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showed a copy of our letter.
Colonia seemed a more substantial than it had five years earlier. There were dozens of new businesses open, from computer shops to fresh fish stands not to mention big supermarkets and a WallMart! Nonetheless, the government of F.S.M. is practically bankrupt. Corruption has made millionaires of some while basic amenities are foundering. The approximately 100 million dollars that the U.S. has bestowed on F.S.M. every year in return for their Compact of Free Association status, has been squandered and mismanaged. Big salaries are taken at the top leaving nothing at all at the bottom.
At the Hospital's dental clinic I discovered the X-ray machine had been out of service for months. When I tried to get a routine blood test, I discovered the testing equipment was "broken".
We were unable to replace our 8 hp outboard or to get spare parts. We were unhappy at the thought of visiting the remote atolls of Micronesia, with only our tired 15 year old Yamaha 2hp.
The weather grew overcast. A low had formed southeast of Pohnpei and quickly grew into an out of season tropical storm. It gave Pohnpei only a glancing blow killing one young man when a tree fell on him. Kujira continued north to Guam, slamming the island with 100 knot winds.
On the 16th April we pulled up our two anchors free of the deep mud of the estuary, said Sayonara to our fellow Japanese cruiser, Aiko Miyamoto on Shingetsu, and turned away from noisy Rumor's Bar that had tormented us with loud blaring music six nights a week. We took on 200 gallons of fuel at the main wharf and finally cleared customs and immigration.
We exited the lagoon to sail around the other side through Nant Passage, a wide current-filled zig-zag channel. For a vessel to approach from the seaward side, the opening would be all but invisible.
We sailed on to to Mandolenihmw Harbor to visit enigmatic Nan Madol. Despite the archeological research done so far on this megalithic city, there remain many tantalizing questions about Nan Madol and am older city now submerged beneath the sea. The site seems to have been occupied by several different peoples for thousands of years. Sea-people like the Polynesians, used to living on small atolls, would find Pohnpei's interior exceptionally hot, humid and rainy. Living on artificial islands on the reef was healthier.
Nan Madol is part of a general mystery concerning the identity of people who have left all sorts of surprising engineering feats and monuments in stone behind them. The islands of Guam and Tinian possess huge Latte Stones: pedestals and caps that stand as much as 18 feet high. Even larger ones remain in the quarry on Rota Island where they were hewn. Yap Island has huge stone money, quarried on Babeldoab in Belau, shaped and transported by canoe at great risk back 300 miles to Yap. On Eauripik and Kapingamarangi we saw beautifully hewn coral blocks used in walls and high foundations for dwellings.
The great solid ramparts of Nan Douwas, a fortress-temple stood guard at the apex of the reef. Working our way to seaward in the dinghy we rode over small surf to the deep water outside of a sea gateway, and with a solid push the water surged through taking us in our little dinghy through the narrow opening. Before us stood another wall and gate and then, the broad eastern flank of Nan Douwas which rose more than 30-feet above us, still intact after hundreds of years.
Riding the surf across a ruined breakwater in the shallows, we entered the north channel intersecting the landward side of
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