Palau - The Kayak Trip, Part Five

We meant to leave early this day because we had a long, exposed paddle to our next island, but we didn't get off until after 8am. Fortunately all skin but the backs of our hands was covered in clothing so the sun didn't hurt too much.

We encountered the only rain of the trip during this portion - a strange shower that was only a couple hundred meters wide by about 100 meters deep. And it was heavy rain! It was like one of those showers in the cartoons that is so isolated it only falls on one person.

[We stopped at this beach.. because we had all the time in the world]

[Ncherong - our destination]

I stayed on this island last time I did this kayak trip with my Peace Corps friends and it was a great memory. I wanted to come here both because I had such fond memories of it and because it's placed nicely on the edge of the reef to make blue water fishing accessible.

There were signs in a few places (including on our maps.. hehe) that suggested we should be paying to stay here. We decided to wing it and if worse came to worse, we could kayak to another island. In the evening (after we'd already borrowed the freshwater showers) a Filipino guy came strolling through with his dog. I figured he might say something about us needing to pay, so I jumped at conversation to derail him. Vaughn and I also gathered up all the food we thought we could give away and gave it to him. The guy was really cool. He's been on this island for about four years, working for the family that owns this end of the island. He's cleaned it up nicely and is apparently supposed to be operating it for visitors, though he said there hadn't been visitors for three months. He never asked for any money and he even lent us his dog (dog's preference) for the night. When we left I gave him one of my Japanese marathon shirts.


We went out trolling in the evening. The sun sets really quickly close to the equator so we were hurrying back at this point. But then I hooked up! I called to Vaughn, who came over quickly. Turned out I had a shark on. Bleh! Sharks are a bummer because they often eat the lures enough that you need to get the lure back from them for their survival. But they've also usually done enough damage to the lure to make it unusable. Then there's the 'putting your hand in the mouth of a shark' part, made more interesting from a kayak.