March 5, 2018 - Kosrae; Laundry and Such

March 5, 2018

I wake up not feeling very great today and already start sweating. Just stripping the bed and getting the laundry together for a much needed, early morning trip to the laundromat was about enough for me.  My ears had been bothering me for a few days and with other symptoms have tried to put aside my worries that the Bell’s Palsy from this summer might be coming back, but they stayed in my brain and only seemed to increase. I know, according to the acupuncturist, that wind is not good, especially on your neck and ears, but it is often so hot when we’re not sailing, we have fans going to help cool us. I still have my wax earplugs and use them as needed and sleeping in the stateroom there is always a fan on, but my ears and neck are covered with a light cloth.  I’ve been doing everything right and have not had much recent close contact with people. It just needs to go away.

We load up four loads of laundry, soap and bleach into the dingy and decide to head for the dock closer to the laundromat so we won’t have to carry it so far. But, there’s not really a good place and certainly no steps. Right behind the laundromat are the remains of what might once have been steps, so we decide to go there and try not to slip on the algae on the cement as I climb out first for Pete to hand the loads to me.  There is nice remaining rebar to tether the dingy and we haul our loads the rest of the way up the incline and then into the laundromat.

We’ve tried saving our quarters, but find we have only enough for two loads, which for the moment is fine as there are only two machines open. We load up one with towels as I opted to use the dryers because I don’t think anything is ever completely dry here with hanging it out on a line – at least not so far – and do not want moldy clothes – the what I call ‘river funk’ smell my swim clothes sometimes get is more than enough to stuff them in the dirty clothes and not wear them again. 

I head over to Ace to ask about quarters and they send me to the grocery, where I’m told to go to the house directly across from the laundromat as the little shop at the laundry closed between hauling our clothes in and sorting for the first two loads. On my way back, I’m trying to decide which house is directly across from the laundry and go back in to talk to Pete, but instead ask the woman who has just arrived. She asks how many quarters I need and ask for $10 worth. After she says she has plenty, I get $20 in quarters and profusely thank her for her kindness. She tells me it’s okay if I want to count them and I’m dumbfounded, but tell her it’s okay, I trust her. Two more machines open up and we drop in our laundry. Soon the other two loads are ready for the dryer, so we haul them over and pay $4 for each one.

I walk across to the veggie stand to look at what’s available and tell her I’ll be back when our clothes are nearly done and she smiles her lovely smile and nods. Back at the laundry, I get another text about the internet service. Our plan expired today at 9:09am and when I tried to renew it beforehand, the money went to the cell phone service instead. So, we’ve been trying to get a taxi to Tofol as no one in Lelu has refill cards, but they were all busy. The kind gentleman who helped us last week is trying again and his text explains that we have to wait for it to expire before we can renew. Now we know. Somehow in the process of all this, finally another text arrives from the national internet service saying that our data plan is renewed until the 10^th. $10 gets you unlimited data for 5 days, the monthly plan is $50 with unlimited cell and text, but only 5Gs of data which won’t work for me. I still can’t seem to connect to the internet and decide to give it up until later because I’m feeling so crummy.

The dryers finish and we fold and pack those clothes and when it comes time to dry the other two loads, one dryer isn’t working. I take a chance and open the one already started to throw in a few extra things and don’t lose the quarters. Obviously, I’ve not much experience in using a laundromat. Pete opts to just hang his clothes on the line when we get back to the boat and I’m thinking, well good luck there.

I head back to the grocery for some panko crumbs as we’re completely out, more garbage bags for laundry, three ‘played out’ huge carrots and a couple extra rolls of TP. Then again to the veggie stand where I score three small bunches of lettuce, 10 tiny eggplants and a pumpkin. We still have a nice looking watermelon from the last trip and we are ‘banana-ed’ out from Emidj.

Finally, $20 later and we have clean laundry, most of which are dried and more than once am longing for the green laundromat by K &K in Majuro that would have done all four loads, washed, dried and folded – even underwear for just four more dollars. We haul it all back in the dingy, down the hill this time and then back onto the boat. I haul mine into the stateroom and leave it there. Still sweating profusely, I sit down in front of a fan and shortly after go back to the stateroom, shove the clothes aside and lay down on the unsheeted air mattress and soon fall asleep for a few hours.

Waking up still feeling crummy and not much interested in dinner, I just sit for a while trying to get enough energy to put clothes away and make the bed. Yes, finally finished as I sort my clothes into coveted IKEA oversized ziplocks to prevent mold and put them on the stateroom shelf, then struggle to put on the mattress cover and sheets in such tight quarters, climbing up and down and trying to get the corners on in the back so they won’t shoot right back at me when I do the front ones.  I’m again pouring in sweat and sit down for a bit while Pete warms the kettle and then I slide into the cloudy mangrove water to cool off my core temp before a nice lukewarm shower and then back to sleep, hoping tomorrow I will feel better.

Here's a couple of interesting websites:

The first is a website on visiting Micronesia, the webpage is photos of Kosrae, but the rest is interesting as well: http://www.visit-micronesia.fm/state/k_photo.html

The second sight is created by my friend Karen Earnshaw. It is the definitive site on the Marshall Islands and well worth a look: http://www.infomarshallislands.com/