The Big Six Oh!

Yes I can't believe I'm getting OLD! Arg!

We rented a car with Hawkeye, John and Linda and toured the atoll. We drove 33 miles. seems a long ways, for an island 10 miles wide and 30 long with only one road. We drove to the close end the town of Rita, then back and out the other side toward Laura. We stopped and had coffee with a couple who recently bought a cruising sailboat, but still work full time here. They are from Australia, Mori and Rhondi. Then on to the end of the atoll. We stopped at a grocery store and bought lunch fix'in. At the park on the far west end, we ate lunch and then went for a snorkel. The tide was on the way out and there was only about a foot of water over the reef. I was afraid that my belly would drag on the bottom if the tide went out further, so I didn't stay long.

Then on the way back we stopped a the "Majuro Peace Park" an area where the Japanese put up a shrine to remember the dead of the "Eastern Pacific Battles of World War II". I think of this as the West Central pacific, but then I'm not from Japan!
Back near town, we stopped at the Australian Navy facility to see Mitch and Robin. The Ausies sure know how to treat their remote people. They have a beautiful compound called Wallaby Downs. Had a beer with them (their birthdays were Tuesday and Wednesday) then invited them to join us for supper.

We went to a local Chinese place called "Special Restaurant". Such creative names here. (almost every store has either cost, price or less as part of the name). It was the first time for us and a very delightful meal and cheep. Although the island is almost out of beer, only Bud-light left( and no eggs!) They did have a few cans of VB (Victoria Bitters) so it wasn't a completely dry day!

Trinda has been re-sewing the canvas for the dodger and is almost finished with the main part. She got 25 yards of new Sunbrella and made new parts for the top to keep the rain out. It was starting to leak faster than as if it wasn't there. When she made the new top we changed the size, so he had to re-work the side windows and all the zippers. Only one side window left to go.

A couple weeks ago she had a fall and pulled a leg muscle and got a sore on her bottom. It put her out of commission for a while. She took a course of antibiotics and was well enough that she had a good time yesterday too.

I almost forgot, Trinda got her picture in the local paper again. It was from our trip up to Aur. She was playing patty-cake with a local girl. Cute photo, but I don't have a copy scanned in yet.

School is Out!

I just turned in the grades for my classes! School is over. One class has invited their teachers to a picnic Tuesday. I failed 3 of them, but we still plan to go to it. Their final project was to create a blog. Most of them did. The example with links to their blogs is at . Now to see how long it takes to get paid...

Trinda has been working on re-sewing the canvas around the dodger. It was mostly 10 years old and no longer waterproof. It is a big job, the top, two side curtains, and new zippers for the back. Plus she changed the size of the side windows so she had to make patterns for the curtains.

I have sorta put in a proposal to fixup the college's network but I haven't heard anything back yet. If we don't hear soon we may take a trip to some outer island for a while.

Tomorrow is my birthday...the big six oh!.. I can't believe it! We plan to rent a car with Hawkeye and tour the island for the day. Should be fun. Got to remember to charge the camera. Ha!

Updated Photo Viewer for Video

I spent some time and have updated the web at http://www.tcls.com so that now if there is a video in the directory with the photos, you can see it. There are no new movies, but the older ones have been there all along, you just couldn't get to them.

Some are in the Cruising Photos and some are in the Family Photos. For instance there are a couple here: 2009/02_22_grandkids_park

Let me know what you think.

Constitution Day and TCLS.com

A few photos of the parade and fireworks:








I worked on the main web site for a couple of nights, and now the site, http://www.tcls.com is back to normal with all the photos up until mid Feb 2009. I should send in another disk soon, so it isn't so much effort to update them. I have considered working to change the photo viewer but it is hard to get my mind wrapped around a programming project. It wouldn't be so bad it the internet was reliable. Lately the WiFi to the boat only stays connected for 5 minutes at a stretch, hiccups 30 seconds then on again. It makes all connection to the web go away and I have to login to the WiFi account again.

School is going OK. Two more week of classes then finals week. Since my classes are only pass/fail and not for credit, I have decided that they will do a final project. They will create a blog (like this one) and add things to it, based on what they should have learned. Should be interesting.

May Day here is Constitution Day for the The Republic of the Marshall Islands. They had a parade yesterday and lots of speeches. We took the dinghy (neat to have one that works again) across the lagoon to the start of the parade and watched it. It was different, no floats, few costumes or cars. Mostly the schools marched together with matching T-shirts. Several of the Government offices and a few business also marched with banners or matching T-shirts.

When we started back, the tide had gone out. When Trinda went down the steps from the restaurant the bottom landing, normally under water, was covered with moss. She slipped once again and landed on her butt! We thought she really hurt her knee this time. But this morning it seem sore but OK. It didn't twist it like normal, just falling bruised the muscles some. She felt well enough to venture out to find the Saturday morning fresh vegetable market with the neighbor.

We ordered some new sunbrella and it came. Trinda has been making new rain covers for the hatches and repairing the old covers and such. She intends to make a cover for the new dinghy so the sun won't damage it. Lots of projects.

I spent the morning changing the oil and fan belts on the generator/watermaker. Everything is such a project on the boat!

The Worst Weather Ever

Everyone always asks if we have ever been caught in a storm. We have in the PAST always said "No, we plan better than that!"

Well... not any more! It is only 60 miles between the passes of the two atolls. We left Aur in time to clear the pass before sunset, planning a nice comfortable beam reach back. The grib files all agreed we should see 15 to 20 from the NE all the way.

About 11PM the wind switched to the SE, right on the nose and came up to 35 to 40 knots! then the rain started. Then it got up to 45 for an hour or so then back to 40 for a couple more.

We made it though. Trinda got seasick again. Every thing is wet. We tore a small rip in the main sail. The sun protection on the staysail tore loose and the sheets chaffed nearly through. One of the wooden boat hook poles floated off once when we were heeled over too far during one of those gusts.

But we made it fine, boat didn't sink or even make us think it would.

Aur for Liberation Day

Sunday night we left Enemonet for Aur (pronounced like hour) about 4:00PM. We cleared the pass before dark and had a vigorous sail the 60 miles from pass to pass. Three boats left at the same time so we talked on the VHF ever hour or two.

Trinda had another bout of 'mal de mer' but managed to take her watches OK. I felt fine all the way, except for being tired.

It was raining when we got to the pass at Aur, so we waited till about 7:30 to enter and were anchored by 11.


There's Trinda in front of the new dinghy after we got help dragging it up the beach. I haven't had time to install the wheels from the old one yet. Besides, they always change something. Now there is a new plastic drain plug in the back of the dinghy where I put the bolts for the wheels before. It will take some thinking to figure out how to install them this time.


After the ceremony, base ball was the order of the day. There are two villages on Aur, one is Aur the other is Tobal. So there had to be championship games, men, women, kids and tug-o-war and races.

The first pitch Trinda hit the ball right back to the pitcher and hit him... he quit and let someone else pitch! It was just practice anyway.



Wed all the boats moved from the anchorage at Aur 10 miles up to Tobal. The atoll is out of gasoline for their boats, so we all took passengers back with us. We had 16. Andy wanted to drive, and said he knew where all the coral heads were so I let him.

They ate all the chips we had, fritos, cheetos, tostados, all of them!



The cruisers and the 'world teach' teacher decided to organize a jam session. There were a couple of guitars and maybe 8 ukealalis (little Hawaiian guitars). There was a lot of singing.

Only a few of us knew 'On Top of Old Smoky' and 'You Are My Sunshine'. I think we are OLD!


We met the mayor of the atoll and his daughter. Of course Trinda made chocolate cakes for the feast the first day too. His daughter, Rosalie, wanted to learn how. She lives and works here in Majuro. Anyway Trinda took her out to the boat and made one more cake. She is supposed to have us get together here now that we are back.

She also took a bunch of the beads that Sherry (my sister) had sent us and her and two other cruisers (Linda of Hawkeye and Judy of Ursa Minor) helped the kids make bracelets and necklaces. Used up a lot of beads!



All loaded up and ready to leave.

The New Dinghy Arrives

It finally got here OK. Even though it was Good Friday, the customs people checked the container in on Thursday without opening it! It was delivered to Do It Best at 11:00 and by 12:30 the dinghy was delivered to the dock by the boat.

I unpacked it and inflated it right on the dock then rowed out to Katie Lee.

By 4:30 we dropped the mooring and motored down to Enemonet, a park with free buoys part way toward the pass out of the atoll.

I wrote a letter to the editor of Latitude 38 explaining how wonderful the service from AMI Boats is. He wrote back saying he needs a photo of us in the new dinghy before he runs the letter. Maybe tomorrow.