First, yet another correction, that last post should have been named SSB Post 39. That'll teach me to rush!
Yesterday, we sailed across the lagoon to anchor in front of Medyil Island. I was excited about our anchorage because we hadn't gone ashore here yet. A new island! However, it was almost dark when we got there, so going ashore waited until today.
We woke up to a rainy morning. So we had to wait until about 10 AM to go into shore. TC and I brought the last of the kids' clothes, as well as one grab bag. I also brought some toys since I was afraid that I might not have enough clothes for everyone.
Quite a few people on Medyil (an island of about 70 people) spoke good English. We ran into Parliament. He met Paul a couple weeks ago when we went to Medyil to pick up Walden's boat. Parliament asked us if Paul was around. We told him that Paul stayed with the boat this time. Parliament said, "Paul is a very good Christian man."
TC or I said something like, "Oh yeah? Why do you say that?"
Parliament replied, "His name is from the Bible." (Paul laughed upon hearing of this conversation when we returned to the boat).
Medyil is a fairly short island, but relatively wide. Pretty and lush like most of Ailinglaplap during this trip. We enjoyed our walk down the main road. We also discovered that they have 4 churches - Catholic, Protestant, SDA, and BNJ. I have to research & find out what the BNJ stands for. The Catholic deacon gave me the full name, but the "B" is a Marshallese word.
I was happy to have had either clothes or toy cars for every kid that we came across (except for the 2 week old baby). I'll have to let my friend Aimee know that it is good that she is such a petite lady. Her shirts came in useful when I was running out of clothes, & since they were basic T-Shirts, they were good for boys and girls.
Before we returned to the boat, one of the families we had talked to quite a bit presented us with coconuts and boiled cooking bananas (like plantains). I felt bad about taking the bananas because I am pretty sure they were the family's Sunday dinner. However, they insisted, so we obliged.
We headed across the lagoon, out Namu Pass, and west towards Mezetchoku (to check out waves). As we neared Mezetchoku, we had six lines out. We had been talking earlier about how we needed to catch fish, or else Paul's claim about always having fish in the fridge would no longer be true.
Lucky for Paul, his streak continues. About 10 minutes after passing a big bird pile, we got two fish on - one right after the other. They were BIG. They almost took all of the line on the reels. Paul starts yelling, "Slow down! Stop the boat!"
Poor Timo is driving and probably thinking, "I'm driving a sailboat, how do I stop the wind?"
Then Paul yelled frantically, "Turn the boat around!"
That's when everything got CHAOTIC. We were trying to get the 4 other lines in, trying to move water into the tank from the cooler (so the cooler would be free for fish), fighting the dinghy (which in the huge swell wanted to ram into the boat), take down sun shades that were tied to the boom and blocking Timo and Paul's way as they did 360s around the boat chasing their fish, getting TC the gloves so that he could help Timo pull in the fish, and everyone was yelling.
After about 15 or 20 minutes, we got the fish in. They were two huge yellowfin - around 100 pounds each. Lengthwise they were about 50 inches long, but super fat. They had a much bigger girth than the big yellowfin that we caught on the way back from our attempt at going to Fiji.
Unfortunately for the guys, the waves at Mezetchoku didn't look as big as they'd hoped. Plus the wind was onshore, so it wouldn't have been any good. Thus, we headed straight to Katchii. We shared the bigger of the two fish with them. They said that they couldn't remember seeing a bigger fish.
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