Arrived at Aur

It was a nice easy passage to Aur. We arrived at the pass about 7:30 this morning. Then motored up wind to the village of Aur by 10.

Holokai was ahead of us. By the time we got anchored, thee were boats waiting to take the supplies and passengers off.

We had a little extra loaded at the last minute! A total of 400 lbs rice, 200 lbs sugar 8 boxes of stuff and 3 passengers. Lipton and his son and Solomon.

I think we'll head up to the other village, Tobal tomorrow afternoon.

Leaving for Aur, Maloelap and maybe Likiep

We are planning to leave Majuro at 4:00 PM today for a few weeks in the outer islands.

Seems like a charity/ freight run! We had 400 pounds of rice, 100 pounds of sugar and a bunch of other boxes. Not to mention Lipton and his son for Aur.

No more high speed internet for a few weeks. I hope the radio still works. I'll try to keep ya'll posted if it does OK.

Diving

I went diving to look for the boat hook again. Still didn't find it. Linda from Hawkeye went with me since Trinda still has a cold. These are her pictures.

We went to Enemonet again last week end and dove there too. John came with us that time too. Trinda still can't breath good enough to dive. Maybe in a few more weeks. But now I seem to be getting it too. They just sunk an old ship by a WWII airplane at Enemonet so we looked at them both. The Plane is in 15 to 20 feet of water. The ship's bow is 45 feet and the stern is over 85 feet down. It was nice to look around.

Otherwise not much happening here. We are planning a trip to a couple of outer islands next week, Aur again and Maloelap. They are 65 and 85 miles NW so only a day or so to sail.

I noticed the raw water pump was leaking when we were coming back from Enemonet last week and spent several days in the bilge working on it. Put it all back, started the motor and water squrited out. I got the seals in wrong!. Had to pull it out and try again. It was much easier the second time since I had cleaned and painted all the parts. Only an hour or so to fix it. (after a 3 hour cusring break and a drink!!)

Eneko and Back

Last Thursday we decided to take another vacation. Ha! We sailed up to Eneko anchorage for the weekend, Thurs-Tues. Nice long weekend.

We snorkeled a lot and just sat and read books the rest. Eneko is 11 miles west of downtown Majuro. It is a small motu with a park and 'remote resort' operated by one of the hotels from downtown. They have 3 bungalows for rent to their guests and a park and picnic area for day trips and parties. They also have some kayaks they let us borrow free for a day.

When we came back we finally decided to try a mooring on the south side of the dock, where they are $30/mo instead of $3/day. While I was trying to catch the mooring ball with the boat hook, the end broke off and sunk. The wooden pole had rotted inside and I hadn't noticed. It sunk in 75 feet of water.

I got the dinghy down and managed to get the boat tied up instead of the ease of just picking up the line with the boathook. The moorings on this side are cheaper, and have a bad reputation for breaking loose. I needed to dive and check it out and with the brass end of he boathook down there it was a bigger reason to go.

This was only my 8th dive in the logbook??? 2002-2009 and only 8 dives? Well the mooring looked fine, 3 inch rope tied through the windows of a sunken ship. I didn't find the boathook though. The dive was so beautiful. I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to float around near the bottom. I used my whole tank of air in about 35 minutes. It should have lasted nearly an hour, but as out of practice as I am, I guess I breathed too fast.

I saw a really big fish, maybe a 100lb grouper seemed to be living in the ship wreck the mooring is tied to. I may go back and look for the boathook again, just to dive again.

Trinda seems to be coming down with a flu or at least a sinus infection. She's not feeling well. The new Star Trek is playing at the theater here, so John and I went to see it last night. Linda is not much of a sci-fi fan and Trinda said she'd see it later. It was good.