JJEM Adventures

To Funafuti,Tuvalu:

The passage from Tabiteuea North, Kiribati to Funafuti, Tuvalu was pretty challenging, it took us 5 days and 2 hr to cover about 600 nautical miles. We were beating into a fluky wind for most of the time, and many things broke down --The generator off switch broke, the charger fan died, a dangerous sparking short showed up in the AC circuits under the master cabin, leaks galore, the refrigerator decided to spew it's contents onto the cabin sole – as if they had a timer, most of these disasters occurred in the middle of the night! We were so happy to drop anchor outside the main dock in Funafuti, Tuvalu at 3:40 pm on Friday, July 18! It was too late for us to check in that day, so we just stayed onboard, cleaned up the mess, repaired some of the damage and waited until Monday to check in.

Funafuti, Tuvalu:
Monday morning first thing I headed in to the big freighter dock to pick up the Customs and Immigrations officers. They'd agreed over VHF to be waiting at the ramp when I arrived. As I approached, I saw two ladies waiting at the ramp. One was Tuvuluan, one clearly wasn't. In fact, New Zealand came out strongly the moment the second one spoke. However, I'd learned my lesson in Tarawa not to assume Customs and Immigration would be beefy male types. I apologized for the smallness of our boat and helped them get in. They said they'd been waiting for a while which surprised me. As I left the dock heading to Hai Yun I asked "So who's Customs and who's Immigration". That drew some strange stares!! After a little conversation it turned out they were a pair of tourists who had been waiting for a ride to the local naval college island to write a story about it. Back to the dock - laughter all round! Real Customs and Immigration did turn out to be the beefy male types. However, unlike the brave lady ersatz officers, they took one look at our dinghy Osprey and the big waves in the bay; and agreed to conduct the interview entirely in their office.
We stayed in Funafuti for only 8 days, mostly doing repair work on Hai Yun and kids schooling. The Tuvalu government doesn’t allow cruisers to go to outer islands - not even the uninhabited islets in the Funafuti lagoon. We were told this was a result of some cruisers who were involved in things such as drugs and child pornography. We went to shore for a couple of times to buy some groceries, eat some ice cream, and visit the weather station and Mr. Lee’s vegetable garden. The streets in Funafuti are lot more formal and cleaner than those in the MRI or Kiribati. Many fewer flies zooming around, but people are as friendly as the other Pacific islanders. Mr. Lee is from Taiwan, he has been in Funafuti for many years researching the best way to grow various vegetables that are suitable for the climate here. We have not seen so many different kinds of vegetables since we left Hawaii. What a delight to see (or even better to eat some of these vegetables)! They sell the small amount of experimental vegetables only on Friday morning, the line is huge, and you need to get on line at 5:00 am in order to secure your purchase starting at 7:00 am. The chance for us to get up that early and stay on line for two hours was very slim, so we did not even try. Jingli went there twice during the day, hoping to have a chat with Mr. Lee (it would be fun to speak Chinese for a change). Unfortunately, Mr. Lee was not there. Jingli chatted with one lady from the outer islands who was there doing her three-month vegetable garden training with Mr. Lee; she will start a vegetable garden on her own island when she returns.
One great thing that happened to us in Funafuti was meeting Tom and Julia on sv Vanessa. They have been cruising around the Pacific Ocean for over 11 years, have tremendous knowledge of the culture, people, and cruising routes. We are so grateful for the time and experience they shared with us. They have done the passage between Funafuti and Fiji at least 20 times. Only three or four times have they had bad weather (wind up to 40 knots) - most passages were easy. At that time they had also done the passage between Fiji and New Zealand three times: one trip was really bad - 2 boats lost out of 5 boats leaving Fiji together - one lady died. Vanessa was fine because she ran as fast as she could when they heard the news of a storm coming. From this and other experiences we were nervous about long voyages, particularly the one from Fiji to New Zealand. If we could get enough crew members, Erik and Jingli would like to take an airplane there. However, the Fiji to New Zealand voyage will be 3 to 4 month later, so let’s not worry for now, and concentrate on the passage from Funafuti to Fiji first. Luckily, Vanessa was also going to Fiji soon. We had decided to follow as fast on her transom as we could. This turned out to be the smart thing to do; we had a very smooth and fast passage to Lautoka, Fiji.