Sunday December 29, 2013

Well that�'s another Xmas day done and dusted; hope it went well for you all! We had a great day, spending time with many of our favourite people in Kiribati and, of course, eating too much. Unfortunately Internet speeds were not good enough for VOIP calls to family in Australia and New Zealand, sorry, certainly one of the things we WON�'T miss about here. On Friday 27th my work team put on a wonderful farewell for us, with a special lunch at the Ambo Lagoon club followed by speeches, tears, laughter, dancing and singing and �... karaoke! I-Kiribati love to sing and really love karaoke and now Tony is also hooked; he reckons he is going to buy a program/machine when we return... see how a year can change you!

Along with all the farewells we have been whittling down the pre-departure list; four winches serviced, general �'ship shaping�' going on, and various systems tested, including signing in this morning to the YOKWE net sched in Majuro via the HF radio. Karen, who runs the net, recognized the boat name, and introduced us and IM to those listening, also giving a quick description of how Dave, IM�'s previous owner, played his fiddle while sailing. It�'s a great service and good to know we are now on their �'radar�' for our passage. As with much of this odyssey, IM has been here and there before us, which is very comforting.

Today we got the sails ready, redistributed items we no longer need, and ferried some supplies, including 4 jerrys of diesel, out to IM, all in between the gusty showery rain squalls that have been chopping up the lagoon, as well as poor main road here on Tarawa. The road, or the meager isolated patches of bitumen that remain, is potholed beyond belief, and the slightest rain now turns a 5klm journey into a jolting jarring expedition, something else we won�'t miss. But we will miss the wonderful people, their fabulous dancing and singing, and the freshest fish in the world.

Tomorrow we are going to pull the anchor up, it has been down for a year now, and held us through thick and thin, so we are keen to get it up a day or so before we go in case we need to call�.... I don�'t know... but whoever you call when your anchor has dug its way halfway to the Ivory Coast! We will set our second anchor during the procedure, as we don�'t want to leave just yet!

As for the weather, there are two stationary low pressure systems to the south and one to the North, a trough hovering nearby and the ITCZ, well one day it�'s here and the next it�'s over by Kiritimati Island and Hawaii�... so the weather's all a bit confused (a bit like us). We were planning to go Tuesday, but that will now depend on how things are looking tomorrow�... over and out till then.