Cont'd...

Day 3 (Saturday)

That morning on Cabin Island, we woke up with hopeful spirits that this day would not be like the last. After all, it was only sprinkling outside and it had been pouring! We decided to wait for a little bit until it cleared up which it obviously was going to do. We had breakfast, waited, read, waited, trimmed our fingernails and waited some more. Finally, we couldn't take it anymore so we donned our ponchos and headed out. As soon as we walked out the door, that sprinkling that I described before turned into a downpour. "No matter", we thought. "We have these ponchos and pent up energy from our day "inside". Let's keep going anyway."
So off we went. We followed the only road on the island. There is only one car on the island, which belongs to Leo. Incidently, this tiny jeep-like vehicle happens to be broken. So the road isn't really used except as a foot path. And a path for the larger hermit crabs to roam. On the road we came across a handpainted sign that said : "SLOW DOWN Under construction". This was obviously a product of one of Leo's more bored moments :]
Near the sign was a huge fig tree. These aren't your regular fig trees that bear those sweet, tear drop resembling fruits. This tree resembles a banyon tree. I think. Anyway, roots grow off its branches down to the ground and start new trunks. Soon the off-shoots strangle the orginal tree and kills it. I am not sure what happens then. :]
We continued walking down this road, dodging hermit crabs and stepping over sprouting coconuts until we came to the chief's end of the island. The chief of Ngaptang, or something like that owns half of the island and that is where we ended up. WOW! How different it is than our side of the island. All the brambles are taken away and it resembles woods more than anything. Except when you see the white sandy beach surrounding three sides of his land.

He has a very nice enclosed, thatch roofed house in the center of his land and picnic tables galore. Seeing it made us regret the moment when Sherwin said "unless you want me to call that other guy" to see if we could stay there and we turned him down to be polite.
After we toured around that side of the island for a bit, we realized that our ponchos weren't really ponchos but merely windbreakers. We pondered this horror on our long and wet back to our wet and open quarters for lunch. Just as we returned to the shelter, the sun broke through the clouds and everything was beautiful. But since we hardly got any sleep the night before, due to our worry over whether we were going to be blown away in a typhoon our not, we promptly fell asleep. When I was falling asleep, Jason took this beautiful picture from our little hut. Great view eh?
When we awoke 15 minutes later, it was pouring but we decided to eat and go snorkeling down at the other end of the island anyway.
Snorkeling was the best that I have ever experienced!!! WOW. Jason saw a black tip shark. I have never seen him start like that. I just saw it's tail but apparently it was huge and much more firghtening looking than a black tip reef shark that we had been used to seeing. There was a big drop off and then HUGE heads of coral. The fish life was amazing and we saw a lot of fish we hadn't seen before. Unfortuntely, the underwater camera ran out of batteries before I took any good pictures, or before I could hand it to Jason and he could take some good pictures. Sorry. I guess we took too many videos of ourselves spear fishing. If we had known that such good snorkeling existed, right around the corner for our humble abode, we would have risked wind and rain and cold to go at least 5 more times. Alas, our ride was coming in the morning so we couldn't as it was getting lower and lower tide and we still to pass over a whole field of dead incredibly sharp branched coral to get to the beach. We couldn't kick it was so shallow so we very slowly worked our way back to the beach.
That night, there wasn't any rain but I guess all the rain had deprived all the rats of the island, their regular food stuffs because that night, they tried to eat ours. I slept very well that night but I did wake up a couple times and saw Jason with his headlamp on watching the rats scamper over our stuff and occasionally getting up and moving our things to safer places. At one point, I woke up to Jason's movement and then him chuckling and saying "Oh that's great." I innocently asked what was and he answered that he woke up to the sickening realization that a rat was perched on his chest. I was so delirous. I said " No way!" and went back to sleep. I have a very fierce husband who battled the rats all night while his sleepy damsel in distress dozed. Note: I am horribly afraid of rats and I hate them. They illicited more that one screech out of me on the survivor island when I went to find a bathroom. Somehow, I was tired enough to where they didn't particularly bother me. I think they were less scary because their noses weren't as pointy and their ears were more rounded. Funny what makes a difference in perceptions like that. We tried to get a picture but it was dawn and they had just finished scampering about for the night.

Day 4

The next morning we woke up bright and early to go snorkeling in our new favorite spot. We had longer to visit there and we made themost of it. We saw a couple moray eels. We saw several anenome fish but no more sharks! We bought a reef book and were able to identify a lot of them that we didn't know the names of before. Jason really loves our new reef book and likes to get it out and quiz me over fish names. :] I thought I was done with school for awhile! Anyway, we started swimming back when we heard a loud "oioioioi" noise coming from shore. We looked up and saw that our ride had come and was trying to get our attention. Pastor Sherwin had brought the boat and several other people and they were going to take us to Peleliu.
Peleliu is the Southernmost island in Palau and is said to be the most famous. It is famous around the world for a big reason. In world war II, the Americans fought the Japanese in one of the bloodiest battles ever! I vaguely remember watching a history channel documentary about the battles that went on around the island and how it was so horrible because of all the caves from which the Japanese shot at the Allied forces. The Allied forces also couldn't just drive their boats up onto the island becuase the whole island chain is prtocted by a huge reef. So the boats landed on the far end of the reef and the solidiers had to wade onto shore while the Japanese were shooting them from hidden caves.

Well, I was going to tell you all about our day in Peleliu but since the computer just froze and I lost everything that I wrote for the last HOUR, I will leave you with some pictures that mean nothing to you. Ta ta!

OK, I am going to tell you some short summaries so you can understand the pictures. Below is the woman who borrowed a truck from her brother so we could tour around Peleliu in the back. If you don't have x-ray vision you won't be able to see that her hat says Camp Au Sable. This is the camp where Jason spent many happy summers. And yes, she has actually been there! We met this woman's mom as well. She is old enough to remember what the Japanese occupation was like. The Japanese occupied Palau starting in 1914 until the Allied forces freed them in the early 1940's. I guess they were still occupied by the American's but her mom said that the Japanese treated them like slaves and made them march around and work in work camps. She said when the Americans came along they were free and peaceful. Side note: Japan is giving tons of money to Palau nowadays. They are paying for many new roads and other community projects. America has funded some as well but not as much as the Japanese.

The picture below is of a big hole that everyone jumped into. Except me because I didn't have my swimsuit. Apparently, an American solidier saw some water coming out of the ground and put a bomb down there and then there was a big swimming hole! ha. But the water is salty. It seeps in through a nearby reef and rises and falls with the tides. I would post a picture of Jason jumping in but they all turned out blurry.


The picture below is the view from a place called bloody nose ridge. The legend goes that the Americans were wading up the reef in the distance when they started getting mowed down by bullets. They thought that the whole mountainside must be comvered with solidiers because so many people were getting hit. When they finally mad e it up to the top of the mountain, they saw a lone machine gunman and shot him. When he fell, his helmet came off too, to expose long, beautiful black hair. It was a woman! She had stolen a machine gun from the Americans and had hiked up the mountain (quite a hike too, and we had stairs) and shot tons of solidiers coming up the beach. Some say she had a baby strapped to her back and a samurai sword at ther side. Other say they hadn't heard about the baby or sword so who knows what is true. :]


This is the view from where we were sitting in the back of the truck. The lady up above bought us some tama at a local market. Tama are deliscious. These were banana tama and taste like balls of banana bread. Jason ate a million of them. That is what you can see people holding in their hands and eating in this next picture. We asked the pastor (making the L with his fingers) if he had the recipe and he said sure, that his wife made them all the time. We asked her later and she said she had never made them in her life. She always buys them from the store. Ha.
Well, I hope that makes these pictures more enjoyable. Thank you for commenting! It helps us see who is reading our posts!