There’s more than one reason we like it here

How do you to Carnegie Hall? Midnight On The Bay

There’s more than one reason we like it here

The beach we anchor off here at Eneko.

by Christine Kling

This past Saturday, the local Mieco Beach Yacht Club had a swap meet so the cruisers here could unload some of the stuff they’ve been carrying around. We wanted to sell off some more of the gear Wayne and JJ had salvaged off Ocean Echo 1 so we could send a little money off to JJ. He is the Canadian who shipwrecked here on Majuro atoll back in November and he is trying to put his life back together back in Vancouver. So, on Thursday we let go of our mooring and motored the 6-8 miles back to town.

This time we had spent two weeks at Eneko without returning to town. There is no place to disclose of garbage at Eneko, so we arrived with the dinghy looking a bit like a garbage scow. Even though we try to dispose of all boxes and packaging we can, we still can accumulate a startling amount of trash in a couple of weeks. So our first stop ashore was the dumpster.

Then it was off to the Post Office to pick up a couple of packages. Because Majuro used to be an American territory, when they went independent they arranged to maintain an affiliation with the USA. That means there is an American Post Office here and this place a US zip code as well as a state code. You know those Priority Mail boxes that say, “If it fits, it ships?” Well, it costs the same to send one here as it would to send one from Florida to California. And the currency here is the US dollar, too. These are just a few of the many appealing reasons cruisers like to spend the cyclone season here.

newspaper After the PO, we took a taxi to the K&K supermarket where we bought groceries for the next couple of weeks. Sometimes, if the weekly supply ship has been delayed the produce and dairy sections are very thin, but on the whole the food shopping here is very good. We live well. And by taking advantage of sales, we can eat well for not much more than one would pay stateside. They don’t have all the rules here against selling food that passed the expiration date. So the half gallon of Florida Natural Orange Juice that was $6.79 last week is on sale for $3.99 this week. This shot of the Payless ad in the local Marshall Islands Journal gives a pretty good idea of the price of food here.

Friday night my fella took me out to dinner for Chinese food at Wan Hi Shein. That’s another of the enjoyable aspects of our visit to the big city. Cook’s night off!

Saturday, the day of the swap meet, the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) decided to move over top of us, and it poured. Wayne still sold some stuff though, and with the rain, someone told him this funny story. It seems there was a singlehander who arrived during the two weeks we were out at Eneko, and when he dinghied ashore he asked the first cruiser he saw how to get a key to the showers and where to dock to take on water. He had run out of water en route here, and he had no water catchment system nor water maker. What makes it funny, you see, is that these things don’t exist here. The yacht club here doesn’t have a club house or a dock – and it costs all of $0/year to be a member. There is no marina nor fuel dock. It really makes me realize how much the South Pacific has changed since I first sailed there in the 70′s. This guy got all the way to Majuro before he wasn’t able to find a marina. The fact that there isn’t a marina here is also one of the things we like about this place.

We decided that while we like to be in town to get stuff done, it’s so much nicer out at our little island, we would head right back out there. We collected our laundry, made it out to the boat before the next deluge started, and then motored back to Eneko in the rain.

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