Stuck in Palau

It has slowly been sneaking up on us, but now it's pretty official: we are stuck here in Palau. And the reason, of course, is that we are waiting for a boat part! It's the typical cruiser trap and maybe we're lucky it hasn't happened to us sooner. It is the new auto pilot ram we're waiting for. For some reason Raymarine was really slow to get the ram to West Marine so they could post it. It only left US about 3 days ago, despite us ordering it 1st or 2nd January. Sigh. Sometimes things get here from US really quick (a week), but sometimes it can be three or more weeks! And apparently the postal services are pretty slow at the moment we hear. Double sigh.

Sure, there would be worse places to be stuck, but, it is an expensive place to be stuck, it's sooooooo easy to spend money on food, ice cream and beers.

We also have another really important reason why we want to leave: Sheralee is coming to visit in Philippines, arriving on the 5th February! Yay, yipee, hurray, another visitor :-) we're really excited that she's coming, and can't wait to share our fantastic boat life with her, but we're also in general really excited about going to the Philippines. We have been reading lonely planet and are looking forward to visiting a country where there are lots of things to do ashore also. All these islands we have visited so far on our trip have been really great, but, we haven't done many trips ashore, beside all the village visits of course.

The good thing is this next passage isn't as long as the one to here, phew, and hopefully we will have trade winds on the beam the whole way. It's about 650 miles all the way to Cebu City (where Sheralee arrives), and 150 or so less to the 'entrance' to Philippines. Jenny, the big beautiful Norwegian boat we spent xmas with, only took just under three day to do that passage, crazy! We anticipate about a week or so, if we're lucky, a bit less.

Worst case, if we are still waiting a week or so from now, there is the possibility that we leave without the auto pilot (and keeping our fingers crossed that the old one will work all the way so we won't have to hand steer!) and one of the many boats that are here will bring it with them a later on.

We haven't had much time to get bored yet (that would also be a crime). Fun things we have done since back in Koror are: road trip around Babeldaob with Oh La La, kayak trip around all the amazing little islands and hidden bays with Amazing (Danish boat, only I, Astrid, went, Phil was busy organising new sails for Oh La La) and poker playing games on Sophia. Check out all the photos on facebook. We have also done a bunch of boat work, and got more to do (as usual) and Sophia is also due for a through revision of all lockers and some spring cleaning.