had a great time.

Later that afternoon Daria invited Camilla and Joanna on board from Flow to share stories and I brought the island chief Mannuel aboard for a few beers which are banned from drinking on the island but are ok to drink on the boat.

The culture here is a much different than in the States in how the land is passed down in the woman's family. Women own the land and the home and when they man marries he moves to the woman's village and island. There is not much interaction between them during the day when the women are busy in the gardens and weaving, while the men are working and fishing. We read that most of the children have adopted families like god parents and most spend equal time with both families. The kids seem to be very independent and spend a lot of time on their own while growing up. Most the outer island kids go to school and live on the main islands during the high school years and stay with their adopted families. Ester (local woman) has a dissertation about Lamotrek wrote by German girl few years ago. One night we took it on Downtime and read it. It is worth to read to understand this culture better.

Lamotrek was also the first island we have been to where most of the people are chewing betel nut. This a nasty habit that destroys and turns the persons chewing it teeth red! Long time users have just a few blackened teeth left and are addicted. This is also the first place where Tuba, the palm wine was drank daily to abuse. Every day gallons of the stuff would be consumed by the men from 3pm to all hours of the night. The women drink sweet tuba (non-alcohol) and sadly are occasionally victims of drunken violence.

The afternoon before we left the ladies of the village prepared a farewell feast for Camilla, Joana from Flow and Daria and myself along with Eric, a visiting anthropologist from the States who had arrived on the supply ship a few days before. This was an amazing time where the ladies sang us songs and wished us well on our journey. They presented us with lei's and colorful head dressings and then rubbed bright yellow turmeric powder on our shoulders. After the ceremony we were given meals with enough food in them to get us all the way to Yap 400 miles away! For each of us there was at least 3 pounds of boiled taro, breadfruit, cooked banana's, fried breadfruit and taro and sliced meat (canned). We experienced all the many delicious ways they cook the taro with coconut cream. Daria was given another beautiful lavalava that had detailed embroidery work on it and in return gave the women gifts of earrings and necklaces.

On our last morning there the school had cultural days and all the kids dressed up traditional with the small girls wearing grass skirts and the boys wearing the men's blue and white striped lavalava which is narrower that the women's version and worn higher around the waist over their loin cloth. The girls gave a weaving demonstrations on how they made the headbands and baskets while the boys showed navigation skills on a white board. Later they would meet with the master carver, master sailor and master fisherman to have those skills explained to them. They had items for sale on tables like locally woven palm fiber rope, small carvings, sea shells, lavalava's and a few baskets of food with chicken or dog with rice for $15. We bought a chicken lunch, not brave enough for dog yet...

We had a wonderful week on Lamotrek and want to thank everyone for showing us such amazing hospitality. We will remember this small piece of paradise forever!

Peace!!!

Pete and Daria

PS: we are in Ulithi atoll, our last stop before Yap. We caught 4 Mahi and Wahoo on our way from Woleai to Ulithi and ready for diving and kiting. Story about Woleai is coming...

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