Infinity Crew

Top row from left to right:
Annie, Gavin, Mickael, Gyan, Ralph, Andy, Jack, Julien, Stephanie
Bottom from left to right:
Ruben, Tara, Kaelin, Phil, David.

Congratulations to Jack and Kaelin who got engaged three days ago....and all the very best to you both. We hope to make it to the wedding !

In Majuro, waiting for engine parts and preparing Haloween night...

In Majuro we said goodbye to Julien, Andy and Gavin, good luck and fair winds !
We are waiting for engine parts, preparing for Haloween and we also attended the "Climate Change in the Pacific" roundtable. We also sailed outrigger canoes (thank you Annie !) and we had an interview published in the Marshall Island Journal.
Ralph is back to his real self again and Phil is now the proud owner of an awesome trimaran. Good luck Phil with your new boat !
Tara and Ruben are getting excited about Haloween, so is Bowie who is hoping to win the Haloween Prize !
Hopefully, we will set sails next week and reach Hawaii by mid-December.
Thanks a lot to all our friends and readers of the Infinity Blog.
Stephanie

Stuck in Majuro

Things I've learned in the last week:

1. Horses are the best (courtesy of Tara).

2. Whales are alive (courtesy of Ruben).

3. Engine parts dealers are the devil. Which means that even with Clem calling and yelling at them every day since we got here a week and a half ago, we still have no parts. Cross your fingers for Saturday.
   

4. Sewing is a dangerous sport. Not that I didn't already know this after days of batten sewing in Chuuk that ended in my thumb swollen to twice its normal size. But having a large needle jammed into my thumb by an industrial sewing machine yesterday has convinced me once and for all.

5. Having no work to do does not in fact mean you spend your time doing all sorts of exciting things. Instead you lie around and watch movies all day (“I was just checking to make sure the projector was still working... I swear!”).

6. Powerpoint is the devil. We arrived here just in time for a big deal conference on climate change with all of the nations in the Pacific. Steph and I spent a couple days there, which mostly involved sleeping and writing emails while various low level officials droned on about funding. However, I did meet some really useful people and it looks like we may be able to take the environmental thing to the next level (what is the next level, you may ask? Good question... Multiple extremely circular, yet quite enjoyable, discussions on board have yet to yield the answer. But I'll keep you all updated as the vision solidifies).

7. It is not possible to make INFINITY into a reasonable acronym involving some permutation of Pacific and the environment. Believe me, we tried. For three hours.

8. Boats look much better without grass growing on their waterline.

9. The flour that was and still is pretty much full of gross bugs sadly had to be used for the bread which now is growing to a monstrously huge size and is taking over the world as Annie says but actually its taking over the reasonably big cooking pot.

10. Bread often turns into Rubens mini pizzas which are normally about the size of his hand or less. They actually turn out tasting like real pizzas, however today he is making a strange but tasty looking round roll of bread with lots of cheese inside he calls it his cheese roll.

11. Annie is mushing up some sort of gross looking white beans which she says will taste a lot better when she adds garlic to it, according to her garlic makes everything better apart from sweet foods. We would like some pepper with the mushed beans but our surprisingly Brazilian crew member hates all spice apart from wasabi- isn't that weird ?!

--Annie and Tara

(Happy Birthday Phil, our proud new boat owner!)

Infinity under sails - North Pacific

At sea between Mokil and the Marshall Islands

At sea between Mokil and the Marshalls

Ruben is working on his bird costume for the Sea Dance festival while Rainbow is working on the log book..

Mokil Atol by Andy -

It is always good to go ashore after a few days at sea. It is even more exciting when the one travel guide which mentions your destination covers it in three sentences. This was the case with our trip to Mokil Atol near Ponape. With a short paragraph of information we did not know what to expect.

After being invited ashore by the Island Chief, who passed his message on to us via a boat messenger, we crossed the outer reef which was more ‘exciting’ than anticipated. There was a strong swell and between each wave the reef was revealed. Timing was critical and with the right moment Clemens gave the dinghy full throttle and with the aid of paddling, to prevent us going fully sideways, we crossed the reef while others bailed the boat. Once in the lagoon the water was very calm and the village lay before us. Instead of the expected collection of simple huts we were greeted with the sight of bungalows and even a large Church and municipal hall.

Everyone we met was very friendly and welcoming. It wasn’t long before we were given a tour of the Island and fed lots of coconuts. Our tour guides were; Romeo a school teacher and Benjamin the Chief of Police (although there was no police station, car, other policeman or even a uniform on the Island….). The Island was incredibly clean and all the houses had well kept gardens and their own dinghy with outboard engine. We were shown the school, which has a fantastic location beside the beach. Romeo told us that a problem they have during class is children going to the ‘toilet’ and coming back soaking wet having been for a swim instead!

That evening there was a party in town to bid farewell to a scientist who had been their guest for a week and we were invited. We were fed many local dishes until we were full including; crab, different fish, cakes, tarot bread and papaya shakes. Since the reef is dangerous to cross at night the Islanders insisted that we stay overnight and that they would look after us. Not only were we given a beach house for the night but in the morning we were brought breakfast. Our host brought us fish, coconuts, cakes, banana fritters, papaya and a neighbour brought us coffee and a rice dish.

The entire time we spent on Mokil we were treated like family. The generosity and friendliness of these Islanders was beyond belief, especially since we had just met and there were eight of us. Before escorting us safely through the reef, we were given a gift of; papaya, sugarcane, a couple hundred bananas and a hundred or so limes to take back to Infinity.

Our thanks go to the wonderful people of Mokil as well as first mate Sheridan and the rest of the crew for watching the boat while we were ashore.

Wonders of the deep blue immensity - October 9

We are desperately waiting for wind because we have an engine failure since we left Mokil Atoll. It's dead calm today, no breeze, no shade and I have never been so hot in my life on a 9th of October...When the sun is setting the sea on fire, we spot a school of dolphins approaching Infinity. Everyone jumps into the water and we spend about 2 hours swimming with these beautiful creatures, they come all around us, they jump and dive under, lots of them circling us, what a show.... We can hear them too very clearly....What a beautiful evening, no one but us and Infinity, 5000 metres of deep blue immensity and dolphins making friends with us.
Here it was the famous paradise, I see the Ocean, feel freedom, smell unity, I am almost home.
A few days later, it's another dead calm sea, the wind is whimsical... When comes the twilight, a fin whale approaches Infinity, slow, heavy and grey, diving under and letting us guess when she is going to surface again. Just another day in Pacific paradise...
On these two occasions, Mother Nature made up for the lack of wind by sending us a reward at sunset, in a wink.


A very special thanks to Captain Clemens and First Mate Sheridan for spending countless hours in the engine room stuck under the engine, head up side down, breathing toxic paint....and still keeping their smiles and moods vibrant.