Island Life

Thank you to everyone who has been following our adventure and have been leaving comments or sending email to us. We appreciate hearing from everyone and we will be working on catching up on our emails over the next few days.

 

We worked to get our boat speed up the last day so that we could make it to Kwaj before dark. As I said earlier the weather was cooperating, and when we sailed into the lee of the atoll, it was nice and flat for the first time in a long while. However, we had a bit more sailing to do. Because tradewinds always blow from the NE the pass (on the southwest) always has current coming out. We motored slowly into the pass against the wind and tide, looking for the buoys that mark the channel. We ended up bashing to weather almost all the way to the dock, the atoll is so large that the wind waves build up inside the lagoon. We arrived wet and salty, instead of the planned showered with clean clothes. We were met at the dock by our sponsors and the Harbor Control and Kwaj Police. They did a quick check with the K9 unit (while the kitties were hiding in the head), then took us to Security Control to get checked into the island. After that we did a quick tour of the island, and had dinner. We then were shown our room, and headed back to the boat to grab some clean clothes so that we could shower and pass out.

 

Oh, and I was expected to meet my sponsor for breakfast at 7am the next morning!

The last few days have been hectic. I have been getting set up for my new job, and running around to the various departments filling out forms. Cindy has been back on the job hunt and trying to get the boat cleaned up a bit and keep the cats happy. We are looking forward to the weekend so that we have a chance to catch our breath.

 

So far we are liking Kwajalein. This is a pretty small community and everyone has been very friendly. We have a great view of the ocean from our room. The view is to windward shore, of course the winds have been blowing salt spray on the window making the view a bit obscured! The weather has been pretty warm but the constant wind makes it pleasant. More later…

Island Life

Thank you to everyone who has been following our adventure and have been leaving comments or sending email to us. We appreciate hearing from everyone and we will be working on catching up on our emails over the next few days.

 

We worked to get our boat speed up the last day so that we could make it to Kwaj before dark. As I said earlier the weather was cooperating, and when we sailed into the lee of the atoll, it was nice and flat for the first time in a long while. However, we had a bit more sailing to do. Because tradewinds always blow from the NE the pass (on the southwest) always has current coming out. We motored slowly into the pass against the wind and tide, looking for the buoys that mark the channel. We ended up bashing to weather almost all the way to the dock, the atoll is so large that the wind waves build up inside the lagoon. We arrived wet and salty, instead of the planned showered with clean clothes. We were met at the dock by our sponsors and the Harbor Control and Kwaj Police. They did a quick check with the K9 unit (while the kitties were hiding in the head), then took us to Security Control to get checked into the island. After that we did a quick tour of the island, and had dinner. We then were shown our room, and headed back to the boat to grab some clean clothes so that we could shower and pass out.

 

Oh, and I was expected to meet my sponsor for breakfast at 7am the next morning!

The last few days have been hectic. I have been getting set up for my new job, and running around to the various departments filling out forms. Cindy has been back on the job hunt and trying to get the boat cleaned up a bit and keep the cats happy. We are looking forward to the weekend so that we have a chance to catch our breath.

 

So far we are liking Kwajalein. This is a pretty small community and everyone has been very friendly. We have a great view of the ocean from our room. The view is to windward shore, of course the winds have been blowing salt spray on the window making the view a bit obscured! The weather has been pretty warm but the constant wind makes it pleasant. More later…

Landfall!!!!

Masquerade arrived in Kwajalein on the afternoon of the 15th (14th west coast).
We were met by our sponsors and were welcomed and checked into the base. We sailed 5504 miles according to the GPS.
More of an update later.

Land Ho!!

Yesterday afternoon we sighted our first Marshall Island! It was Erikub Atoll, we passed to the south of it and continued on towards Kwajalein. We should be arriving at Kwaj this afternoon. We put up extra sail yesterday and last night to gain some speed so that we could make it in before dark. The weather cooperated with us and gave us smaller seas and no squalls overnight. We need to maintain good boat speed but should be good to make it to the dock before sunset.

Looking forward to making our landfall, stretching our legs and seeing other people for the first time since the end of January.

In the home stretch

We are now just about 200 miles from Kwajalein. If we try and hurry and make exceptionally good time we might arrive the afternoon of the 15th, but will most likely have to wait till daylight and come in early on the 16th. We would like to avoid another evening at sea, but we will just have to wait and see what happens. We are definitely looking forward to making landfall (and a nice long shower).
The seas are starting to mellow out some and we are not rocking as much. We sail along for a little while pretty smooth, then all of a sudden we get some waves from the beam. This causes the boat to roll side to side, far enough that we get water on the decks, and anything not secured goes flying across the boat. It will be interesting to see if the seas are smaller once we get into the island chain.

90 miles to tomorrow

Masquerade should be crossing the international dateline later today, at which point it will become tomorrow. This will be a bit weird when communicating with people back in the US and Mexico, when we are a day off.

According to sailing tradition when a sailor crosses the equator they graduated from a Polywog to a Shellback. There is often a little ceremony to mark the occasion and a toast to Neptune. Is there an equivalent for crossing the dateline? Do we get a new title? Are we missing a ceremony? I guess we did not do our research before we left.

More lumpy seas that are are rolling us quite a bit. Our course is Dead Down Wind so that makes the rolling worse. We may have to sail a longer course so that the ride is more bearable. About 830 miles to go.

Getting back into a routine

We are sailing again and trying to get used to our watch schedule again. We had a few rough days after leaving Johnston atoll, the waves were still large and confused. The exit channel leaving was a bit more exciting than we like as the wind and waves were making it a wet and bouncy ride. It would have been easier if we had waited another day.

Johnston Atoll was interesting, but with boat jobs and the bad weather we did not get too explore too much. It was fun to make landfall at a deserted island. The island appearing on the horizon and slowly growing details. Watching the water change colors from the deep offshore blue to the lighter blues and greens of sand and coral, with patches of brown coral heads was beautiful. The island was full of birds, every tree and bush had a bird nest in or under it. The de-commissioned base could have been a set for the "Lost" TV show.

Less than 1200 miles to go.

Getting underway again

We are planning on leaving Johnston Atoll today. We had to wait till some bad weather passed through. A front and a shear line sat on top of us for several days. We had 45k of winds and the weather forecast talked of 22 foot waves. We decided to wait. We could see large waves breaking on the reef around large portions of the atoll.
We have 1400 miles to go, this should take us about 11 days. Hopefully we have good weather.