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"Life will become more complicated," he said. "Young people are picking up styles and habits from other islands where they go to school or to visit. Now the girls paint their faces with red lipstick instead of turmeric powder. They chew betel nut and smoke more. There is less respect for elders. Five years ago the chiefly authority was 100% effective. Today I would rate it at about 85%."
Woleai
On 14 May 2003, we departed from Lamotrek. Men stepped from a canoe house to wave us goodbye. With the conch shell horn we saluted them in return. Carefully we picked our way through the entrance passage in the uncertain light, again under partly cloudy skies.
Woleai lagoon, is set with a score of motus large and small. It looked a nice lagoon to explore. The few reef hazards are obvious in good light, which explains why the Japanese used it as a staging post during WWII.
The sky was darkening and the pretty lagoon colors fading." I think we'd better get ashore to see the chief before that rainsquall to windward hits us." An older man wearing an immaculately folded, if somewhat dingy white thul loincloth strode towards us as we landed. Chief Michael Fraghie is my uncle. I will take you to him."
At that very moment the heavens opened. The three of us raced to the nearest shed for shelter---and remained trapped there for the next hour while the rain steadily worsened, culminating in a lightening storm! Nearby a laughing cluster of island women bathed and washed their hair under the church's overflowing downspout while children raced too a fro hollering in delight. When the deluge eventually settled to a mere drizzle Michael hefted the 40 pound bag of rice we carried to follow our new friend, Dominique, to the chief's shed.
Eventually the once handsome chief, sour faced in old age, hobbled towards us where we sat in his dingy shed on broken chairs, using an aluminum crutch.
Like many of these Yapese chiefs he studiously avoided looking at us and conversed only through Dominique, a prerogative of rank. He not only ignored us but also our gift of rice. We must pay $20 apiece landing fee, no ifs or buts. Michael was unhappy about the general lack of courtesy. Since visiting this island was obviously "just a commercial deal" we thought of the 20 longboats we had already counted along the beach. How much did Woleai have in the way of tradition that was comparable to our rewarding visits to Lamotrek and Ifalik?
The next morning's weather fax decided us. "There isn't much wind now, but those two lows will join up into a bigger low by tomorrow and suck wind towards them. Maybe we can ride westward to Yap of the back of them," I suggested.
"What if it turns into a cyclone?" Michael wondered aloud.
" There was no shelter in Woleai anyway. We should have reached Yap's sheltered bays before it gets too strong. "
Without a word to the old chief, we raised our anchor, set sail and powered across the lagoon enjoying loveliness of the lagoon before emerging from South Pass.
Passage to Yap.
The sky was full of omens. Mackerel cloud hung lace-like on the edge of a sweep of dirty gray, while behind us to the east, the sky remained blue.
Over the next 24 hours we skirted the northern edge of the two
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