Down to the Seas: Christmas, Dragging Anchor, a Water Bottle Funeral

March 3, 2012

So, we’ve been on Kiritimati for the past four days. Kiritimati is an atoll that is quite remote and was used for nuclear testing, first by Britian in the 50s, followed by the US in the 60s. There are still remnants of the infrastructure (such as the roads) created during this time when tests on hydrogen and atomic weapons were being carried out just miles from here. The villages are called things like London, Banana, Poland, and Paris. I got a lot more traveling out of this trip than I anticipated!

The first day we had free, and I walked around a bit of the island with two others. We went to the big lagoon, which looks like a salt flat it’s so saline. The lagoon runs behind an elementary school and we ran into a group of 4 or so school children, which quickly multiplied to a group of about 30 who surrounded us, performing gymnastics and asking “what’s your name”, pretty much the only thing they could say in English. It was rather intimidating. They asked if I was a mama and I said absolutely not! When they wanted us to leave, they were very blunt saying, “You need to go now”. We attempted to catch a ride to London, because on the islands hitchhiking is the way to get around, but we ended up catching a bus which I’m pretty sure overcharged us, but oh well.

Two days ago we did some school visits, one group to the Protestant high school and one to the Catholic high school. I was part of the Catholic school group and they sang and danced for us. In return, we performed some songs we’ve been practicing up on the quarterdeck: “In the Jungle” and “You and I” accompanied by ukuleles. It went very well! It’s the first time I’ve ever sung in front of a group of people in such a small group of singers, but we sounded good. There’s talk of creating a repertoire and taking this to the road. In the afternoon, the school groups came on board and we gave them a tour of life on the ship. They didn’t know (or refused to speak) much English, so it was a little awkward. I guess it’s considered uncool to speak English, or so the head boy was telling us. Seeing the students head home for lunch, especially the grade school kids, remindend me of your stories, Dad, about going home from St. Agnes for lunch when your were in grade school.

Back on the ship, we had a movie night, setting up a sheet on the port side and projecting a documentary about nuclear warfare on Kiritimati followed by a showing of Mean Girls, complete with popcorn (salted with salt gathered from the salt place on Kiritimati). I rushed to the rail every time I heard a dolphin surface, which was quite often due to the large amount of fish attracted by our lights. Since it was dark, the only part we really got to see was their eye reflecting the light. It was weird. C Watch was on that night and I had the 0400-0500 standing. A couple exciting things happened before that, though. First, I found myself getting out of bed, standing in 16^th Street for awhile, then going into companionway and standing there, under the assumption that my group (whoever that was) would come join me shortly. I might have even made a couple beckoning motions with my hands before I realized that I should be in bed. That’s the second time I’ve done that. Then, around 0300 there was great commotion above. I heard a lot of people talking, a lot of action up on deck, the engine starting, and the anchor grinding. Turns out the wind picked up to a Force 6 (about 20 knots), and blew the Robert C. Seamans out of her anchorage where she proceeded to drag anchor for about a mile before the crew got the anchor up and were able to motor us back to our anchorage. As my watch was the next one, I got nervous every time I felt a gust of wind and was on edge for the hour.

Yesterday we had a tour of the atoll in flatbed trucks. In the morning when I was getting into the rescue boat to go to shore, my water bottle fell out of my backpack and slipped right into the Pacific. I stuck my hand in, grazed it, and then watched it descend pretty quickly into the clear water. Briefly I considered jumping in after it, then decided that was a bit irrational, even for a water bottle that’s been to the places mine has. I’m a bit upset to lose all the stickers, the dents, and the carabineer from summer camp my giant 40ozer had. But on to new beginnings, right?

On the tour we stopped at this white sand beach for lunch and it was beautiful. There was a small break in the coral reef that we could swim in and the waves were enormous. We went swimming in them and the energy they produced when they crashed on top of you was a bit intimidating at times. I learned that you can duck under an incoming wave to avoid being pummeled by it, though there isn’t much you can do about the sucking back to sea after a wave washes on shore. We stopped at a Catholic church in Poland where we proceeded to get yelled at for entering. I went in first, under the assumption that Catholic churches here operate like they do in the US in that they’re always open, but that was an incorrect assumption to make I guess. The missionary out back got pretty pissed.

We also made a stop to plant ten coconut trees. It’s cool to think about whom will use those trees, and our potentially lasting effect on the island. Nights continue to be spent playing euchre. Now the steward is in on it too…we’ve got a regular club going. I was almost beat last night…gotta step up my game. I’ve been called a euchre purist because I take the game so seriously. Today I’m staying on the boat for a bit to get work done; there isn’t much to do on the atoll anyways.