Good to see land again and our destination at that.

Won't blog again until we are safely anchored.

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Just a warning - Some people might find this passage very disturbing

In the 3 weeks we were Fareller Atoll the islanders caught and ate at least 6 large Green Turtles. I have no problem with the consumption of turtle meat providing the particular species is in sustainable supply for the quantities being fished in a given habitat. I believe that this opinion is controversial and not shared by many of my fellow Australians for reasons being that a)'The Turtle' is sort of cute and a symbol of conservation, b) it lives a very long life, and c) has a beacon that allows it to navigate across oceans - and in the case of the female, find the island where it hatched from. I don't see these reasons not to eat a turtle. For example I can think of many species of plant and animal which may deserve attention and conservation status and yet do not because they don't fit into an attractive category. Off the top of my head a species of Grevillea (the species name escapes me now but I think it starts with c), living along Mona Vale Road near the Bahai Temple in Sydney is now threatened since the road was widened many years ago. The local Society for Growing Australian Plants, which I was a member of was unsuccessful in lobbying the government to prevent the road being widened at the time. It is just a spindly plant so who cares? The deep sea orange Roughy (kinmeidai in Japanese) can live to up to 200 years. That does not save them from the fish mongers knife. Salmon, Pigeon and many other species of bird are able to find their own breeding grounds and nests also across oceans or continents but they remain on the menu too. I use these examples as things to invalidate the 3 reasons above for not eating a turtle. I don't understand why they are given such a special status. Of course if you don't fancy eating turtle well that is fine. I have no literature on board Yarramundi, nor access to the WWW presently to look up what the conservation status would be for the local Green Turtle species our island friends were catching. Indeed i n Ogasawara the local Wildlife Agency has decided the population is stable enough to allow for some controlled hunting. Ok, I am getting carried away - and perhaps using Japanese fishing quotas as an example will get me in real trouble. Simply trying to make the point that if the Green Turtle was of status requiring protection then I would argue some conservation methods need to be employed in Micronesia. But other than that I do not have a problem with the hunting and eating of that species of turtle - Or rather did not UNTIL Thursday morning. We knew that there was a graduation ceremony planned for Friday and therefore turtle had to be found. Tuesday night two were captured and they were left on the beach upside down all Wednesday so they would not escape ready to be cooked on Thursday for Friday's ceremony. I can understand the need to keep captured animals alive prior to eating them in a tropical environment with no refrigeration, but two things were most disturbing when it came to these turtles.

One of the turtles was caught as it came up on the beach to lay its eggs. When I asked if they waited till it laid its eggs the response was that the person catching it likes the yolk. It just seems short sigted to not let the thing lay its 200 fertilized eggs before catching it. Especially when the space available on the 3 remaining beaches is disappearing due to rising seas. As we bid farewell on Thursday morning it was a very peaceful scene in the Man's House. The children had given us our marmars. The men who had been so kind to us were all sitting around quietly enjoying their typical comfortable silence. I noticed to the side the turtles covered in various big smoking leaves were being cooked so walked over to have a look and with permission take a photo. In contrast to the peace in the Man's House, the scene was cruel and medieval. After sitting all day and night upside down on the beach wounded, their flippers had been hacked off and they were being baked alive. What was left of their bloody mutilated flippers was moving back and forth. No nerve response. These poor turtles were still very much alive. Their hacked off flippers were being cooked separately as they were left to stew in their own juices as it were. At previous cooking sessions we noticed that the turtles were slaughtered, cut up and then cooked. We can only assume they were being cooked alive to prolong the time until the meat would go off so it would still be ok for Friday's ceremony. I asked one of the men if it was possible to kill them so they would not have to suffer any longer and the expected response was, This is always how we have done it. After what kindness they had extended to us I decided it was not time to stand up for turtle rights. If that is to be the fate of any turtles caught on Faraulep then Jeremiah will be getting no spearheads from me.

I took my photo but it is too terrible to publish it here.

David

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Just as the sun was setting some dolphins appeared and swam around our bow. As we are only travelling at 5knots they quickly tired of us and dissappeared. The sunsets out here away from land in these tropical waters are to be seen. The vastness of the ocean creates a stage for layers of paralel sunsets. In different corners of the unblocked horizon appear cities of clouds all unique and all so far from each other they could be in different provinces or even different countries. Some cloud formations rise up like mountain ranges, others spread out flat. As the sun sets they all capture it's orange light in their own way. Yarramundi leaves a tiny colourful wake as if to say I am here too. A few hours after sunset we got to see a similar scene in reverse as the moon rose directly behind. This time our wake is more visable and the scene is more of contrasts between light and dark instead of splashes from the sun palette.

At 1am I went to bed and Nicky took over. I slept soundly till 6, woke, checked and was pleased to see good progess overnight so settled in for a coffee and muesli with soya milk. Not to mention some Tang. I was brushing my teeth when the satphone rang. Neither of us could answer it in time. No caller ID and no voice mail. As few people have the number and it is an odd time to recieve a call I emailed all the people we have on our emergency list sending an email stating that 'we recieved a call but do not know who it is from. Our beacon has been acting up but we are ok.' About 15 mins later it rang again and it was my father asking if I was ok. When I said yes, we are safe and the boat is fine, still on course. He responded with heavy 'thank god for that.' He reported he had a call from 'US Emergency' saying they got an alert message from us. As it was not AMSA (Australian Maritime) or the Coast Guard I can only assume it was the emergency service connected to our beacon. I spoke to both my parents, reassured them we were ok and then proceeded to write another email to our emergency contacts telling them they might get a call but we are ok. What I did not know was that since recieving the call from 'US Emergency' my mother had contacted my uncle Emmett, who knows about boats, and asked him to call Search and Rescue. I therefore got a call from a friendly AMSA man asking if we were ok. Luckily I did pickup in time to explain or we might have had the Guam and or Yap coastguard out looking for us. It seems AMSA get calls from unlces who know about boats at the request from worried mothers all the time. He was chuckling at the end of the call and wishng us a pleasant journey. Worringly, he did not have the float plan I had lodged with AMSA Search and Rescue prior to our departure. I still have not tracked down entirley the source of the false alarm so that is this morning's little project. We are now less than 30miles from Yap so hope to see the island state in a couple of hours. I have increased the revs from 1,800 to 2,000 so we can arrive before the sun is too low and gets in our eyes. The port entrance is from the east so we will be sailing into the sun until we anchor.

David

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We now have 155miles to go - yes! Well over half way!! Arrival is still looking like Sunday late afternoon and no news about if we will be allowed off the boat until inspection Monday morning or if they can do inspection Sunday. I have checked our supplies and aside from that bottle of Corona we still have a couple of bottles of wine and as yet unwatched dvds if that be the case.

We hits some sqalls at midnight just as my 4 hour shift was ending. Given we don't want to be bumped around in our current condition I stayed on the helm. Winds speeds got up to 22knots a few times with lots of rain. I carefully navigated to keep our stern to the weather with the mainsail centred and engine revs way down. As the sea was flat this seemed to be the best option. We just moved gently with the sea for the time. We have had the sea anchor ready to deploy from the bow in a moments notice should the sea state get large enough to require it. Fortunately it has not been necessary yet. Coincidently we had two tankers pass by our stern while this was all happening. No ships all day and then 2 in the middle of a squall. 2 hours or so later the squalls had passed or rained themselves out or do whatever squalls do - there were none to be seen on the radar - so it was time to wake Nicky, put on a fresh set of dry dirty clothes and go to my bunk for 4 or 5 hours.

I was just at the point where I was about to doze off when bang right next to my head, then bang again further away. Two loud thuds resonated through the hull. I know the first one was on the bow and close to my head. I was horrified if the seond one had been the rudder. I sprinted up ondeck grabbing the spot light as I went and managed to catch sight of the culprit. A huge white garbage bag with god knows what inside. Nicky heard it and thought it was not a good noise. I then checked the steering - seemed ok. Ran down below to check the blige and inside the cofferdam I built around the initial tear. No water. Put my hand on varous parts of the hulls and inspected the steering below. All seemed fine. Don't know where the 2nd noise came from but if it did indeed hit the rudder it had no effect. As the debris was fairly bouyant my guess it only hit the hull.

With that I went back to my bunk and slept soundly.

I called a new contact this morning on Yap. His name is Arthor, he is a fisherman and his brother works for Wayne's business. He has negotiated a very reasonable fee with the Yap Fisheries to haul the boat out, keep her in dry dock and put her back in. He is also offerring the use of his power tools. As the head of the Fisheries will be out of town when we arrive we won't be able to pull the boat out until Wednesday. So maybe I'll really get some forced R & R as there is little I can do while the boat is still in the water. Yesterday was the first time in the entire trip I was able to do any reading. It will also give me time to replot a course back to Australia. I had hoped to visit friends in the Solomon Islands but due to our nearly 4 weeks in Faralup, another 2 weeks in Yap and this 800 mile detour I have run out of time.

The photo: We were given Frangipani Marmars (flower headbands) as farewell gifts by the children prior to departure and the photo is of our Marmars being thrown in the sea after we passed the reef as an offering to the local god of Faraleup, Uwappi. We joked with locals who are now all catholic that perhaps Uwappi is just their name for the Holy Spirit. :) They thought that was a convenient excuse to still believe in him. Though Nicky is convinced that Thomas with all his capabilities and benevolance is the reincarnation of Uwappi. I just think it is wonderful as human beings from different backgrounds we can combine our religious heritiges and not get too hung up about it all.

David

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My friend Ben Austin goes into surgery today to have a brain tumour removed. Wishing that there are no complications, all goes well and recovery is fast.

David

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Just over 120 miles covered. 266 to go.

Normally we would be complaining about a mere 3 knot wind. This weekend we could not ask for better though. There is a slight current behind us and so at 1,800 RPM we are averaging around 5 knots.

At 6, before the sun got too strong I got stuck into the anchors, chain and rope. When we were leaving they were placed rather haphazardly in the anchor well which is designed for only one anchor not 3. Some of the chain we bought in Saipan had a rusty muck over it so sorting it all was a messy job. When finished we stopped the boat, put a lifeline out the back and went for a swim to wash off and cool off.

I dove below the boat to check the rudder and noticed some of the FRP we had put on the outside of the repair had come off and one of the two seezing wires had also snapped. I am not too worried. The FRP was to try and prevent the leak temporarily while I worked on the inside. The second seezing wire was a secondary thought too. Importantly we have had less than one cup of water leak in since leaving 24 hours ago.

We have just got the weather forecast thanks to Wayne on Guam. What a trooper. Still looks great through to Tuesday but at this speed we should be pulling in Sunday. As immigration is closed Sunday the Yap Visitors Centre told us we would probably have to anchor and wait till Monday morning so Ifve re-stocked the fridge for Sunday evening. We found a bottle of corona and will share it.

Photo above of our escort party farewelling us.

David

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