Butaritari - Abaiang - Kiribati

Village dwelling.

Wednesday March 9th 2011, marked our return to Kiribati, the trip down from Majuro had been quite good however I had made a mistake when we were just south of the SW tip of Majuro; the wind went very light for a few hours and I failed to use that period to motor eastwards. Thus on arrival off Tarawa, having been hard on the wind all the way; we were twenty miles too far west and spent twelve hours making good that distance against a fresh breeze and strong adverse current. As it was, we entered the Pass at 2130hrs and got the anchor down about an hour later, not a thing I would have done without being familiar with the entrance and having all my old tracks available. It was also a fine night but that didn’t help us spotting the buoys, which were not lighted and were poor radar targets. Having navigational marks is a fine thing but when they are not lighted they become more of an obstruction than a help; I always worry about running into anything with sharp edges during the night!

Knowing that the anchorage in Tarawa is quite awful in anything but the best conditions we had been hoping to keep our visit as short as possible, a sort of ‘get the permit and go’ thing. So the next morning we were raring to go however we were stuck on board until we’d been Cleared In and that took most of the morning. Once ashore, we did the rounds; Bank to get money from the ATM, Post Office to send mail and the Tourist Office to see if there was anything going on that we would regret missing……..After that we went to see the Customs about a permit to go to Abaiang, I had forgotten that on the way north, when we wanted to go to Butaritari, they had asked us to write out a request stating the reason for the visit; now I needed the same thing for Abaiang. Fortunately I had paper and carbon paper in with my documents, so was able to knock up a request on the spot which I left with them for ‘perusal’ over the lunch break. In the meantime we headed out to Bairiki in a ‘Jitney’ bus so we could do ‘internet’ at the TSKL (communications centre). Whilst in Bairiki I decided to call at the Immigration Office, grandly known as The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration and furnished them with my carbon copy of the same request I’d made to Customs; after a short wait they handed me a permit granting the three weeks I’d requested. I was thus a bit flummoxed when the Customs, back in Betio, returned my request with “Approved for one week only” on it. I thought about this for a moment or so and decided we’d better get the situation sorted right away, so I showed Customs the Immigration permit, to which they replied “ Oh that’s OK, its not up to us, it’s a matter for Immigration as you are under their control; if they say three weeks, its not a problem”.
Now this had me worried, as on the way north we had stopped at Butaritari with permission from Customs, I don’t believe Immigration knew about it……if they had known they may not have approved.

Anyway, we now had a permit to go to Abaiang and as it was getting late we decided to leave the next morning and have another bumpy night bouncing up and down off Betio.
We hadn’t been in bed long when we heard Patrick from the yacht “Brick House” calling to us from his dinghy, he told us there was a Tsunami headed our way, possibly a big one. Without further ado we got the dinghy aboard and stowed, heaved up anchor and headed for deeper water. By the time the anchor came up we had got better information off the Radio and knew we had a little time in hand, we were clear of the anchorage by 2200hrs and the wave wasn’t due till 0036hrs; thus we decided to continue on to Abaiang, going slowly so that we’d arrive in the morning. We didn’t see any wave and nor, to the best of my knowledge, did Tarawa or any of the Kiribati islands.

We entered through the Bingham Channel in the early hours of the morning, not good timing as we had the sun right in our eyes; I don’t think I’d do that one again without a bit better visibility! Fortunately it was high water and we didn’t clunk anything, we found a nice calm anchorage in the SE part of the lagoon just north of Tanimaiki Village and “Brick House” joined us there a few hours later.

After a recovery period, we all went ashore and wandered along to the village where we stopped off in the Maneaba to say hi to the locals, here we were lucky to meet up with Esta, a school teacher, and a few others who were engaged in their weekly Bingo game.

Maneaba (meeting place)

After a short course on what was going on in the village, we wandered off up the road, trying to restore our land legs. Everyone we met was most friendly and no one passed without greeting us; Kiribati people must be about the friendliest people on earth and despite the hardships of their way of life, they are always happy and smiling

At the end of the village was a small clinic, donated by the EU, 4
and a rustic “hospital” behind it; fortunately the villagers do not have to pay for healthcare, just as well as few of them have any money. Healthcare however, is basic; not many drugs and no fancy equipment, if you are lucky they will detect an illness in time to have you transported to the main hospital in Tarawa.

Village Clinic

We were immediately impressed by the Taro Pits, which were deep and well tended, also the abundance of Breadfruit trees (which almost made up for the lack of Bananas!). It seemed like the locals here were really industrious; working hard on the Copra, weaving and tending their land. Maybe it was because we were comparing them with the Marshallese, who seemed to do so little.

We decided the next day that we should go north and take anchorage off Taburao, the Government Station; this so we could present our permits to the local Police before they had to come chasing after us to see them. Unfortunately, we discovered that when the wind is in the Southeast, it blows up the lagoon and builds up a greater wave action the further you get north. The anchorage off the Government Station was a little sloppy but we were able to launch dinghies and head ashore to a small beach where there was more coral than sand, we were lucky it was close to high water! Most of the Government Station looked quite new, western style buildings with a sign saying they had been donated by The Republic of Taiwan. One of the sweeteners that secure votes in the U.N. or perhaps just a kickback for all the fish the Taiwanese are taking from Kiribati waters?

At the Government Station we found the OIC (officer in charge) and he welcomed us to the island and proceeded to give us a tour of the premises; he was more than happy to show us his telephone, the main link with Tarawa and the outside world. This was also the Police Station and the Post Office and the OIC was responsible for it all, a man with many hats!

Behind the station was a small village and a school; the children had just finished for the day and were keen to make some contact with us.

We met up with one of the teachers and discovered that most families had six or seven children and this was more the Kiribati norm. I asked where all these children were going to go, as there was clearly not enough land in Kiribati to support that number; the teacher said that many would get to Australia or New Zealand but it was clear, that on a local level, no one was planning for the future.

Back in the somewhat bouncy anchorage we decided to move on, to see if we could find a quieter spot. Once again it was downwind and we were able to sail Anchor to Anchor; this time we found some shelter behind a point, anchored off the village of Tebunginaro. A small swell was sweeping around the point causing us to roll at times but it was certainly less exposed than the previous anchorage. The villagers were holding a dance in the Maneaba that evening but it was modern dancing to modern music and they had a modern stereo to blast it all out into the anchorage…… fortunately the power was closed off around 2200hrs and the rest of the night was peaceful.

Tebunginaro is a neat and photogenic village set around a small inlet that dries out at low tide, there wasn’t a lot to hold us there; especially with the rolly anchorage. So we moved south to Koinawa Village, easily identified by the large Catholic Church which has a prominent bell tower and looks quite out of place set amongst the coconut trees. The bell tower used to be an attraction for passing yachties and the odd tourist, who would climb to the top where there was a fine view over the whole island and lagoon; unfortunately the steps have now become unsafe and the view is temporarily confined to history.



We spent some time speaking with the Church Warden, this is actually a mission and a large tract of land belongs to the church, there are several large Maneaba’s and various accommodations as the church has several big functions here during the year and people come from all the villages to spend time together and participate. It was another neat village and as usual the people were overwhelmingly friendly.

The old Maneaba.

From this anchorage we went back to the southeast part of the lagoon, we were a little fed up with the rolly anchorages further north as the wind continued to blow fresh from the Southeast, setting up a constant swell, which crept into all the anchorages all the way up.

We had intended to spend some time up at Ribona, at the far north of the lagoon; however this would require a wind north of east and that just didn’t happen. On my previous visit I’d spent over a week up there and had fond memories of the place, I have since been informed that it has become quite ‘built up’ and that it is no longer the place that it was. This time we went a little south of Tanimaiki Village and found some quiet and peaceful water to drop our anchor in; it was ten feet of water over a white sand bottom and most relaxing! There is quite a wide interior coral shelf around the inside of most of these islands but further out from the shelf the water deepens only gradually and there is plenty of anchorage room at what ever depth suits your keel. I very much liked this arrangement as we were near enough to be able to row ashore but far enough away that we were not ‘on view’, far enough away to discourage casual visits by both swimmers and canoes; and far enough away to get breeze whilst missing out on the flies and mosquitoes.

We remained in this anchorage for over a week, it was great; most days we would get to have a little swim but on occasions the wind was blowing too strong, kicking up a small sea that was enough to make swimming difficult but not enough to get the boat moving.
“Brick House” was with us for a while and we enjoyed their company however they had secured a Permit which allowed them to visit several islands to the south as well as Abaiang and they were keen to use what time they had available to the best advantage so pushed on to Kuria and Abemama. We were hoping that we would be able to do these islands after clearing out from Tarawa and thus avoid the long trek back just to ‘clear-out’.

Our situation was right at the far south end of the village so that there were no huts to the southwest of us at all, the huts and the local population only swelled as we went northeast. The nearest family to us on shore was Teaoka and Banrenga and we soon made acquaintances with them; we were very lucky as they both spoke good English and we were able to learn much of the way they lived, survived and brought up a family on this way-out but wonderful location.

Teaoka and Banrenga and their two children.

We had many visits ashore with them and always they would offer almost everything they had in a show of generosity that defies description; we had to work very hard in finding ways to refuse things gracefully and without causing insult. We gave them what we could, what we thought they would find useful but of course, they have so little. This is not a materialistic society however that does not stop them being progressive and hard working; the main industry and source of income, is the copra and they toil at this long hours almost every day.

Drying coconuts/copra.

Enjoying coconut milk (Toddy)

Children in school.

Receiving a worming pill from the village nurse.

We were lucky to see the whole process of gathering the Coconuts, through to getting the Copra bagged and ready for export. They showed us how to make the Coconut Oil which they use as a balm, how they extract the Coconut Cream (which goes down so well with Curry!) and we even had a demonstration in rope making from the coconut husk. Whilst all this was taking place we caught up with work on board, I did some sanding and varnishing, Paula caught up on her projects; time passed too quickly and our three week permit was coming to a close.

Before leaving however, we made one last visit to the school; the children were seeing the local nurse and getting their ‘worming’ tablets so we didn’t upset the teaching day too much by being there. We had already learned from Teaoka and Banrenga that the school was under threat of being closed by the government if they didn’t build a much larger school room where they could accommodate all the children together. Teaoka was on the School Committee and active in fund raising and organising. All the villagers were to participate in the building of this new Maneaba at the school and each family was busy producing fifty metres of sennet for the lashings and prescribed area of Pandanas leaves for the roofing. The previous weekend there had been a Bingo Drive at the Church Maneaba and the proceeds would go to other materials; all the villagers would participate in the building.

It was with some regret that we tore our selves away from this anchorage, we could easily have remained for longer but with the expiration of our permit coming close we took the best weather window we could find and made the trip back to Tarawa; we timed it so that we wouldn’t be marooned in the Tarawa anchorage over the weekend.

The trip back down was a little more boisterous than we’d expected….. Those coconut palms break up the wind well and offer quite a lot of protection in their lee! The Tarawa entrance was too rough to motor through into wind and swell so we tacked in under double reefed main and inner jib. We got as far tucked in behind the Betio Jetty as possible but the swell was still rolling in and we were bucking about like a Bronco, almost ducking our bows into the waves; it was most uncomfortable and we had to sleep in the saloon.

The next morning we went ashore and did internet down at Bairiki, then spent the afternoon aboard, bouncing up and down, answering all our three weeks of incoming mail and digesting the weather forecasts etc. Friday morning, having submitted a really good, grovelling request to be allowed to stop at one or more islands on the way south having cleared out, we were given the unequivocal NO from the Immigration Officer in charge…Ioane Anerika…. who told us that “under no circumstances would any yachts be granted permission to stop / visit any islands after they had cleared out, If we wished to visit any outer island we would have to return to Tarawa to take Clearance –out”
So, it seemed that our previous visit to Butaritari had been a bureaucratic error / oversight …..We’ll just put that down to good luck!

This was a bit of a blow as we had thought that, from what we had been told by the tourist office, the government was being more lenient to visiting yachts…..Certainly that is not the case.
I therefore took clearance for Rotuma in Fiji, I certainly wasn’t going to take a clearance to a place I felt I may not even be able to reach and then have to come all the way back to Tarawa’s rotten anchorage (and avoid the weekends) to get a further clearance which would send me off in the direction I’d just covered twice…..NO WAY! We’d had a hard enough job just getting down from Abaiang so I didn’t rate our chances too high at beating out to Abemama, especially with the wind honking as it was; the forecast was not indicating any improvement either!

SO…. with mixed feelings we departed Tarawa southwards on Saturday 2nd April, by the time we cleared the southwest tip, we were hard on the wind in 18 / 20kts of wind and strong west going current. We couldn’t point Kuria let alone Abemama!
On my permit request, I had pleaded that we had sailed half way around the world to visit Abemama and that was somewhat true. I have been at sea long enough now, to know that some goals are best left for another time or just cancelled. Maybe the way I see Abemama in my dreams is better than the reality anyway!

REALITY CHECK: The Kiribati people are some of the friendliest in the world, they have a really neat way of life on the outer islands and it was interesting to experience; this is way off the beaten track and far from being a “cruising ground”. Some of the Lagoon passes are shallow with strong currents and where you cannot get into a lagoon the anchorages may be uncomfortable and exposed, provisioning is very limited and very expensive; good drinking water is difficult to get and expensive (there is very little rain!) and attractions promoted in the tourist literature are somewhat overstated. Until such times as you can clear in/out at the south of the group and clear again at the northern end, this is not going to become an area to cruise. If you are passing through anyway… then it could be worth stopping off….. However, visiting any of the outer islands is subject to an individual permit which may or may not be granted and even if it is granted, there may be time restrictions; there is no certainty and it’s a long way to sail only to find the gates are closed!!!

Village dwelling.

Village School.