Over Christmas weekend....

We worked on Christmas (Friday the 25th here ..a Frisbee night).  It was just a half of a day.  At 11am, I went down to the main office (just another shipping container turned into an office) and offered to help set up for the party San Juan was putting on at 2pm, for all the Marshallese and Ex Pat workers.  I had enough beer in the truck to cover the bed of the pickup and then some.  That was my help, I put the beer on ice.  The party was ok, the food was ok, the thought was very nice.  I didn't stay long, cause I was dog sitting and it was a Frisbee night.  I missed the man camp dinner, regrettably.  The menu was steak, lobster, crab....and I can't remember the fillers, but I'm told it was incredible.  Those ladies and gentlemen know how to cook.  My phone has an app called "map my run", and I used it this weekend.  Below are the "screenshots" of some of the activities.  I should have worn it while walking the dog I was house sitting, I didn't wear it while surfing because the phone would have gotten wet, even though its in a waterproof case.  The same with Kiteboarding.  I also didn't wear it for the last game of Frisbee tonight (Monday the 28th)....



This is Friday night Frisbee, it doesn't include the mile bike ride there, then to the dogsitting deal...walking the dog everywhere, and then the bike ride back to the dogs house.....



Ultimate Frisbee on kwaj...

This one is out of order...but its Saturday the 25th, sailing a sunfish with Jim (in another sunfish) in the lagoon
 

I can't seem to get these in order.  This one is after we got back from Kiteboarding from 9 am to 2:30 pm on the 27th.  I went surfing at  5pm which would be that lower left point.  The line on the far left is where I went to the lab to get my board, then came back to surf.  I didn't wear my phone surfing, cause it would have never survived, but after surfing I went in town to Jobe and Ambers and had a few beers....then we got up and met at the marina at 9:30 on the 28th to go kiteboarding again...
 



ultimate Frisbee on kwaj Friday night...






 

This would be Sunday morning with Jobe, Amber and Kristen going kiteboarding.  I had to have put 8 miles on the kiteboard that day, zipping back and forth around that north spot where we parked the boat.  I would have worn the phone, but it has the music on it for the Bluetooth speaker, plus I might have trashed it kiteboarding....


 

This would be the day of the 28th, very similar picture to the 8.82 mile one that went north into the lagoon...but it doesn't include the all the kiteboarding...or the Monday night Frisbee game....

December 24th 2015

Thursday, the 24th of December.  I get to dogsit/housesit for a few days in town!  It will be nice to sit on a couch, with my new buddy Duke!

I've found some pics on my phone....because the supposed waterproof camera isn't waterproof, even after they fixed it once...

 

This is the "map my run"version of our little sailing trip last Monday.  I guess I didn't start it until halfway out in the lagoon

This is my drunken sailin buddy for the Sunfish from the Yachtclub.  So far we have not tried to pirate any ships.

This the MacGregor 36 catamaran that I wanted to buy.  Its nice, but I may get more use out of the Nacra 17 racing cat that I am now trying to buy...for much less money

That is Ken and Lynda who bought the boat and were nice enough to tak me out.  Great people, very easy to be around. 

So they dress up the boats with lights and stuff then sail them in a line past onlookers at the beach, too bad my Night pics didn't turn out.  I hear they do this alot in ports around the country.

Someone's on one of the small boat marina boats and has it decked out.  Those are the rental boats we can rent for $15 an hour plus gas.

12-18-15....Thursday....

Took the sunfish out with Sherri tonight.  We've been doing this for about 6 weeks now.  I've heard she loves it as much as I do.  I bought one of those blue tooth connected speakers, downloaded a bunch of music, and play it while we sail around the south end of the lagoon.  We bring too much beer.  She holds on to the rudder and steers the little boat and I hold on to the sail.  Usually, I yell at her a lot cause she gets distracted and steers the wrong way.  That wouldn't be a problem on a power boat, but this one has a boom that can swing violently around.  It's aluminum alloy.  Its hard.  It can easily knock a person out.  Last week I calmly told her there was going to be some aluminum flying, cause she got distracted.  It swung around like a bullet, and she didn't even duck.  I did, but apparently, her being a bit shorter, saved her from getting a little egg on her head.

Tonight, however, was a nice low wind relaxing sail...no one died.

Dec 14th, 2015

A few videos from the past two weekends....it's been fun....but then again...every weekend is fun

December 8th, the real one

So I posted a picture of our group who I play volleyball with.  There's a good story behind most of them there.  I'll go from top left.  Joanna, she's our coach and cheerleader.  A great girl, which there aren't too many of on this island.  That's Steve sitting next to her, who is an incredible skateboarder I'm told, a great athlete, spearfisherman, surfer,  and an all around great guy.  Karen is next sitting behind her husband Dan.  Dan made their wedding rings out of something I can't recall, but he said it was one of the rarest gems on earth.  They are both leaving to sail around the world for at least 5 years.  Super easy to be around.  Sitting next to Karen is Ray.  Jermemy (eating the cookie) is a great guy too, even though I don't know him too well.  After Dan, is Cory.  He's a SeaBee, some sorta chief or something.  Completely great guy.  He is a great actor too, at Frisbee on several occasions he "tries" very convincingly to get the Frisbee from less skilled players, only to let them save face.  Don, at the bottom left there is near my age, but a much better guy, and a great sportsman, not to mention his athleticism.  Mariel, has improved in all the sports she plays out here tremendously.  She has this thing about taking pictures of herself, but is one of the nicest girls on the island.  Then there is Lee, who is now home, and that guy wearing some woman's glasses

The group photo in question


 

December 8th? 2015

I started typing in "Oct...".  This place has me forgetting time.  I spent the day on Bigej today, or rather the exposed low tide sandbar at the north end of Bigej (pronounced just like Fiji, except ...yea there is a "B" instead of an "F").  The "trade" winds have returned to the Marshalls, which just means it's blowing east again.  We had a two month period of pending doom and gloom with strong west winds, which is very abnormal for this place.  Two sailboats lost their lives, the beach at Camp Hamilton (about a half mile from my shoebox) got sucked away.  Four feet of sand was just pulled away in two months and there was this little cliff of sand left held together by the coconut tree roots there.  That little beach  (about a hundred yards long) is next to the Yacht club and where the sunfish I love so much are launched.  So with that 4 foot drop off it made it a challenge to get even the 100 pound sunfish in the water.  So the easterlies have returned and brought back at least half of the beach/sand to Camp Hamilton.  All those shifting winds in the past four months also built the huge sandbar on the north end of Bigej.  Bigej is an island about 6 miles north of Kwaj, but still on the same Atoll.  Most people don't get up there.  Hell, most people around here don't seem to do anything.  Fortunately, I've found ones who love doing my kinda activities.

Kiteboarding.  This place, this island, is not at all conducive to learning to kiteboard.  It's not really even a great place to kiteboard.  The rules issued on the behalf of safety, the direction of the wind, the amount of areas to "bail out" in, the depth of the water, ......all of it makes it tough to learn and to enjoy.  So we went to a better place.

We (Joe, Amber, Jobe, Jen and I) left the harbor just before 8am this morning and headed up the atoll in a slight headwind, which meant a bumpy ride in a Zodiac.  Joe and I were in one (his wife Kristen opted out, cause she's not quite sold on kiteboarding.....but she can surf like a pro) boat and the other 3 on another similar boat.  We took our beatings on the zodiac for 5 miles then go to Bigej pass.  The pass is a quarter mile long opening on the east reef of the atoll that basically lets whatever is happening in the ocean for a thousand miles, into the lagoon.  So strong east winds pushing for a thousand miles of open ocean created some pretty nice swells thru the pass.  I've not been in rough seas in the ocean, I can only imagine.  I've made this trip before using our 27 foot boat in somewhat calm seas with large swells coming thru that pass.  Its' just incredible, and humbling at  the same time.  One moment you are up high and you can see all the land possible, then you dip. It changes.  This huge blue liquid deal just changes, and the next moment you cannot see a thing except sky and deep blue water that is  higher than is comfortable for a guy from Ohio (fortunate enough) driving a boat in an ocean he has no business driving in. 

So we're basically in an inner tube today with a 40hp engine, doing the same thing I was feeling sketchy about in a boat meant for the ocean with twin 140 hp engines.  Of course the good thing about inner tubes is that they don't sink.  The pass was really choppy (read.....it was a bit of a beating), the swells weren't as ominous as they could be, and have been.  So it worked out  and we got there.  The north end of Bigej.  I set up first, cause, well , I'm a bit hyper, but then got nervous about being first, cause this place has done nothing to make me confident in my kiteboarding skills....however...

It was completely perfect.  I made a video,  there isn't much I could edit from it and keep people from having a seizure or something.  Its pretty bad, but it's a place to start.  We returned to Kwaj around 4pm.  There wasn't much time between the 8am arrival and our 3pm departure that we weren't tearing it up out there.  I may be sore tomorrow.  We are going again of course.

Yes the whole point was to go kiteboarding up here.  It was completely perfect.  I'd be we all spent at least 5 hours on a small board, ripping up and down this shoreline................

This is as we pulled away.  Two Marshallese guys, sound asleep on their beach.

I'm fairly certain high tide will wake them up...

sooo beautiful, maybe this pic doesn't quite explain it.  its one of those deals where you ....had to be there



We came back  on Monday.  It was painful getting out of bed, but completely worth it

It is completely amazing what these kites can do.

I was actually practicing to jump the boats that were sitting there.....but I thought better of it.  Maybe I am growing up
 

The main island of Bigej, completely lush and full of coconut trees starts a little to the right and goes on for much longer than the sand bar pictured here

we had about 6 kiters up there that day.  great people.  I wanted so bad to jump over those boats...

December 1, 2015

I wish there was more time.  We played volleyball tonight.  Indoor league deal, where you know everyone.  It was Lee's last night on the island.  There is something about coming here the first time and the memory of who was on the plane with you, even though you had no clue who they were then.  Lee was on that plane with me January 6th of 2015.  Slightly smaller, lightweight, Phillipino American.  Completely cool.  He's an incredible athlete that I could not keep coming back to Frisbee, but couldn't stop him from volley ball.  I would guess his weight around 140lbs, and height around 5'9", but he could jump.  Not only could he jump, but during volleyball games at the beach, he would jump way too early, but he kind of just floated up there all Matrix like until the ball finally came down to him where he would spike the shit out of it.  Most of his spikes hit the net, but shit it was cool.  Here are some pics.

Yea, so that's Lee that I'm pointing at.  Those glasses I had just found sitting there, not sure why I put them on, but I left them there, for the woman who owned them to .....find them

This is from a few weekends ago.  Joe spearfished this 53 lb dogtoothed tuna without any shark bites out of it...

it was a big damn fish......I have yet to be invited for a cookout.  However, I did have the best meal I've ever had in my life at the ADFADSFAF   Sarah and Ted had me over for their Indian "Thanksgiving".  All Indian food.  I cannot tell you how great it was.