The view from my vacation home on a grey afternoon.

My time in Palau is officially half way over, and I feel like there is so much I still want to see and do.  I have been house sitting for the last few weeks for an Australian couple that has gone on vacation for the month.  They live in a very nice western apartment with all the accouterments (AKA an oven, cable, couches, AC, hot water, lots of dvds from the Philippines, and less bugs).  I have been calling it my vacation home since I mostly go there on weekends and it's fancy.  It's a little out of town (3 miles or less) and up a small hill, and in this heat it's way too far to go after work on my rusted out bike.  So I live Like a Palauan during the week and a rich westerner on the weekends.  I have spent the last few weekends hanging around my vacation home baking things, doing yoga, reading books and watching storms roll past.  It's been very nice but I was starting to feel a little stir crazy so this last weekend I decided rain or shine I was getting out of the house.  I rented a car from work and convinced a few friends to come adventuring with me.

Swimming Hole

 When I got to work on Sunday and turned the rental car on I was greeted with concerning noises.  For anyone that has ever driven in one of my old crappy cars (sticky, the red tank, rhinetta) you will understand that if I am concerned by the noises coming from a car then they are some pretty bad noises.  Mainly it sounded like the engine might explode at any moment.  Luckily the speed limit in Palau is between 10 and 40 miles an hour, so the car didn't have to go too fast.  We rumbled off to find some waterfalls with a set of directions scribbled down that included such details as look for a dirt road going up a hill...perfect.  We actually found the place pretty easily and "hiked" 15 minutes down through the jungle to a beautiful river with a bunch of small waterfalls and deep pools.  We were the only people there and spent a little while discussing how likely we thought it was that the creek had tropical parasites before jumping in.  We decided that the risk of parasites was worth being cool for once!

The capitol, straight out of Washington.

My favorite decoration at the capital. 

From the waterfalls we headed to the beach via the countries capital.  It's really weird.  Your driving along enjoying the jungle view and out of no where Washington DC appears on the distant, jungle covered hills.  On closer inspection the place turns out to be modeled after typical DC architecture, but constructed Palauan style.  All the impressive stone pillars are hollow and made of plaster and the big colonial lamps are all plastic.  The locals call it Disneyland DC because it looks like the fake cities they build in Disneyland.  Apparently the windows don't open because the place has AC which normally works out okay.  Unfortunately during the typhoon last year they had to use the capitol as a rescue shelter and since the power was out from the storm it was really hot with all those sealed off windows!  My favorite part were the decorative birds on the walls that are shown both eating and pooping, or at least that's what it looks like.  Very ecologically accurate.  We left the capital and spent the rest of the day at the local beach.  It was also empty, and the first sandy spot I have been to since coming to Palau, which for being a topical paradise is seriously lacking on beaches.  We found some hammocks, a lot of shells and coconuts and a swing made out of a buoy.  Such a great adventure and well wroth the risk of the exploding car.  It's easy to forget that you are on a beautiful tropical island when you are at the office in the "city".  Always nice to be reminded that Palau is an amazing place!

The beach at Melekeok.

Besides our weekend adventure I haven't been up to too much lately.  Work has been unusually slow the last week.  I haven't been going out to dive because the Australian guy that I usually go with had his boss and some coworkers visiting so there was no room for me.  They have finally decided on projects for me now that I am half way done.  I am compiling seagrass data (done!) and then analyzing it (I have no idea how to do this) and writing a report for them. They also decided that I can do a small project with Chris (the Australian) so hopefully we will start that next week.  We are going to collect corals and then release the coral's palups into tanks and test the chemical vs. physical affects of a certain algae (which is common after disturbances) on the settlement and growth of the corals.  SCIENCE!!!!!!  Should be interesting and a good chance for me to help get a paper published and see an experiment from start to finish.

Headed into the rock islands for some shark wrangling.

 In the mean time I have been doing a lot of slow internet research, picking classes for next semester back in the real world (yuck!) and looking out the window a lot.   Yesterday the aquarium guys let me come out on a shark catching mission.  After a week stuck in the office and a lot of bad weather it was great to be on a boat again.  They need a new baby shark for the aquarium and they can always use more hands to try and herd whatever they are trying to catch towards the their nets, so I got to tag along.  We saw 2 small white tips (about 2 feet long and maybe 6 in wide) but weren't able to convince them to get caught in our nets.  It was a great time anyway, and we did find a seahorse so it wasn't a complete bust of a trip.  Plus now I can say I went shark Wrangling!

Putting out the net for the sharks.

That's about all I've got for now.  I went on 2 amazing dives on Thursday after the shark mission.  We dove to over 100ft (35m my deepest dive to date), and saw a bunch of big sharks (6ft grey reef sharks), a few turtles and some big schools of fish.  I will get photos from Johanna and post them next week!  I miss you all!
love Katharine



P.S.  The following pictures were requested by my dearest brother Jeffry, here they are as promised!

The new astroturf on the boat.  Makes it less slippery but also less comfortable for lounging.

My bottle fenders.  So Classy!  Notice the front is a shampoo bottle.

The presidents house.  (I still haven't met him).

My new Home.

My room

The Evil Rooster

Hi All!  Well I finally moved into my new home last week with my host Maria and her 12-year-old grandson Maidesile.  Both are very kind, and the place is across from the presidents house so if I need any sugar I am sure he can help.  Maria and her grandson are gone on the weekends at their family property in the North, so I get the place to myself a lot.  When they are around we cook dinner together sometimes and watch cartoons.  Maidesile knows all the words to all the cartoons on cartoon network, very impressive.  My first morning there I woke up to a very horrible sound and it took me a minute to realize it was a rooster outside my window.  The evil creature kept letting me fall back asleep and then would sneak back under my window and crow again.  Unfortunately Mr. rooster did not realize that he was dealing with a professional sleeper and I am now happy to report that I have accomplished the task of sleeping through his morning shouts.  I have also taken to throwing things at him whenever he is near my window to try to deter him from hanging around.  The other fun find of my new house are the cockroaches.  I hadn't seen any the first few days I was there and then I went into the kitchen late at night and flipped on the light to find 6 roaches staring at me.  They didn't scurry away or anything, they just sat there.  I think they were a bit confused why I was infringing on their allotted time in the kitchen, which apparently is after dark.  I have since learned to avoid the kitchen at night or bang a few times on the wall before I turn on the lights.

Me and my amazing new bicycle

I got a bike last week, so I am not mobile.  No one rides bikes here for some reason (maybe because It's horribly hot all the time and rains constantly) so the used bike market is pretty nonexistent.  I managed to find this gem, an old american mountain bike with working breaks and shocks and decent tires.  Only down side is it doesn't really shift on it's own so I have to pick a gear before I head out based on how many hills I will be encountering.  I have spruced it up by adding some "fenders".  They don't sell them here so I had to improvise.  After much internet research (well really not much, just small amounts of very slow internet research which made it feel like much) I zip-tied various sizes of plastic bottles onto my bike.  Now not only am I the weird white girl on a bike (a strange enough sight), but I have bottles all over it to boot.

Yummy Palauan lunch

 My first task on my new bike was to head to the local fish market.  I had been meaning to go, but it just seemed so far by foot.  I had no idea what I wanted and the guy just kept opening up coolers and taking out really huge fish.  We finally got to the small size bracket and I ended up telling him I wanted something for sashimi (raw fish eaten with lemon and soy sauce) so he would pick the freshest fish.  Whatever I was given was amazing!  I am going to get them to write down the name next time so I can try all the different fish and see which I like best.

cops patrolling at the boat races just in case things get crazy.

Nice view from the top of the bridge watching the boat races.

October 1st was Palauan Independence day so we had the day off work to celebrate.  The main attraction of the day are boat races and eating.  How can you go wrong?  The boats raced by engine categorize so it started with souped up fishing boats and ended with the richest of Palau showing off some fancy and expensive toys.  Most of the drivers wore life jackets, some wore helmets and all of them were borderline crazy.  My favorite was the guy who flew out of his boat when he hit a wave too fast and then managed to swim back to it and hopped back in before the rescue boat could show up.  He finished the race, going even faster then before trying to catch up even though he had no chance at all.  He was awarded the most cheers from the crowed however, who only got excited when people flew out of their boats or looked like they might roll their boats.  As he did both he was definitely the winner in the crowds eyes.  The other highlight was a race between the two richest families in Palau who between them own just about everything here.  One has a red boat and one has a blue boat so they call them Superman and Batman and people talk about it the whole next year.  Superman won this year and people seemed pretty excited, I think he's the favorite.

spectator at the boat races

superman vs. batman

RAIN!!!!!

That's pretty much all the exciting news I have.  It's been raining like crazy.  This morning while I was having breakfast I was pretty convinced a coconut tree was going to fall on our house.  It didn't, but there's always tomorrow!  I keep telling myself it can't last forever, but we are going on week 3 now. Sometimes it seems like it's going to be a nice day and then I leave my rain coat at home and it turns on me.  If it does ever clear I am going to be so appreciative of the good weather!  Hope all of your Octobers are off to a good start and you all remembered to say rabbit rabbit!

love Katharine