November 26

This morning finds us still motoring with no wind to speak of. Perhaps there is 5k from the SSE, right up our tail. The really fun thing about that is it gives us a nice taste of diesel exhaust as the breeze blows the smoke right into the cockpit. At 7am the sky is partly cloudy with about 50% cloud cover and several squalls on the radar. We have about 24 miles to reach the Eastern tip of Majuro.

It is now 10am and we are passing through a lovely garbage slick. Up until now the water has been the most incredible deep, clear blue. The garbage certainly comes from Majuro, most of these islands have no real garbage solution and the people traditionally just throw everything in the ocean. Although plastic is part of their lives they have yet to learn that it must be disposed of properly. Anyway, there is a rain squall right in front of us and the wind is zero with 5k of apparent wind on the nose (generated by the boat's movement forward). We are now 6.5nm from the tip of Majuro and we have about 25gallons of fuel left. We have had to increase the throttle to maintain our speed of 5k so there must be an adverse current affecting us. We have about 30 miles to go after that to reach the anchorage at DUD, the main town and capital of Majuro. If we can hold this pace we will drop the hook at about 5pm. Estimating our consumption at about 1.5gph at the higher throttle setting we are at now should see us with about 14 gallons left when we arrive. Very, very close. Hopefully when we turn the corner of Majuro and head West along the Northern side of the atoll we can reduce throttle and still maintain our speed. Of course, we might get some wind but I doubt it.

At 12:30pm we are now 8.5 miles from the pass into the lagoon. We are motoring (with the mainsail up) at about 5.5k and we are looking ok on fuel. We have at least 23 gallons remaining. After we enter the lagoon it is only 10 more miles to the anchorage so we have a total of 18.5 miles left to run or about 3 and a half hours. Skies are mostly clear and the wind is about 3k from the SW. There is a rolling swell coming in from the North or NE and it is breaking heavily on the atoll (Hawaii Five-O style). We are running West along the North coast of the atoll about a mile offshore.

The water is very clear and of course we have been dragging various lures since just before daybreak but have not had a nibble. We did get a tree stuck to our hull which we freed about an hour ago. It was about 12ft long and as thick as my arm (about 6-8inches) and was broken in half. It was wedged just in front of the prop aperture aft of the keel in such a way that it stayed put! We had to stop the boat and Kate climbed down onto the self steering gear and pushed it forward with her foot while I did the same with the boathook on the other side. Then we reversed and it slid out on the starboard side. Amazing that it managed to become wedged in there at all, but we had a fairly easy time freeing it.

We anchored off the town at about 4:30pm and quickly put the dinghy in the water. Port Control advised us that Customs and Immigration would wait for us on the pier as they were in the process of clearing out a ship. I rushed over there with our papers and within 10 minutes we were finished, our passports stamped and our entry official. Then they advised me of the $150 "overtime" fee. It was 5:15pm. Ka- Ching! Damn.