11th May 2016 - Ocean View (Mindanao) to Palau!!

Wednesday 11^th May 2016

7 degrees 10.418N

134 degrees 27.103E

Moored off Royal Belau Yacht Club

Koror

Palau

Palau, thus far, is glorious.  Peaceful, beautiful, clean.

2XS seems at peace on a nice calm mooring near Sam’s Yacht Club - actually it is really Royal Belau Yacht Club..., not far from the main town of Koror.  It rained - oh joy – and I washed!

Burt apparently they are in the midst of a crippling drought here too.  We have arrived just in time to be able to replenish our drinking water supplies.  Maybe the drought has broken!

Rally!

We left Ocean View for the very last time on Thursday morning, with the Raja Ampat rally, and naval escort.

We anchored with the other boats in Tubalan Bay (still in the Gulf of Davao) and left at crack of dawn to make our way across the sea to Palau, a small dot in the ocean.  I love the name of the main island – Babelthuap!!

We went in to the yacht club to register soon after we arrived, although I only had two wished for that particular moment – (1) to die or (2) – preferably – to go for a swim in the clean clear water, where I could see coral, and fishies.  But – ashore it was!  Kew, who works at the club was astonished to see us.  “Usually when people arrive, after a long sea voyage, they stay on their boats, sleeping, for at least two days!  But here you are, wandering around!”

Pete and Kew

I was in a bit of a daze but I did manage to hear Pete describing our trip to some passing sailor.  “Oh yes, it was easy!  No wind at all, and a calm sea.”  If this bloke had asked me, I would have said, “A horrible trip.  No wind at all and a corkscrew boat-rocking sea with a big swell all the way.”

There were nice moments.  At one stage, while Pete was down in the engine hatch, getting very hot, trying to work out why the bilge was full of water, I witnessed a beautiful sight – a whole pod of melon-headed whales leaping all around is, in a hunting frenzy.  I had never seen these, and would have thought they were dolphins, except that I had heard the other people who left Ocean View with us describing them – like dolphins, but with a different fin, and a big (yes) melon-shaped head.

We did five hour shifts and I managed to pull my weight, more or less.  But oh deary me I did feel ill…Not bad enough to be leaning over the back of the boat feeding the fish, but bad enough to feel…BAD!!  This must have been v very unpleasant for Pete too, but the one I feel sorry for is…ME!!

But now we are in a heavenly place.  It is calm, pretty, the boat is STILL.  I never want to leave and set out to sea again, but I am sure I will get over it.  Like childbirth…I will forget…

When we went ashore we walked along the road and looked at the local shops.  I wanted to get a simcard and internet load, of course.  So far so good, more or less…I have a simcard, and a month of unlimited internet.  My emails popped up very promptly.  But…I don’t seem to be able to reply, or to be able to to my blog, or Facebook… Never mind; will persevere!

When I got back to the yacht club – I had to sit outside the little shop and wait thirty minutes for my simcard – Pete said, “I am very tired.  Do I look as bad as you do?”  Well no…I took a photo of him

and then showed him the selfie I had taken while waiting outside the shop…I win!!!