A Desperado On The Run...

I leave my 1988 Jeep Cherokee parked near San Francisco at SugarDock Marina, home of the beautiful schooner, “Eros”, lovingly restored by Bill and Grace Bodle.


When Bill and Grace started on this project they took the yacht apart piece by piece until they had completely dismantled it and then they painstakingly reassembled it. It can currently be seen sailing in San Francisco Bay and last year they took it as far as Acapulco. Future plans include a lot more sailing!
SugarDock marina was the homeport for the “Deev” while I was in San Francisco and I still park my Jeep there. The 22 year old rig waits patiently while I'm gone. After 10 months of sitting idle it fired right up for me when I pulled into the Bay Area this time without complaint.
The only problem was that I had neglected to re-register the vehicle and of course the tabs had expired. OOPS! Well I wanted to get up to Northern Idaho for some camping and over to the San Juan Islands in Western Washington to visit my dog, Marley.
So off I went, mostly on back roads, almost 2,000 miles and through four states, trying to not call attention to myself by the local constabulary. I must be living right and thinking pure thoughts because I made it all the way without being pulled over. I did get the car re-registered as soon as I reached San Juan County.
The fact of the matter was that I was not too much of a desperado but I was looking in my rear view mirror a lot. The last thing that I wanted to see back there was John Law getting a close look at my expired license plates!

Caribbean Bound...

The writing of this crew letter is taking place from the beautiful white sand beach in the British Virgin Islands in front of the world famous Foxy's bar and Restaurant where I am once again working on the Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society's Island Sloop Project. I arrived here today after stopping in the US Virgin Islands for a couple of days.
My interest in fishing, particularly Big Game Deep Sea Fishing, remains strong and the months of August and September here provide some of the best Blue Marlin fishing in the world. My arrival in St. Thomas corresponded with the end of the prestigious 38th annual ABMT “Boy Scout” Blue Marlin Tournament. It was another successful year for the organizers and the anglers with 41 boats catching and releasing 141 Blue Marlin over 4 days of fishing. This tournament is run on a total release format. No fish are boated and all were caught on 50 pound test. Here is an interesting aside... I learned that an old friend, Ray Walters, Captain of “Therapy”, was in the lead by 3 fish coming into the last day after releasing 5 fish on day 3. The only way they could lose would be if another boat caught 4 or more fish and “Therapy” caught none. Guess what??? “Therapy” was skunked and a boat that was fishing right next to them caught 4. I guess that's why they call it fishing and not catching!!! You can check out all the results and more on the website http://abmt.vi/. Check it out. That's USVI Open/Atlantic Blue Marlin Tournament.


That's it for now , Crew! We are currently watching the weather very closely here in the BVI as it seems that the hurricane season is here in full force with one, named “Earl”, bearing down on us as we speak. Why do I always come here this time of year??????

Cheers and Carry On!
Chuck Handy

“A Stubborn Old Man...”

Yokwe and Greetings Crew!
It's been a while since I last sent out a crew letter. The last one was about my friend Bwiji's housewarming celebration in Majuro. Since then I have fought off a serious antibiotic resistant infection, had some minor skin cancer removal, been called a “stubborn old man”, I have traveled over 5,000 miles by air to a very big island and I have been a “desperado on the run” for nearly 2,000 miles with my automobile! I've also seen some amazingly beautiful scenery, camped out at some spectacular sites and met up with several old friends.
With my new computer now online (many thanks to the Past Commodore of the Orcas Island Yacht Club, Bob Brunius) I will fill you in on the details.

Part I: A Stubborn Old Man...

Before flying off to the very big island of America I decided to have a small skin lesion removed from my shoulder. The Doctor in the Majuro Hospital, a very good Filipino surgeon, looked at me and said yes he would do it and scheduled me for out patient surgery. “Oh, by the way Doctor, would you look at this small infection on my leg for me? I think I may need a dose of antibiotics to kill it”, I said.
The Doc looked at it, shook his head, and said, “I don't like the looks of that one. We've been seeing some very bad infections lately that are resistant to antibiotics. I'll start you with a series of oral antibiotics and we'll see what happens”.
To make a long story short, when I returned a couple of days later my calf was the size of a rugby ball, I could barely walk and I was delirious with fever.
“We better try something else”, the Doc said , and he put me on a 10 day run of intravenous third generation antibiotics that made me want to pass out or throw up depending on their whim. But they did the trick. For 10 days, at 6 in the morning and at 6 in the evening I got my fix and the horrible, ugly infection was exorcised.
After the infection was cleared up the Doc removed the offending skin lesion that I had originally stopped in to see him about. It was small, only about the size of a nickel. It was removed, biopsied, I was given more antibiotics and told to return in a week to have the stitches out.
The total medical bill for the surgery, the doctors visits, the antibiotics and the biopsy was $5.00. That's right, five bucks. While I was in the medical complex I also had a damaged filling replaced by the dentist. That cost another five bucks.

I have no insurance, no one in the Marshall Islands does. They do take a sizable chunk out of your paycheck for health care. Let me point out that there are no medical malpractice lawsuits either so doctors do not have to have millions of dollars in insurance. I don't think that I would want to have any brain surgery or highly specialized stuff done here but for the run of the mill medical treatment that makes up the bulk of doctors visits this place seems just fine.

Everything had gone so well that I decided to celebrate with a bowl of ice cream! While savoring a combination of mint chocolate chip and espresso almond fudge a friend of mine walked by...
“Hi!” I said.
“Oh, Hi Chuck” she replied. “What are you up to?”
“Well, my infection is gone. See.” I pointed to my leg. “And surgery is complete on my skin cancer so I thought that I would celebrate with ice cream.”
“Chuck, don't you realize that is one of the worst that you can be doing to your body right now? Sugar just feeds the all the bad things in your body and your immune system has been severely compromised by the antibiotics.”
“No”, I replied. “Ice cream is one of the best things I can do for my body right now. I can tell. It's making me feel very, very good!”
Her lips kind of squeezed together at my response, she shook her head a couple of times, looked my in the eye and stammered “You, you stubborn old man. You will never learn to eat properly!”
I might add that she is pretty much vegan and of course I will eat just about anything that walks, crawls, flies or swims. Such is life....

I feel very proud to finally have been called a stubborn old man. I have been aspiring to this all my life. I have also noticed that I have been referred to as “Sir” (as in “Excuse me, sir, would you like some help with that?”) more often of late. I have also been offered “senior discounts” more often at many venues. This is all good. I am hoping soon to become referred to as “that old codger”. It's about time!

That's enough for now, crew. Stand by for Part II of this series, “Desperado On The Run”....

Cheers and Carry On!
Chuck Handy

Parties That You Will Never Remember…

Ahoy Crew and Yokwe!
I’ve been a bit cyber-challenged lately, more so than usual, since my laptop decided to call it quits. I can’t complain too much because it has given me 5 good years of service. Hopefully I’ll have a new one up and running in the next couple of weeks. (With a little help from my friends, of course). Until then I apologize for my lack of correspondence.
I attended a Marshallese style “housewarming” or” house dedication party” for my friend Bwiji Aliven and his wife here in Majuro recently. It was a wonderful affair. Bwiji and his wife are moving into a very nice newly constructed dwelling and preparations for the celebration took friends and family several days to complete. Mountains of food were prepared for the guests and included a whole turtle cooked in the ground, two whole pigs, a whole Marlin served sashimi style, several Yellowfin Tuna prepared in several ways, lots of reef fish, boiled octopus in coconut milk, curried giant clams and huge quantities of BBQ chicken and ribs. This was all set out with barrels of rice, salad and breadfruit and accompanied by many cases of beer and soft drinks. A band played well into the early morning hours. Hundreds of guests participated and a fine time was had by all.
Earlier in the day, about 10 AM and prior to the festivities, a small group of friends and family gathered in the new house with the priest who blessed the house. He prayed and sprinkled Holy Water all around. He started at the front porch and sprinkled the water throughout the house. As he was wetting down the bedrooms the front door slammed shut. Everyone was very pleased because obviously a demon-spirit had been chased out of the house by the Holy Water and it had slammed the door shut behind itself! It was a huge success!!
This was a party that will be remembered by all. However there are two very important parties that are staged during the course of one’s Marshallese life that are never remembered by the guest of honor.
The very first party to be held for a Marshallese is the keeman (pronounced Kay-Min). This occurs when a child reaches one year old. The infant mortality rate used to be very high here and most children did not reach the milestone of one year old. Those that did had a pretty good chance of further survival and so a big party was staged for them. Another limiting factor to the life of an infant (in the old days) was infanticide. That’s right. After a woman had 3 children infanticide was practiced as a means of population control. The reason being that these islands are very small and can provide food for only so many people. Today, in modern times, infanticide is no longer practiced and families with less than 5 or 6 children are rare. I was sitting around “talking story” with a 3 elderly gentlemen the other day and one of them remarked “Chuck, between the 3 of us we have over 125 children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. It’s very sad that you have no children. You must make some so that they can take care of you when you become too old to take care of yourself!”
The keeman is still considered a very important milestone in the life of a Marshallese person and no expense is spared to throw the most lavish party possible. Parents will frequently go deeply into debt to provide for this event.
The other party held in the life of a Marshallese person that will never be remembered by the guest of honor is the funeral. Typically it is a 3 day event and again it is a most lavish affair that often puts the family deeply in debt.
Personally I do not get too excited by the keemans. Heck, I don’t even like kids! Horrible little monsters, most of them! And funerals have never been high on my list either. But this housewarming of Bwiji’s was really a spectacular and wonderful affair! Congratulations Bwiji!!
That’s all for now, Crew…
Cheers from the edge of the world!
Chuck

Back From Likiep

Yokwe and Ahoy Crew!

Well I left for Likiep Atoll last month for a short stay on one of the most beautiful islands in the world but my intended 10 day stay turned into a full month! I had a nice sail up with my pal Tony D as crew. His wife hails from that atoll and he wanted to visit with her family there. Tony could only stay a couple of days but I was under no obligations so I just stayed and stayed. Asked by the Mayor how long I planned on staying I told him that I may never leave! He said “Good, Chuck! We like having you around.”

Sailing back singlehanded the other day was without a doubt one of the most pleasant passages I have ever had in this part of the world. Anchor up to anchor down was about 40 hours, two nights and a day. True bliss…

My plans have changed somewhat since I last communicated with you. I’m going to stick around the Marshalls through the summer and not go to Fiji this year. There are a couple of fishing tournaments here this summer that I would like to participate in and summer is when the big Blue Marlin move through the area. I am also planning on another month or so in Likiep. I may leave for there again next week. Ahh Likiep! No phones, no TV, no internet… Just a little bit of heaven on the edge of the world!

I’m working towards setting up the Marshalls Billfish Club’s first totally tag and release tournament. We’ll call it the “No Kill Bill” Tournament. The key is that I need a sponsor to donate cash for prizes and I think that I have found that sponsor and he is a good friend of mine. I will not mention any names now but if it pans out I expect that the club and the sponsor will get a lot of international attention. As I said it will be a first for the club. We routinely tag and release the smaller fish (less than 100 pounds) but we all know that the big fish are the females and we need those breeders to stay alive and to keep producing more Blue Marlin! Sheesh! It’s not rocket science to figure that out!

I hope to get back to the states for a visit in August or September so I hope to see many of you then.

I have included another “Tale from Likiep” in this email. I hope you enjoy it…



GHOSTS! DEMONS! SPIRITS!



Ghosts, demons and spirits are just part of normal everyday life here on the edge of the world. Perhaps those of you who have been to the Hawaiian Islands are familiar with their rich spiritual history. The Hawaiian traditional pantheon contains a plethora of Goddesses and Gods who inhabit the volcanoes, the sea, the land and they are involved in virtually all aspects of everyday life. The arrival of European culture brought with it the Christian belief system that was energetically spread by voyaging missionaries. The Hawaiians were impressed with the strength of the Christian god who provided the Europeans with very large voyaging canoes, cannons, guns, whiskey and ferrous metals. Obviously any god that strong deserved to be worshipped! Therefore they added this Christian god into their belief system. The important point to remember here is that they did not entirely give up their belief in the old gods. They simply added the Christian beliefs into their traditional belief system.

As a result of their geographical remoteness the Marshall Islands were invaded much later than other island groups in the pacific. Being very small atolls with few easily exploitable resources the Western commercial interests left them pretty much alone. Some of the earliest contacts were with the likes of the notorious “Bully Hayes” and others of his ilk that were looking for slaves to carry off. The Marshallese viewed Westerners with suspicion.

Eventually the missionaries arrived in the Marshalls to convert the heathens and to save their souls. Over the course of the past 150 years or so the people of the RMI have come totally under the sway of Christianity with a healthy mix of Roman Catholic, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon and a variety of Protestant, Baptist and storefront churches.

Along side of Christianity the belief in Ghosts, Demons, Spirits and Magic remains very strong among the people here. Walking with my pal Neal on one of the outer islands we came to a small group of native houses. It was only 3 or 4 small houses with a couple of cooking sites and some copra drying sheds. Nothing very urban to say the least. All around the perimeter of this little group of dwellings bottles hung from the branches of the trees and each bottle contained a page from the Bible. It was a “spiritual fence” set up around the houses to keep the ghosts and demons away! No poo!

I was sitting on the veranda of Joe DeBrum’s hotel the other night along with his wife Yumiko and I was fortunate enough to be told quite a few “ghost stories”. Joe is a pretty worldly guy and he has little or no belief in ghosts or spirits. He lives by the credo that if he doesn’t bother the spirit world the spirit world won’t bother him. He claims he has never seen a ghost or demon. His wife, however, a former prayer leader at the church who attends services regularly has had many first hand encounters with ghosts and spirits. She does not like to be alone at night and the lights are never turned off!

Most ghosts seem to be women although there are a few instances of male spirits appearing, particularly soon after a male friend or relative has passed away. Joe was telling of one such story that is part of the folklore of Likiep Atoll…

The Ghost Rides For Free

Jemo is a little island that lies 15-20 miles NE of Likiep and occasionally the DeBrum family sends a couple of guys over there to make copra. They go over by canoe and set up camp for a few weeks while they make the copra. So one time these two guys go over. They decide to share food gathering and cooking duties. One day one guy cooks the rice, catches the fish and gets the drinking nuts while the other makes copra. The next day they reverse roles thereby sharing the duties.

After they’ve been there a while a tragic event occurs and one fellow falls out of a coconut tree and dies. The other fellow, who was making copra at the time, comes back to camp at dinner time and there is no dinner ready and his companion is missing. Walking around Jemo (a very small island) he finds his colleague dead on the ground under the coconut tree. This is very perplexing to him… his friend is dead and there is no dinner to eat…

He digs a grave and buries the body on Jemo then proceeds to load up the copra on the canoe and heads back to Likiep. As he starts paddling he hears some sounds from the back of the canoe. Looking aft he sees his companion sitting on the back of the canoe! He continues paddling all night until he reaches the beach on Likiep and his companion, who rode in the back the whole way saying nothing, vanishes into thin air. “You son of a female dog!” he says. “You fall out of coconut tree and die and I must dig grave! You don’t make dinner! You don’t help load copra! You get free ride all the way back to Likiep and I have to paddle all the way by myself! You son of a female dog!”

Joe laughs when he tells this story. It is one of his favorites.

More stories from Joe DeBrum to follow so stand by…

Cheers from the edge of the world! 9 degrees 50 minutes North, 169 degrees 18 minutes East.

Carry On!
CGH

Sailing Plans
-and-
A Story from Joe deBrum

Ahoy Crew!
Good news, matey’s! I’m getting the good ship “Deviant” geared up to go sailing again after laying at anchor in Majuro lagoon for nearly four months. It has been another fine hitch here in the Marshalls working on my pal Neal’s various wind, solar and water projects. There is always enough going on around his place to keep me on my toes. And, as always, it’s been a good time hanging with my friends at the Marshalls Billfish Club as well. In fact we’ve got another tournament coming up on Saturday which is always a good thing. I plan to leave for the northern atoll of Likiep, 200 miles from here, on Monday.
I wrote quite a bit about Likiep last year when I spent nearly a month there. As you may remember, I likened it to “Paradise Found”. I haven’t seen my good friend Joe deBrum since that time and I look forward to spending time with him again. Joe is one of the foremost raconteurs that I’ve ever met and I hope to collect a number of his stories in my notebook while I’m there. Hopefully his younger brother, 73 year old Orlando, will be there as well. I sent a solar power package to Orlando earlier this year, a 24 volt system to power a chest freezer, and I would like to check it out.
A couple of weeks in Likiep will not be enough but I’m looking forward to heading south to Fiji again so my time north of the equator may be getting short. If time and finances allow I may be able to make another trip back to the states this summer…
I’ll sign off by leaving you with one of Joe’s stories that I recorded last year…


Is This How Much You Love Me?

We were sitting on the veranda of Joe DeBrum’s hotel on the atoll of Likiep in the Marshall Islands drinking a cool beer and talking story. On the table in front of us was a small battery operated portable radio which was picking up a Marshallese language station from the far away capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Majuro. It was another halcyon day on Likiep Atoll. We had been fishing earlier and had caught a good net full of the small fish, “Jo”, which are very good smoked, and an assortment of larger fish like groupers that we had caught on hook and line. Richard was getting ready to smoke the small fish and we were planning on cooking the larger fish on the grill.

Joe’s wife, Yumiko, passed by and brought us another cool beer and said that she would make some rice and salad to go with the fish. Joe and Yumiko looked at each other and smiled that smile that a couple share who have been with each other a long time and understand and love each other. As Yumiko passed into the hotel kitchen Joe looked at me and pointed at the little radio…

“You see that little radio there, Chuck? I have told my wife that it is a symbol of my love for her and that is why I always keep it on this table on the veranda and why I always have it on.”

Not quite sure where this was going I nodded and said, “OK, Joe…”

Joe continued… “You see, a couple of years ago I was in Majuro and my wife begged me to buy her a radio so that she could listen to her favorite local radio station even when we were back home on Likiep. So I went to EZ Price Mart and saw these big boom boxes the size of a suitcase for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They were beautiful with lots of glitter and dials and claimed to play tapes, CD’s, you name it, they did it all. They certainly did much more than I wanted them to do…

Well, right there on the very end, kind of lost in the corner, was this little radio that did nothing but pick up radio stations. It sounded pretty good and the signal was strong. It had no bells and whistles or glittering dials. A sign said “Special Deal!! Only $19.99!!” I told the clerk to wrap it up. Well Chuck, the clerk wrapped it but neglected to remove the sticker price tag. I brought it home to my wife and presented the package to her.

She smiled and unwrapped it. She looked at the radio, saw the price tag, “Special Deal!! Only $19.99!!” and looked at me sternly… She said “Is this how much you love me? We have been together all these years. I have cooked for you, cleaned for you, tended you when you were hurt and sick and THIS IS HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME?” She turned and stalked off to the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

Knowing how much trouble I was in I ran back down to the shop and purchased the biggest, fanciest boom box that EZ Price sold. It had detachable speakers, played tapes and CD’s and claimed to get FM, AM, and shortwave radio stations. I had the clerk wrap it up, leaving the price tag on, and rushed back home to my wife. I told her that I was so sorry to have offended her, that I was a cad, but that I loved her very, very much and here was another radio. She unwrapped the boom box and was really happy and kissed me and hugged me and proudly looked at the price tag.

Well Chuck, it wasn’t a week later that we returned to Likiep and it turned out that the big, expensive stereo did not pick up the Majuro radio stations very well at all and it did not seem to get any shortwave stations, just a lot of static. This big stereo just sat on the table. After a few days the CD player stopped working and shortly after that it started eating tapes.

I came back from fishing one afternoon and one of the kids had taken it apart to try to fix it. There were pieces everywhere and I knew that it would never work again. It was completely ruined. I told my wife to sit down at the table with me and I turned on the little radio. The radio station from Majuro, her favorite local station, came in loud and clear.

I said to her… My love, you see that big, expensive radio that does not work at all and that little radio that gets your favorite station so clearly? Well, that little radio represents my love for you. All the money in the world means nothing if the love doesn’t work for you… That little radio works just fine and for years and years will continue to play your favorite radio station. That, my love, is how much I love you.”

That evening we watched the sun set as we ate fish and rice on the veranda and listened to the little radio play the station from Majuro.


Cheers Crew and Carry On!!
All the best from the edge of the world…
CGH

The One That Got Away…
-Or-
I Feel So Unworthy…

Ahoy!
It has been a very active time here at the edge of the world of late. The fishing has been exceptional, the local yacht club held its final race of the season, the drought has abated and life is good!
A scheduled Marshalls Billfish Club Tournament was cancelled a week ago Saturday due to high winds and big seas. Our crew decided to go out anyway and found excellent mahi mahi and wahoo fishing. We were out for about three hours and caught 15 mahi mahi, 3 wahoo and 2 yellowfin tuna. The tournament was rescheduled for this past Saturday and it was a very productive tournament, one of the best ever according to members of the club.
Our boat, “Kirtake”, was in the running with a cooler full of wahoo and mahi mahi and one tag and release Blue Marlin but we went 1 for 4 on billfish to lose out to the winners. We had one UFO right out of the gate after about two minutes of lines in the water that created a huge splash. No one saw the fish though so the species was questionable. Shortly after that we put a 30 pound wahoo in the boat. The morning was good for the little fish, mahi running between 15-25 pounds and wahoo 20-30 pounds. We raised one sailfish on a marlin lure that didn’t get hooked and jumped off a small Blue marlin of about 125 pounds.
After an hour or so of no fish in the afternoon the tag line came down apparently because the rubber band wore out. (Those of you who know this style of fishing will understand more fully what I’m saying here but for the rest of you suffice it to say that the fishing lines needed some adjustment at this point…) There was no pressure on the rod and no sign of fish so I casually put on a new rubber band and hooked it into the tag line. Wouldn’t you know it but just as I put it into freespool to let the tag line fly a good sized Blue Marlin piled on and I watched a horrible backlash explode on the reel. The fish peeled off line and stuck her head and shoulders out of the water as if to laugh at the horrified expression on my face. The fish was a good one with very wide shoulders. Its bill looked like a windshield wiper as it thrashed it back and forth for a few seconds and then it took off again. The backlash, which had resembled a Condor’s nest at first, was almost gone before the line broke. I was sick. That could have been the Tournament winning fish. Coulda, woulda, shoulda…
The guys on the boat tried to make me feel better by telling me that it could have happened to anyone and that it was just bad luck… But it happened to me! And I’m the one who brought the bunch of bananas along. (I’m not a superstitious person but bananas are traditionally considered bad luck on a sportfishing boat!) I feel so ashamed! I am unworthy!
For those of interested in the results of this tournament check out the website. www.billfishclub.com.

Returning to the Nest…

It’s been a quiet week here on the edge of the world but it is beginning to show signs of activity. The harbor has been mostly empty of commercial fishing vessels. The government ships that (sometimes) service the outer islands are peacefully taking up the space on the government dock, rafted up two deep in places, as none of them are capable of going to sea due to lack of funding for routine maintenance. As a result the inhabitants of the outer islands are crying for food and fuel and for a way to get their copra to market in Majuro.

I woke up late this Sunday morning, about 7 AM to find that the commercial purse seiners and their motherships have begun filling the harbor again. I counted 6 motherships and 10 purse seiners with more coming in.

The purse seiners, as pointed out by my South African/Kiwi pal ET, are very beautiful ships. With their clipper bows and long elegant sheer set off by a magnificent bridge and tall tuna tower they look very capable and seaworthy. They are very efficient fishing machines as well.

Frequently they set FAD’s (Fish Attracting Devices) in the waters frequented by the tuna which makes it easier to locate the schools of normally free ranging tuna. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? Instead of searching the seas for the schools of fish just set out the FAD’s and go there to collect them! (Oh, don’t get me wrong, the purse seiners also carry helicopters on board in case they need to search for the schools. This is a well financed operation!)

When they find the school they deploy the net. Fast and powerful speed boats take the ends of the giant net and rapidly encircle the entire school. Like a purse, the net has a “drawstring” on the bottom that the huge winches pull tight, sealing the bottom of the net from any chance of escape for the fish. The entire school of tuna and any other fish working in the school (i.e. Marlin, Sailfish) are drawn onto the purse seiner through a set of enormous blocks. No fish survives this treatment. All “by catch” is returned to the sea mutilated and dead.

The purse seiner fleet is catching thousands of tons of tuna and “by catch” in this manner. They are incredibly successful at what they were designed to do. With their holds full of fish they return to harbor to offload the catch into motherships and to refuel and resupply the vessels for immediate departure to bring in more. Like birds of prey they have returned to their fouled nest to regurgitate from their bloated bellies into the gaping maws of their obscenely giant children who are forever hungry and demanding more tuna.

Enjoy your tuna fish sandwiches!

Cheers from the edge of the world!
Carry On!
Chuck

Ahoy Crew and Yokwe from the Marshall Islands!

I send this out to you because I have recieved a lot of emails concerning the effects of the latest Tsunami Scare. All is well here in the Marshall Islands aboard the good ship "Deviant".
The massive earthquake in Chile the other day triggered Tsunami Warnings across the width of the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately the Tsunami proved to be less than anticipated, in fact here in the Marshalls it passed unnoticed.
The cruising and commercial boats on the docks and at moorings did take the precaution of heading to deeper water further out in the lagoon to ride it out safely in the event of a major occurance. The Tsunami, however, left us not even a ripple. WHEW!!!

As you can tell, I haven't had much to say of late. We have been in the throes of an El Nino inspired drought here and I've been scrambling to keep up with the demand on our water sales. You may remember that we set up a system last year bringing less expensive drinking water to the people of the Marshall Islands. Well the system has expanded from a few hundred gallons a day to couple of thousand gallons a day. We are getting ready to install a much larger Reverse Osmosis unit later this month.
Our solar power sales continue to climb as well and that, too, has got my attention.

The Tradewinds have been blowing steadily since December and those cruisers that wanted to head west to the Philippines or Thailand have already left in order to miss the Western Pacifics tropical storm season. Here in the Marshalls tropical storms are rare although they do occasionally wreak havoc. Those cruisers heading south to Fiji, Vanuatu, NZ, The Solomons or Oz won't be leaving for another month or two. As for me and the "Deev", I'm not sure of my plans yet...

The local fishing club has been active and it's been a very good year for Mahi-Mahi and Wahoo. Of course there are always a few Blue Marlin in the mix and I'm happy to say that more are being tagged and released than before. No one has reported any really big fish lately but they are always here.

The heads of state out here had their Tuna Fisheries meeting last week but I still don't see much hope for the future of this fishery. There is just too much commercial fishing pressure on the Tuna and they are being raped and pillaged. The latest meeting in Palau came up with a game plan to better regulate the fishery in 10-15 years time. By then I fear it will be too late to save the Tuna. Such is the life of man...

Sorry that I've been out of touch for so long. What's up with you?

Cheers and Carry On!!!
Chuck

From The Marshall Islands Journal, 1/22/2010

I quote:
“Palau is proposing the first presidential summit on fisheries in the Pacific region.
The move is part of the increasingly active fisheries role of the eight island nations that are members of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), which is now setting up its first headquarters in Majuro.
Palau President Johnson Toribiong has invited the heads of state for the other seven member nations to the first summit on the fisheries that is to be held in Palau at the end of February.
Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority Director Glen Joseph confirmed to the journal Tuesday that planning for a summit is underway. “This would be the first of its kind,” he said.
Although fisheries ministers representing Forum Fisheries Agency member nations have been meeting annually for the past several years, there has never been a presidential summit on what is unarguably the Pacific’s most important and high value resources: tuna.”

This is a follow up to my last email “rant” to you. As you can glean from the preceding article that was printed in The Marshall Islands Journal, our weekly newspaper here in the RMI, a meeting is scheduled to take place concerning the issue of the Pacific fisheries .If I were you I would not get my hopes up that this “Presidential Summit” will do anything to stop the problem of overfishing here in the western Pacific region. These summits generally do nothing at all except to provide a nice junket for those involved. Even when the “Forum Fisheries Agency” member nations get together little or nothing seems to be accomplished.

I am told, and I can not support this with hard evidence, that certain large and wealthy nations out here who contribute significantly to the economies of these small island nations (or to certain specific individuals) get a carte blanche to do what they want in regard to fishing. It’s called “checkbook diplomacy”. Meanwhile the resource of tuna is being rapidly depleted. The sad thing about this is that the resource of tuna, like that of the forests on land, if properly managed, is a renewable resource that can be sustained.

On that note, Crew, I am signing off for today.
Cheers and Carry On!
Chuck, from the edge of the world.

Overfishing In the Western Pacific… A Rant
Or
Where Is A Good Investigative Reporter When You Really Need One?

Ahoy Crew!

As you know, I recently returned to the RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands) after a 7 month absence which found me voyaging to and from Fiji aboard my sailboat, the “Deev”. While in Fiji I flew to the west coast of the US and down to the West Indies. It was a great trip. But now it is really nice to be back in the RMI and I am once again putting together some small solar power projects and water purification projects for my old friend Neal Skinner. He also has some 2000 square feet of building to add on to his existing physical plant. These projects should keep us busy and entertained for the foreseeable future!

I’m used to seeing fishing vessels in the Majuro lagoon as the Western Pacific holds the last underexploited stocks of Yellowfin and Bigeye Tuna. I’m afraid that the term “underexploited” is, perhaps, no longer applicable as the Bigeye have already been listed as endangered in this fishery. I was shocked to see the sheer numbers of commercial fishing vessels when I returned to the lagoon. There was and are 8-12 motherships here at all times. These motherships are large vessels that get loaded by huge purse seiners and carry away hundreds of tons of tuna on a daily basis to the markets in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Honolulu among other places. The purse seining industry has been banned in much of the world because that type of fishing causes serious ecological damage to the oceans. Caught up in their nets are numerous other species such as Marlin, Sailfish and Porpoises along with their target species. Nothing survives the pulling of these massive nets.

The nations of the Western Pacific, including the RMI, Federated States of Micronesia and Kiribiti, get some remuneration for the exploitation of this resource but nothing compared to the market value of the fish. (One positive aside for me is that I can buy beautiful fresh Tuna Loin and Steaks for $2.00/lb in the local market and Sashimi Grade Yellowfin for under $5.00!) I have a feeling that someone, somewhere, may be getting a little something under the table but I have no proof of that. The numbers, in terms of money spent, money earned and the tonnage of the fish is staggering. We are talking about billions of dollars here. I kid you not.

There are all kinds of scams going on here as well. The purse seiners are supposed to stay in certain areas where they are licensed to fish and none of that is near the islands themselves as there are millions of square miles of open ocean out here. Yesterday two purse seiners were seen setting their nets within a mile or two of the pass into Majuro Lagoon. I guess they just wanted to top off their fish holds before they offloaded to the mothership. Boats are regularly being fined for fishing in areas where they are not supposed to be and I’m sure that those that are caught are just the tip of the iceberg. Another scam is the “American Captain” scam. It seems that at one point there were so many foreign boats and crews here that the powers that be decided they needed a larger and more visible US presence. It was decided that American captains were required on a certain number of boats. The foreign owners hired American captains as figureheads and satisfied the ruling. The US captain has nothing to do whatever with the running of the ship or its fishing. That is all controlled by the fishing master. The American captain is simply there and does nothing. One of the captains told me that other than it being very boring it was the best job he ever had! His only lament was that he had no one to talk to for a month or more at a time because no one else on the boat spoke English!

Friends of mine have remarked that they feel that the boats here now realize that the resource has almost been brought to the point that it is unsustainable in the near future and they are just trying to grab whatever they can now while they still can. Let’s hope that it isn’t so.

From the edge of the world,
Cheers!
Chuck