Through no easy means, we were visited by Santa this afternoon! Several people helped wear the Jolly Man's suit are we are grateful to all... Kyle at Spectra Water-makers in San Rafael, CA , John and Emma Bryden here at Christmas Island (JMB), and Anna Bryden in Honolulu, Hawaii - they all helped get our new water maker pump and motor to us. We're thinking we may have to strike up a chorus of Jingle Bells or something to celebrate!!! Seriously though, we were a bit concerned (okay, I was panicked!) about having to go two months with the remaining amount of fresh water we had on board. If push came to shove, or course we could have done it, but boy are we glad we won't have to try! Glen is installing as I type, so we should be back in the water making business shortly! :)

It was just about a week ago that the darn bearings on the water maker pump motor seized up and refused to go. Glen has been able to fix so many things, but there was no way to get this one done - and, in the process of trying, he really messed up his hand. He was trying to drill out a bolt that had broken off in the pump head when the bit he was putting a lot of pressure on broke, making the drill skid off the bolt and onto the top of his hand. At first we thought the only damage done was a gash, but as the hours went by, his hand also seized up and didn't want to work! Yikes! The poor guy has been gimping around on his sprained ankle (slowly healing!) and now has a matching gimped up left hand! Luckily, there isn't a whole lot to do here on Christmas Island, but even the process of getting off the boat into the dinghy, out of the dinghy onto the ladder, up the ladder (about 30 feet almost straight up), and then walking about 1/4 mile down the pier to the road to catch one of the "RAP" buses hasn't been easy for him. He's also very disappointed he can't surf here! His heat rash, however, which manifested itself as little blisters all over his chest and sprained ankle has healed nicely. Mine, unfortunately, which is more like hives, has spread from my arms and knees to my chest and back. The itching has been intense and I've been losing many hours a day to a benedryl haze! To cool off, we have been in the water a lot. There isn't really a good place to snorkel, so we have just been swimming around the boat. We have seen so many beautiful fish and manta rays right by the boat - like our own little aquarium! I was in the water a couple of days ago when I looked toward shore and saw several fins heading my way. Now, normally it takes me a while to get the fins off my feet and then climb our back ladder, but I now know when properly motivated, I can sprint up the ladder while still wearing my fins!!! I felt like a fool once topside where I could see it was a pod of small dolphins that had come to play - I jumped right back in, but had blown my chance! Almost daily, we get to watch the cute little dolphins herd schools of bait fish around the anchorage - the little fish look like a silver wave jumping through the water.

When we first started asking about the best way to get a package here on Christmas, it became obvious it wouldn't be easy. Normal packages sent from the states to Christmas are first routed through Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati - about 1800 miles away! We were told it usually takes about 2-3 months! Thankfully, Sinwah, in the Port Captain's office, told us about the Bryden family, who own the main store here on Christmas. Such a lovely family! We first met daughter Emma who said it shouldn't be a problem to have a package sent to her mother, Anna, in Honolulu, who would then add the package to their weekly mailbag that would arrive the next Wednesday via a little commuter plane that makes a weekly trip from Honolulu to Christmas Island. We e-mailed Kyle at Spectra and he got the parts sent off overnight express. We then went back to JMB, the Bryden's business, and met John, the dad, who let us know if the flight happened to be full or if the pilot should decide there was too much weight on the plane, the package wouldn't be allowed. The hard part was waiting and hoping that it would make it. We're sorry for the airline, but the flight had very few people and our 9 lbs of parts made the cut! It is a 30 minute bus ride each way to JMB from the pier, and we now know every landmark and bump in the road along the way. The bus drivers, young men who in the beginning wouldn't even make eye contact with us, now know us and will even acknowledge us with a little head wave or a beep of their horn!

We have learned that Christmas Island is not exactly prime real estate. It is very flat, extremely hot, and has very little in the way of soil nutrients, etc... It had been used as a test site for high-altitude hydrogen bombs between 1957 and 1962 by both the British and Americans, although the claim is there were no long term environmental effects on the island. One of the highlights of the island is that it is a bird nesting sanctuary. Many of the 1,500 visitors it gets each year are bird watchers. The rest are sports fishers going after bone fish on the sand flats in the lagoon. Other than coconut trees and a very few papaya and bread fruit trees, no food is grown locally. The people seem to exists on fish, rice, and top ramen noodles! The population of the island has grown dramatically lately due to a government initiative to resettle several thousand I-Kiribati from the crowded atoll of Tarawa (the pop was 3000 in 2007 and it is now 6000!). That may be the reason the people here seem depressed. We have been a bit shocked. Most of the island peoples we have met elsewhere have been so happy and lighthearted - and always very friendly. Here, we have had to work very hard to make any social contact. The people are nice in that 2 or 3 have given us rides in the back of their pickups, and when getting on the bus, we are always given good seats, no matter how crowed it is, but the feeling of being welcomed and included just isn't here. Sadly, it is one of the few places we have been that we would not recommend as a vacation destination!

------------- It is now our Thursday morning and we have a second drum of diesel being delivered to the pier so we can finish fueling. We did the first 200 liters yesterday. To get the fuel to the boat, we take our eight jerry cans to the pier in the dingy. Glen climbs the ladder and I stay down below. Glen drops a line down from the top of the pier, about 30 feet, and I tie the empty cans on so he can pull them up. He then uses a hand pump to transfer the diesel from the drum to a jerry can, ties it onto the line and drops it over the pier. My part is to catch the can as it is swinging back and forth while at the same time using an oar to keep the dinghy from crashing into the rusty metal pylons which could puncture little Dot! We are both a bit bruised from yesterday and are so excited about getting to do it all over again today. At least today we know we can take a fresh water shower afterwards! Yeah!!! The pump and motor are working well!!!! :)

------------------------ Okay, it is now Thursday evening - it's been hard to get this finished and sent - sorry! The fueling went well and as soon as we made it back to the boat, we were hailed by the harbor master on the radio. The Minister of Health wanted to see if he could charter our boat to take medical supplies to Fanning Island with us! We met with him and let him know we'd be happy to take his supplies, not as a charter, but to repay the kind deed the Brydens had done for us. So, we now have 13 big boxes of medical supplies piled in our salon to deliver at Fanning Island - apparently they have had an outbreak of flu there and had no way to get supplies there until the end of the month. It is better to give than receive - right?!!! Let's just hope we don't get the flu once the supplies are delivered! :)

We finished the fueling this morning and have everything stowed, so will be leaving first thing in the morning to head to Fanning Island - about 160 miles north. We have heard that it is much nicer (and a little cooler!) and we are so looking forward to it. Right now our plan is to stay there 2 - 3 weeks before leaving for Hawaii. The hurricane season in the northern hemisphere ends in November, so we should be safe to make the 1,200 mile crossing near the end of this month. Once in Hawaii, we hope to cruise all of the islands and enjoy visits from friends and family until May or so (My sister Gladys and her husband Dan are coming for the month of February - can't wait!!). We will then make the last leg of the trip back to San Diego - hoping to arrive sometime in June. We haven't had extra crew the entire trip, but are thrilled that our friend Pete may be making that last crossing with us (Pete, Glen says you know you get the 11-7 watch, right?!!! ;).

----------------------------- A couple of specific mentions - Happy 60th Anniversary Andy and Arlene! We love you guys and miss you tons. Wish we were there to help celebrate!

Malachi... how great to hear from you guys! We look forward to hearing your voices on the radio once we leave Hawaii. We'll try e-mailing you directly to make plans! :)

S/V Taya... we received your e-mail about becoming sailblog pals a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had internet since then. We look forward to hearing all about your planned trip and will do the necessary acceptance stuff once we get internet in Hawaii. (Just wanted you to know we weren't ignoring you!)

Marcy... where are you and what's going on? Tried to e-mail you directly and we're getting pretty worried!

Comments [1] | | More

Yeah! We are safely anchored at Christmas Island. It took us 15 days, but we're here! The crossing remained calm - too much so for a little while. We had about 3 or 4 days of the "doldrums" where we had to motor more than we wanted, but would certainly choose that over too much wind or rough seas. Happily, our equatorial crossing was under sail this time - about two thousand miles to the west of where we crossed it the first time. We are trying to get used to the heat - we both now have some heat rash. I don't remember that happening on the way down. Sure hope it clears up fast! Sadly no more fish were caught on the trip. It is amazing how few fish there seem to be along the equator - we had the same issue on the trip south! King Neptune must have warned them all to steer clear of lures!

We arrived on Monday morning and were surprised to find we are the only boat here. We were also surprised to find out it was really Tuesday and our clocks were an hour behind! Christmas Island, also called Kiritimati, is in the country of Kiribati (pronounced Kiri-bas!). Kiribati has 3 island groups - the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Line Islands. Christmas is a part of the "Lines," named so because they are so close to the equator. Apparently Captain Cook landed on this particular island on December 24, back in 1777, hence the name! The line islands are several hundred miles east of the other groups in the country - looking at them on a map, you wouldn't even think they belong together. The capital, Tarawa, is in the Gilberts and on the west side of the International Date Line. I guess it must have been difficult for the government to deal with different parts of the country being on different days, because they decided that although the Line Islands sit at about 157 degrees longitude (far from the 180 date line), they were going to be on the same day of the week as the Capital. When we leave, we'll get our day back!

Christmas Island is the world's largest coral atoll. The surrounding water is a gorgeous turquoise that is so clear, we could see the anchor settle itself on the bottom in 40 feet of water. The anchorage is outside of the lagoon, and there is no way to beach land the dinghy through the surf. To get ashore, we tie the dinghy to a ladder that hangs down from a big concrete pier (they call it the jetty). Getting out of the dinghy and onto the ladder has been a bit of a challenge, but so far so good! Once the ladder is scaled, we walk down the pier to the main road. The harbor master is close to the pier, but customs and immigration are a few miles down the road. With Glen's gimpy ankle and the sweltering heat, we have been catching one of the little "buses" to get to the main town, London. For one Australian dollar (yep, we're now on our 9th currency!), you get to get into an aging, overstuffed mini-van and be hurled down the road. The good thing is, the buses will stop to pick you up anywhere along the road and then deposit you where ever you like. The bad news is they all have music (and not our type!) playing so loudly, that your ears keep ringing long after exiting! Today after finishing up our check in (they couldn't find the stamp for our passports yesterday!), we had lunch at one of the few "restaurants" on the island, then went for a sightseeing trip on one of the buses. I should mention that the Chinese food we had was yummy, and it was interesting that anything with lobster in it was less expensive than dishes with chicken (which they were out of anyhow!). Sightseeing was interesting as well - salt flats, and more salt flats! We didn't make it all the way to the end of the road, though, so maybe we'll see something more exciting tomorrow!

Unfortunately, our water maker died today. We had some parts sent to Fiji and Glen had it working well, but it seized up and quit this morning. This afternoon has been spent trying to get the pump apart to see what could be done. In the process, two bolts broke and even if we could replace them, the bearings are shot. This puts us in a very bad spot! There is no easy way to bring water from the island to the boat, and even if we could, it would have to be boiled. We're going to have to go into major conservation mode and hope for some rain! We're going to investigate having a new pump sent to us at Fanning, but it doesn't sound like there are freight or mail deliveries very often. We'll probably have to wait until we get to Hawaii. :(

Comments [4] | | More

King Neptune.... We're back! To Lat. Zero, Zero . Zero Back to the line where you are the hero!

It was April Fourteenth, Two thousand and eight 'tis been a year and a half since our last equatorial date!

We've been good little shell-backs, we hope you agree As we've sailed in the south on our Dorothy Marie.

The Marquesas, Tutamotus, and the Societies Hauled out in Tahiti for some rudder work? Geez!

Rarotonga, in the Cooks, and then Beveridge Reef on to Niue's sharp limestone that gave Glen's nose some grief!

Vava'u, Ha'apai, and Tongatapu - we loved all Tonga's groups, But the time... it just flew!

So we headed to New Zealand, for the cyclone season with an unplanned stop at Minerva - bad weather was the reason.

After six months with the Kiwis, towards Fiji we sailed Our friend's boat, Elusive, was lost and our dear George said, "I've Bailed!"

Viti Levu, Mamanucas, and the Yasawas were a ball While George got a transplant and Genny? A complete over-haul!

From Fiji's Vanua Levu to Niuatoputapu in Tonga, Then on to Samoa where things went a bit wrong - uh! :)

While in Apia on 'Upolu our boat started to shake, then four big tsunami waves followed the quake!

We left beautiful Savai'i thirteen days ago Have had a wonderful crossing and now, Don't ya know?

We're back to pay tribute to both you and your court we'll splash some champagne both starboard and port.

With so many great memories, we are now homeward bound Back to our loved ones and put on feet on the ground.

But King Neptune, Don't worry! We've more dreams to fulfill. We'll be seeing you again. Our best wishes, until!

Comments [3] | | More