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.
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| 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................ |
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| This is as we pulled away. Two Marshallese guys, sound asleep on their beach. |
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| I'm fairly certain high tide will wake them up... |
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| sooo beautiful, maybe this pic doesn't quite explain it. its one of those deals where you ....had to be there |
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| We came back on Monday. It was painful getting out of bed, but completely worth it |
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| It is completely amazing what these kites can do. |
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I was actually practicing to jump the boats that were sitting there.....but I thought better of it. Maybe I am growing up
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| 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 |
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| we had about 6 kiters up there that day. great people. I wanted so bad to jump over those boats... |
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