More Parts Please!

The past two nights, I have SO enjoyed sleeping through the night.  That is definitely my favorite benefit of not going to Fiji. 

Yesterday, Paul got all of us checked back into Majuro.  After traveling over 1000 miles, I now have two stamps in my brand new passport, which has my best passport picture of all time thanks to photographer extraordinaire Rob Clayton.  One stamp is for departing Majuro and the other is for re-entry into the Majuro seaport.

TC and I spent all day (5 hours anyway) slowly ordering drinks and snacks at a little restaurant as we plugged away on the internet.  Well, I mostly surfed the internet and replied to e-mails, while he worked on finding parts and what the possible issues are with our SSB and all that fun stuff.  The people were so nice and did not kick us out.

Late in the afternoon, TC and Paul decided to take the dinghy to go investigate possible surf.  They had to go across the lagoon and under a bridge. 

I decided to enjoy the alone time and sat on the deck and read and watched what was going on around us.  I observed:

Kids shrieking with laughter as they swam in the water off their houses.

One neighbor doing his laundry

One of our other neighbors has the cutest dinghy.  He is a single-hander, which means he is traveling all by himself.  He went down the West Coast of the US to Mexico and then did a 7-week passage to Hawaii.  I don’t think I could handle that.  He did say he was talking to his food toward the end of his trip. 

Now take a look at the close up of his dinghy below

It's Mini Me!

This neighbor has a lovely dinghy cover that matches the colors of the boat.

This is the boat that took Jer and me to Enamanet. She was built by the owner in 1975.

As the sun started to set, TC and Paul returned.  New problem, the dinghy engine prop is starting to spin and not in a good way.  I don’t know all the technical details, but I know this, we have to replace the prop.  I guess it is a good thing we returned to Majuro.  It’d have been a lot of work rowing our dinghy to shore and back.  It’s a BIG dinghy. 

TC and I decided to go for a run.  Things are different here.  It is not appropriate for me to go for a run in my running shorts and sports bra.  I needed to be covered up.  This is a HOT and SWEATY running outfit. 

Maybe I should submit this outfit to Runner's World as a new style of active wear.

Not only is my attire different, but the way TC and I run “together” here is much different than when TC and I run on Kwaj.  There, TC is usually on foot and I am on rollerblades OR he’ll run ahead and then run back.  Here in Majuro, it was getting dark and there are tons of dogs around.  Some dogs just lie there and couldn’t care less if you passed them or probably even stepped on them.  However, some dogs are mean and bark and start chasing – this scares me.  So, TC and I really did run together.  Poor guy had to go at my snail’s pace.  The run was good and bad.  Bad because I haven’t run in forever and so what was probably a 20 or 30 minute run felt like an hour.  However, it was good because we got to meet new people.  Kids would join us and run along side us (for 30 seconds or so), asking us, “What is your name?” or yell out, “Good bye,” or “Good night,” or “See you later, alligator.” Or one group of kids set themselves up in a line, so they could all high five us.  Now that is why I like sailing to different places.  

Even as we are away from our friends and family, we’re thinking of you as we use the different gifts that you’ve given us over the years.  Last night, TC and I made a coconut-curry cream sauce from scratch with guidance from a cookbook that Janet gave us, Fresh Catch of the Day . . . from the Fishwife.  While making it, we ended up using the PB2 (it’s powdered peanut butter!) that Micah gave us as a gift the day before we sailed out.  And we blended the curry in the Magic Bullet that my aunt gave me over 4 years ago when I moved out to Kwaj.  Thanks for thinking of us!

The PB2 goes into the Magic Bullet cup to make our curry paste!

The Magic Bullet continues to come in handy even when we don't have ice to make smoothies.  Plus, we're going to use the Fishwife cookbook again tonight for more yummy yellowfin!