Sailing Micronesia 2018: February 26, 2018

February 26, 2018

I wake up to Pete calling ‘Land ho!” as he sees Kosrae in the distance. After the long night and little sleep, I’m fine with not seeing land for a bit in exchange for a few minutes of sleep.

Finally, I get up and Pete is wound tight as a top ready for someone to pull the string to spin and keep spinning until it drops. He’s that way for the rest of the day until we are anchored and it’s difficult for me to follow his train of thought and know what he wants me to do as he zips from this place to that, fixing and adjusting everything, even cleaning with a frenzy. I’m getting frustrated and try to quell these feelings. I don’t know what to do, so I sit down, read and wait until he asks me to take pictures which I’m glad to do.

Slowly, we approach land and look for the opening to Lelu Harbor. It is a beautiful clear day with calm winds and smooth sailing as we approach land. It seems calmer near to land and I definitely like that.

We make our way through the channel into murky mangrove waters until we come to the place we’ve read about from other yachties – before the church by a large warehouse looking building. After contemplation as to if it’s the right spot or not, we anchor Miss Kiss and Pete tries to radio the governing entities that we’ve arrived and would like to check in. He tries over and over again and finally, we decide to go to shore and see if we can call from the Ace hardware store – which is the warehouse by where we are anchored – we hope.

Sailing into a port is very much different than flying to another country. I was in Pohnpei in November and we went through immigration, had one form to fill out, our passports stamped and we were on our way to a wonderful ladies’ weekend. With sailing vessels, you have to get permission weeks ahead of time, have permission in the form of returned acceptance of your paperwork and then upon arrival check in with immigration, customs, quarantine/health and the port authority.

The ladies at Ace were very helpful and called the officials to let them know we’d like to check in. We’re really not supposed to wander around or explore until the paperwork is done and we’re cleared. The ladies tell us someone will be here about 2:40, so we decide to wait. A man shows up and introduces himself as Hamilson. He is a local tour guide and after talking with him a bit, he drives us around to show us a few things and for a stop to get beer – he buys two for himself. He drops us back at Ace and soon Almeda, the owner’s wife, calls the authorities again and tells us that there are planes coming in tonight, so the officials will be at the airport, but will be here at 8 in the morning. We head over to the grocery and buy cheese, a couple potatoes and are sad that the only fresh veggies are again, like Majuro in dry times, basically cabbage. So, we go back to the boat and I fix dinner while Pete sleeps with his head on the table. It was a great dinner, homemade fries and panko breaded wahoo. I had hoped to shower, but too exhausted to even bother to heat up water, so I cleaned up from dinner, leaving Pete’s on the table, read for a bit and made my way to bed.