[password]shipnavire1
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Merry Christmas from Navire
At last we stop, for a few days at least. We are at Abaiang, a rarely visited (by yachts or imitang - white people) northern Kiribati atoll. We arrived at the southern end a few days ago and celebrated on Christmas Eve with the crew of four other boats. With ten people crammed in the cockpit we sang, played Secret Santa, and had a shared feast with the last of our provisions.
Christmas Day saw us scurrying up the atoll, zigzagging through the coral, to another village to escape the fetch from a strong northerly.
We have hosts here, Meriin and Tetau, a delightful young couple who live in Tarawa, who were our drivers on our big day out. We brought them up here on Navire to see parents for Christmas, and they have been providing excellent on shore hospitality.
The villages are gorgeous, the houses all made from locally sourced materials, thatched roofs abound.
For entertainment we are going to the Catholic church tomorrow, the building an almost Gothic edifice bestowed by the early missionaries, to hear the singing. On Monday we hire motor bikes to tour the island, and Tuesday join in a huge local party with music and feasting. Then we may have to move again for shelter as the wind strengthens and shifts direction. Shelter is a relative term, there really is nothing higher than a few metres up here.
Please send news of home. We will pick up our email in Tarawa at the beginning of January before we set off for Majuro.
We often think and talk of many of you, and treasure the emails we do get. It does feel a long way from home up here and I even had a bout of homesickness recently.
xx Janet
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