Moku pe'a Report

0600 position 2-00N 157-29W. At anchor in 28', sand bottom. Christmas
Island

We started making noise this morning on the VHF at 0800, and the boarding
party finally showed up at 1100. We cleared the paperwork gauntlet at
1145, almost a day and half after it should have been completed. It was
quite a circus. We were anchored off of the pier when the VHF came to
life announcing that the officials were about to arrive for us to pick up.
So I jumped in the dinghy, pulled on the engine starter cord, the cord
handle came off, and the cord retreated into the engine, out of sight.
Damn! So I rowed the 200 yards to the pier, picked up two very large
officials and rowed them back to Moku pe'a. Rocky rowed in to pick up the
third very large official since they all wouldn't fit in the dinghy in one
trip. Apparently government workers are well fed on Christmas Island.
Formalities were relatively painless. No apologies for making us wait a
day and a half, but they did indicate that they were "busy" the day
before. As we ferried them in to the dock one at a time the female
immigration officer noticed a bottle of Prell shampoo in the cockpit,
admired its smell, and asked if she might have it. After making us wait a
day and a half? Right.

Upon receiving emancipation, Rocky and I moved the boat a mile and half up
the beach to the anchorage off of London. We'll have to clear out with
customs tomorrow at their office in London, it is the metropolis of island
life, and there is nothing happening anywhere near the pier. After
settling down off of London I repaired the dinghy motor and we went into
town to explore. There wasn't much happening in London either. There
were a few stores with refrigeration and Rocky bought some hot dogs and
oranges. Rocky asked if there was a pub or bar in the area, got a funny
look and the response, "If you want to drink, you buy beer in the store
and take it down to the beach." I figured out where the customs office is
and we returned to the boat, pretty much done with Christmas Island.
We'll return to town tomorrow to check out and be on our way.

One item of interest. As I was filling out the paperwork the officials
noted that I was getting the date wrong, indicating that it was the 8th of
May and not the 7th. Seems we crossed the dateline in sailing due South
from Hawaii. The country of Kiribati is stretched out over almost 2000
miles of ocean, East to West, with Christmas at its Eastern end. Makes
sense for it to be the same day throughout the country and since most of
the country is West of the 180th meridian, they tweaked the dateline way
to the East around Christmas Island. After we depart tomorrow the
calendar goes back to Hawaii time because we will cross the dateline the
other way on our sail Southwest to Suwarrow in the Cook Islands.