Tuesday May 24th, 2011
18:50 LTY time (UTC +12) = 06:50 UTC
Location: anchored off Port Rino on NW corner of Mili atoll
Position: 06 13.181 N, 171 48.003 E (cut & past this into Google Earth to
see on map)
Wind: 12-18 knots ENE
Seas: 0.5m @ 3 seconds out of SE
Air temp: 90.5F 32.5 C
Sea temp: 91.8 F 33.2 C
Humidity: 74%
Barometer: 1012mm

MAJURO to MARVELLOUS MILI

We are making a nice transition into being out sailing and are still
working our way up to the routine of daily postings so I’ve been a bit delinquent in getting to these updates and you're getting several days
rolled into one with this one. Once we get into the longer passages we
will get into the rhythm of posting updates each evening or so as we go. Our first two days three days have been great and all is very well on the
Good Ship Learnativity. Here is the quick overview of the past few days for you.

DAY #1: FIRST NIGHT SAIL - MONDAY May 23rd, 2011
As per the first LTY Update we left Majuro on Monday afternoon and had a very nice easy sail around the Western end of the atoll as we made the U turn around it and headed SE towards the small atoll of Mili. This is a sail of about 120nm so about 18 hours for us to complete and would give us
a good start with a bit of everything sailing wise; some day sailing, some
night sailing, all points of sail, anchoring, etc. as this woudl be
Linda's first experience with many of those as well as the first time
Learnativity has been back out to sea since the middle of October. We
left mid-afternoon so as to time our arrival in Mili to be about 10am when
there is good light for the visual navigation we need to do going through
passes and inside atolls due to all the uncharted smaller coral heads and
other obstructions. Our departure from Majuro couldn't have been better as it was mostly blue skies, sunny and about 15 knots of wind. As we
cleared the NW pass out of Majuro and got into open ocean a pod of over 30
bottlenose dolphins came to wish us well and guided us out to the far NW corner of the atoll. They are always such a treat to see and you can
almost hear them laughing and giggling as they play the game of who can
come closest to the bow of the boat without hitting it. Linda must have stayed up at the bow leaning over the pulpit (bow railing) for half an
hour just mesmerized as she had a ring side seat to the dolphins swimming
just inches below the surface of our bow wave often in groups of 3 to 5
swimming fin to fin beside each other.

We continued down the west coast of the atoll as the sun set and we
started our first night sail together with the lights in the few houses
ashore coming on and the stars all popping out above us as we ate a
delicious meal up in the cockpit of spicy Chinese salad that Linda had
made up before leaving along with some left over oven roasted potatoes and
pork chops. All very idyllic as we sailed along under the starry starry night. Once clear of the SW corner of Majuro atoll we were out of the
lee of Majuro and into open sea and more wind and set a course SE for Mili
and had a great night sail all the way there.

DAY #2: INTO MILI ATOLL - May 24, 2011
The wind kept creeping southward and so we had it mostly on the nose for the majority of the sail and had to keep bearing off a bit to the south as
we were sailing right on the edge of what we can sail upwind which is
about 35-40 degrees off the wind. As we got closer to Mili we were too
far west to make it under sail and so for the last few hours we had to use
the motor to help get us the last bit East into the pass on the NW corner
of Mili. The pass is small but plenty big enough and we made it through about 10am just as planned to give us some good light for the visual
navigation you need to do inside the atolls as you watch for coral heads (bommies).

Once inside the atoll we sailed down to the NW corner to the small village
of Mili where the Mayor lives to show him our inter Marshall Island
sailing papers and to ask permission to stay. However just as we were
about to set the anchor I smelled something not right coming out of the
engine room and had to shut down the engine. Fortunately we had just
arrived at a good anchoring depth and were able to get the anchor down and
set so we were secure in the growing wind and waves. As we were setting the anchor however the electric windlass that pulls our very large (75kg)
anchor and chain up suddenly stopped working. Not a problem for setting the anchor but this meant we weren't going anywhere until we fixed the
windlass as taking it up by hand is rather difficult. All part of the
sailing life and owning a boat and so I headed down into the engine room to find out what the odd smell was and get our engine running again as
this is one of our most important safety assets should real troubles
emerge with bad weather and such. Fortunately it didn’t take long to find
that as I suspected the problem was that the rubber impellor pump on the sea water pump for our wet exhaust system on the main engine had
disintegrated and needed to be replaced. This is something I've done many
times in the past and can almost do in my sleep now and it only took about
an hour to have the engine back up and running and I only lost a few
pounds down in the sauna of an engine room in the process! Turning to
the windlass problem it was blowing the high amperage circuit breaker each
time we turned it on and after some testing it turned out to be a rather nasty problem as the main ground cable on the windlass motor was shorting
out and arcing so much it was melting some of the outer motor case. Not good! The windlass is mounted up at the very front of the bow of course where it can pull in the anchor chain right off the bow roller and so the
electric motor is located right in the very upper peak of the bow inside the chain locker and is a bit of a chore to get myself into to remove the
motor, but once wedged into position I was able to get the motor out in
about 20 minutes and get it out in the open to figure out the problem and
a solution. Initially it appeared to be a simple problem in that the nut
which tightens the ground cable lug to motor had corroded away and so the
cable had come lose and was arcing to adjacent spots as the high amperage
tried to flow through to run the windlass. However after disassembling
some of the motor it turned out that the ground whole terminal post that comes up through the steel outer motor casing had broken away all the
insulation around it. A bit trickier to repair but in the end I was able
to cut some new threads on the lower part of the terminal post and then
use some 5 minute epoxy and some fibre washers as I held the terminal in the centre and let the epoxy harden and then thread on a new nut against the fibre washers to hold it all in place. That along with some silicone
to make the steel end cap that had been worn away by the arcing all
waterproof again and it was ready to be replaced and tested. All worked out as planned and we had a fully working motor and windlass again!

However in the several hours this all took the weather had deteriorated
with winds up over 35 knots and the wind waves and swell were now
approaching 2 meters. We were in the SW corner of the atoll and the swell
and wind was coming from the NE so we were in the worst spot for the
build-up of both and it wasn’t too safe to be launching the dingy and
going ashore so we tried to raise the mayor on the VHF radio and let them
know were not going to be able to look after our clearance here and were going to head up to the north side to find a better anchorage. It was
about 4pm by the time we got the anchor up and were underway and we
initially tried to sail diagonally across to the NE corner but with the
opposing wind and waves our speed, even motoring was such that it would
have been after sundown that we got there so we headed for a more
protected spot just inside the NW pass where we entered and were able to find a perfect spot to anchor that had a good size coral reef that we
could put between us and the swell and made for a very comfortable
anchorage. Some of the local men rowed out to welcome us and we were able
to show them our papers and get their permission to stay. The wind and
waves were still too much for us to go ashore in the dingy to trade with them but were able to give them some of the goods we have been collecting
to distribute to the people in these outer islands such as clothes,
blankets and reading materials and we had a short but good visit with
them.
After a few quick squalls passed over the sun was back out in perfect time
for us to enjoy an evening meal in the cockpit as the sun went down and we
dined on fresh Wahoo (tuna) that Linda caught while out fishing with some
cruising friends on the outer reefs of Majuro last week. After a quick
sear on our BBQ we were soon enjoying this delicious fish with tasty spicy
risotto and more of Linda’s great salads as the stars came out and we
rocked gently in the waves.

For those who are wondering and as you might gather by now Linda is taking
to this new sailing life style and life at sea quite literally like a fish
to water. Like myself she is one of the rare people who don’t seem to be
affected by the motion on board and while we have not experienced any
truly bad weather yet, we have had pretty much all the types of motion and
seas in the past few days on all points of sail and Linda has yet to feel
the need for any sea sick medicines. We have lots on board should they be
needed but for now some fresh ginger is at hand for a quick nibble if
feeling a bit queasy and so far that’s only been used once or twice. I
still marvel at finding not only my soul mate but one who has such a great
attitude about life overall and who has taken to this entire life style
and life onboard and at sea so completely and so quickly. We both feel
that we have won the lottery of life, love and learning and look forward to sharing it all with you as we go. Thanks for joining us!

Linda, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog