Majuro, Marshalls
06 April 2011
But there are positives about Majuro. The mail system is interwoven with the U.S. postal system so ordered boat parts arrive reasonably fast from the U.S.. The customs man at the post office easily passes packages onto cruisers who are a yacht in transit, with no import duties. Flights to Hawaii leave several times a week. Hardware stores and machine shops are well stocked. Grocery stores have most foods a cruiser needs at slightly higher than U.S. prices. The natives are generally friendly although their grasp of English is sometimes poor. We found remote villagers in Kirabati, Fiji and Tonga speak better English than the city people in Majuro. It is a futile requirement that students in the Marshall Islands school system learn to speak English.
Additionally, to cruise any atoll away from Majuro, each atoll has a visitor's fee from $25 to well over a hundred dollars per yacht payable to the individual atoll. After my tax dollars have been sent here to aid so many well deserving projects, I have a problem with being charged an additional fee to sail the Marshall's. Nowhere else we have sailed is such a fee expected at every atoll. We always have plenty of trading items for the villagers. Trading solar yard lights, fishing gear, hats, sunglasses, tools, rice or whatever for local grown food or lobsters is part of the fun of traveling the Pacific Islands. Also, being able to fix someone's small generator or patch up a villagers boat has satisfaction. But paying an additional fee to visit an atoll in a U.S. protectorate diminishes our sense of benevolence.