Nearing Palau the winds die, and a couple days later we arrive in Babelthuab. The rock formations typical of Palau are immediately evident from afar, and already in the pass we marvel at the lush greenery, the vertical cliffs (after endlessly flat atolls) and the crystal waters all the way into the commercial harbor. I have written to the RBYC in advance to warn of our arrival, but we circle around for an hour or so before being granted permission to dock and receive the authorities. We welcome the lack of fuss over papers, quarantine and customs, and by mid morning we're anchored in front of the Royal Belau Yacht Club, where we are warmly welcomed by Dermot, the manager.
Hot showers, cold drinks, meat and variety of foods, and real supermarkets seem all new to us, aside from Honiara and Chuuk this is the first fully civilized places we've seen in over six months. Even traffic and noise are more amusing than annoying. Palau is truly Americanized, there is no public transportation, everyone's driving their own car (resulting in a very small city with a big traffic problem), the main shops are from American chains, luckily along heaps and heaps of junk-food there is also selection of regular food, not already cooked, preserved, processed or frozen. At long last we can take advantage of an actual nightlife in town. Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese restaurants are all there, while the real nightlife (for westerners) revolves around Kramer's, a German's bar-restaurant where the party atmosphere is seldom lacking, especially when we're around (see video).
The windlass which we repaired already in the Solomons worked only once, and we came all the way here hauling the tackle by hand, easy though never pleasant. I decide to give it another shot before facing the deep anchorages of the Philippines ahead, while Michela poking around as usual found some fresh areas of rot in the superstructure. The windlass goes to a local machine shop, but it will work again only after shuttling it back and forth a few times -and it IS heavy!-. The electric motor was toast, but luckily I had an identical one taken off an electric winch I removed since quite useless. Stripping off the rot and filling it with beams of Fijian ironwood means stripping off quite a bit of paint, and what starts as a quick repair (nothing is quick on boats ever, except the hemorrhage of money!) becomes a new paint job for the whole deck superstructure. We start in the harbor, then we decide to get the permits to visit the Rock Islands and do some more work in more pleasant settings, since we're here, why not. We tuck in a perfect little lagoon of turquoise water, too small to swing, I secure a line to a tree. There we are able to start with the primers, swim around, collect mussels (big shells, lots of work picking and cleaning them and very little meat inside). Then just four days later we discover we're running out of smokes and seeing the weather above turning sour decide to head back into town. We drop anchor there just to find out that a typhoon is forming right over our heads, though in the little hole we've been we hardly noticed and would have been plenty safe.
No matter, we remain by the yacht club (since returning to the islands would have meant renewing the costly permit), seeing day after day of pouring rain and mounting winds, but without having to take any special precaution (just plenty of chain) the storm moves away in a few days. One after another, several US Navy ships have called into the harbor, crowding it with loud and yet orderly sailors. Returning from the cursed war, or hurrying to some other related mission, or patrolling endlessly the Pacific, faces are happy or sad, depending, moods joyful or somber, but in most cases it is evident the desire to let loose, break free from the floating prison if only for a few hours. One night though, me and Miki decided to have a "fancy" dinner to the only Indian restaurant. Being one of the more expensive venues, we expect an evening full of courtesy and relaxation, after another long day sweating under the merciless sun. As we enter, two black guys are sitting, one (the bigger meaner looking one) obviously inebriated, no matter to us, so we just pick a table not too close and bury our faces in the menu. Time a few seconds , and the big mean one comes to our table, looking for a reason to chat, maybe to fight, and acting all around obnoxiously. I don't bite his provocations -the guy is young, drunk, furious, repressed and incredibly pumped chain-gang style- and I manage to mutter a simple and very bourgeois "we're trying to have dinner...do you mind?". If I only stood up that would have been the end of me...while his buddy tries to wrestle him away he breaks into full on shouting that I'm a racist and it's time to fight, he wants to fight, whoever is there: he needs to fight. By then the owner (a big Rajastani fellow) is finally out, and the two combined manage to push him out of the venue. The day after we hear that the guy did indeed end up in a riotous rumble, spent the night in jail, and after that of all the following ships only the officers got to take night leave ashore. One up for discipline: a whole fleet paid for one single idiot, so, if you decide to be a soldier, you better stick to what you subscribed to.
Painfully slow, the work proceeds, and many days and trips to the hardware store later the first coats of paint are on, followed by the antiskid. We spent so much money in Palau, that we actually won a small lottery where one gets points every time shopping at certain venues. I never won anything of the sort before. So all in all a whole month goes by, with Cecilia and Miki and myself working hard in order to get ready for the last Pacific leg to the Philippines. We have one wonderful night partying at Kramer's, after rocking the place until it shut, we move on to the only available venue that late: a disco karaoke that's really a club with brothel.
The girls are very nice to us, maybe because we're definitely not there for them, except the Palauan bartender (a blast of a guy), and they take care of our drinks religiously, making sure we're extra pampered. At Kramer's we also picked up last people standing: some diving dude and an american young guy who sailed from Yap with a traditional canoe. He's white, but grew up in the Marshalls, and it's funny to see a westerner with a westerner's mind behaving like a local and speaking a local language, his job is to dive deep in order to catalogue new species of the deep...surprisingly for a young man, he doesn't miss the teptatbustle of the US, rather stick to his betel nuts cocoanut juice and the slow pace of emerald and turquoise atolls I guess. The girls other than (sadly) practicing the old trade, are also hostesses and entertainers, doing a few well coreographed and rehearsed ballets. As the evening seems to die down (or we simply had enough), we decide to leave just as a massive downpour breaks off. Taken by a sudden fellinian inspiration, I drag the girls under the rain, and decide that strolling leisurely and unconcerned under heavy tropical rain is a good idea. The fresh water clears the streets, our heads, and the stale smell of club from our clothes. I felt it like one of those momentous, hilarious and yet almost spiritual moments, elated in the idea that since we were going to get wet, might as well do it in style (with the calm night all around us). I am still not sure the girls saw it that way. The day after, the Palauan bartender tells us that while he was passing around the pipe, our neighbour, the chief of Police, was eyeing us maliciously, but being all of us (him and us) in what was obviously a brothel he couldn't really do much. In between paint coats I also managed to sneak on a weekend sail aboard a superclassic sailboat belonging to an american old-timer skipper: "Anthea", built in late 1800's. A beautiful old lady built for racing without lifelines, with running backstays and minimal interior furnishing. Moving with no breeze at all, with shiny varnish and brass and the solid feel of wood under the feet. Gary, the owner, is a character known across the Pacific, not only sailing across it in a boat absolutely not designed (but obviously capable of) for it, but also for delivering just about anything over long distances, all the while cracking jokes endlessly at lightning speed. The paint job really is coming to the final touches, the windlass is back in its' position and working (halle-fuckin'-luya!), and only the ordinary preparations are left for the final stretch that will put the word end to a journey of over two years through the marvellous, terrible, gorgeous, scary, mean, sweet, pleasant Pacific.
Hot showers, cold drinks, meat and variety of foods, and real supermarkets seem all new to us, aside from Honiara and Chuuk this is the first fully civilized places we've seen in over six months. Even traffic and noise are more amusing than annoying. Palau is truly Americanized, there is no public transportation, everyone's driving their own car (resulting in a very small city with a big traffic problem), the main shops are from American chains, luckily along heaps and heaps of junk-food there is also selection of regular food, not already cooked, preserved, processed or frozen. At long last we can take advantage of an actual nightlife in town. Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese restaurants are all there, while the real nightlife (for westerners) revolves around Kramer's, a German's bar-restaurant where the party atmosphere is seldom lacking, especially when we're around (see video).
The windlass which we repaired already in the Solomons worked only once, and we came all the way here hauling the tackle by hand, easy though never pleasant. I decide to give it another shot before facing the deep anchorages of the Philippines ahead, while Michela poking around as usual found some fresh areas of rot in the superstructure. The windlass goes to a local machine shop, but it will work again only after shuttling it back and forth a few times -and it IS heavy!-. The electric motor was toast, but luckily I had an identical one taken off an electric winch I removed since quite useless. Stripping off the rot and filling it with beams of Fijian ironwood means stripping off quite a bit of paint, and what starts as a quick repair (nothing is quick on boats ever, except the hemorrhage of money!) becomes a new paint job for the whole deck superstructure. We start in the harbor, then we decide to get the permits to visit the Rock Islands and do some more work in more pleasant settings, since we're here, why not. We tuck in a perfect little lagoon of turquoise water, too small to swing, I secure a line to a tree. There we are able to start with the primers, swim around, collect mussels (big shells, lots of work picking and cleaning them and very little meat inside). Then just four days later we discover we're running out of smokes and seeing the weather above turning sour decide to head back into town. We drop anchor there just to find out that a typhoon is forming right over our heads, though in the little hole we've been we hardly noticed and would have been plenty safe.
No matter, we remain by the yacht club (since returning to the islands would have meant renewing the costly permit), seeing day after day of pouring rain and mounting winds, but without having to take any special precaution (just plenty of chain) the storm moves away in a few days. One after another, several US Navy ships have called into the harbor, crowding it with loud and yet orderly sailors. Returning from the cursed war, or hurrying to some other related mission, or patrolling endlessly the Pacific, faces are happy or sad, depending, moods joyful or somber, but in most cases it is evident the desire to let loose, break free from the floating prison if only for a few hours. One night though, me and Miki decided to have a "fancy" dinner to the only Indian restaurant. Being one of the more expensive venues, we expect an evening full of courtesy and relaxation, after another long day sweating under the merciless sun. As we enter, two black guys are sitting, one (the bigger meaner looking one) obviously inebriated, no matter to us, so we just pick a table not too close and bury our faces in the menu. Time a few seconds , and the big mean one comes to our table, looking for a reason to chat, maybe to fight, and acting all around obnoxiously. I don't bite his provocations -the guy is young, drunk, furious, repressed and incredibly pumped chain-gang style- and I manage to mutter a simple and very bourgeois "we're trying to have dinner...do you mind?". If I only stood up that would have been the end of me...while his buddy tries to wrestle him away he breaks into full on shouting that I'm a racist and it's time to fight, he wants to fight, whoever is there: he needs to fight. By then the owner (a big Rajastani fellow) is finally out, and the two combined manage to push him out of the venue. The day after we hear that the guy did indeed end up in a riotous rumble, spent the night in jail, and after that of all the following ships only the officers got to take night leave ashore. One up for discipline: a whole fleet paid for one single idiot, so, if you decide to be a soldier, you better stick to what you subscribed to.
Painfully slow, the work proceeds, and many days and trips to the hardware store later the first coats of paint are on, followed by the antiskid. We spent so much money in Palau, that we actually won a small lottery where one gets points every time shopping at certain venues. I never won anything of the sort before. So all in all a whole month goes by, with Cecilia and Miki and myself working hard in order to get ready for the last Pacific leg to the Philippines. We have one wonderful night partying at Kramer's, after rocking the place until it shut, we move on to the only available venue that late: a disco karaoke that's really a club with brothel.
The girls are very nice to us, maybe because we're definitely not there for them, except the Palauan bartender (a blast of a guy), and they take care of our drinks religiously, making sure we're extra pampered. At Kramer's we also picked up last people standing: some diving dude and an american young guy who sailed from Yap with a traditional canoe. He's white, but grew up in the Marshalls, and it's funny to see a westerner with a westerner's mind behaving like a local and speaking a local language, his job is to dive deep in order to catalogue new species of the deep...surprisingly for a young man, he doesn't miss the teptatbustle of the US, rather stick to his betel nuts cocoanut juice and the slow pace of emerald and turquoise atolls I guess. The girls other than (sadly) practicing the old trade, are also hostesses and entertainers, doing a few well coreographed and rehearsed ballets. As the evening seems to die down (or we simply had enough), we decide to leave just as a massive downpour breaks off. Taken by a sudden fellinian inspiration, I drag the girls under the rain, and decide that strolling leisurely and unconcerned under heavy tropical rain is a good idea. The fresh water clears the streets, our heads, and the stale smell of club from our clothes. I felt it like one of those momentous, hilarious and yet almost spiritual moments, elated in the idea that since we were going to get wet, might as well do it in style (with the calm night all around us). I am still not sure the girls saw it that way. The day after, the Palauan bartender tells us that while he was passing around the pipe, our neighbour, the chief of Police, was eyeing us maliciously, but being all of us (him and us) in what was obviously a brothel he couldn't really do much. In between paint coats I also managed to sneak on a weekend sail aboard a superclassic sailboat belonging to an american old-timer skipper: "Anthea", built in late 1800's. A beautiful old lady built for racing without lifelines, with running backstays and minimal interior furnishing. Moving with no breeze at all, with shiny varnish and brass and the solid feel of wood under the feet. Gary, the owner, is a character known across the Pacific, not only sailing across it in a boat absolutely not designed (but obviously capable of) for it, but also for delivering just about anything over long distances, all the while cracking jokes endlessly at lightning speed. The paint job really is coming to the final touches, the windlass is back in its' position and working (halle-fuckin'-luya!), and only the ordinary preparations are left for the final stretch that will put the word end to a journey of over two years through the marvellous, terrible, gorgeous, scary, mean, sweet, pleasant Pacific.
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