friends

Also, these are all my friends at christmas holding the presents from our gift exchange. top row: sarah, siobhan, yours truly, rick, mihnea, travis. middle row: jonathan, joel, liz, curtis. bottom row: christy, mike.

The Suri (yeah, that one...)

First Darryl Hannah and now Tom Cruise? Yes, apparently Palau is the place you run to when you are a crazy scientologist and don’t want to be disturbed because you are hiding on a boat with your gay lover. Ok, so no one actually saw his gay lover, but we did see a shirtless guy in a cowboy hat getting off the dingy and onto the Suri, the name of Tom’s yacht. So Tom was here for about a week after new years, without Katie and Suri. I didn’t see him or anything, but I heard he was actually quite nice. Anyway, we are so almost famous here by association.

In much more interesting news, I went sailing last weekend and finally made it to Kayangel, Palau’s northernmost island. It’s a tiny island, with no roads or cars, just cute little paths made of sand. They are known for their amaaaaazing lemons and bananas. We were showered with both by the kind people that live there (see picture). We spent the night on one of the small islands next to Kayangel, called Ngerbalas (I’m spelling that wrong). We built a big bonfire and cooked the fish Jirka had caught on the way there. Spanish mackerel makes delicious sashimi also. The following day he caught five more mackerel just trolling behind the sailboat. Two were twenty pounds, and again, delicious. Dad, you will be happy to hear that I actually filleted one of those mackerel. AND ate it raw!
This past weekend we celebrated my birthday! I’ve always wanted a summer birthday so that I could do fun outdoorsy stuff, and this year temporarily gave me that chance. We took a speed boat out to a very cute beach for the day. Some of my completely wonderful girlfriends choreographed and performed an amazing water ballet in my honor. Most of the day we just spent floating in the water and eating. It was fabulous. The nighttime celebration went as my birthdays typically do: I got drunk, forced my friends to sing karaoke (Joel, that was an amazing rendition of “can’t take my eyes off of you”) and danced a LOT. Oh, I also go serenaded by the mamasan at the karaoke bar with “loosen up my buttons,” which was a first. Totally rad.

THis is vivi during our sailing adventure.

Darryl Hannah and other christmas fun

Darryl Hannah? That’s not random at all…

Yeah, so the big news in palau last week was Darryl Hannah. She was here for about a week, staying at the resort where I, too, am a member. I wouldn’t say that I tried really hard to bump into her, but I will say that while playing tennis there one day, she walked past me. She was coming from the massage parlor with another incredibly tall woman. They were mostly just very tall. I don’t have much else to say, except that I am under the assumption she’ll go back home and tell her manager that she saw a lady in palau who just looked like she could be a movie star and then he’ll come find me and I’ll be the next big thing. I’m like, basically, really famous now.
Last weekend I got the chance to paddle a traditional Palauan outrigger canoe. They used to have sails, and this was how Palauans got anywhere. Now, they are just very skinny canoes, which look a lot like the skulls we used for crew, except they have an extra balance thingy off of one side. Several Palauans that used to paddle on the Palauan national outrigger team get together every Wednesday and Friday to paddle. So Vivi and I went last Wednesday for about a half an hour. It was amazing fun, and FAR more enjoyable than crew ever was in 20 degree weather at 5am. They invited us to paddle with them on Saturday, as they were heading to one of the closer rock islands where there is an old German lighthouse and incidentally where Survivor had its voting off ceremonies. The paddle was long, and fairly challenging, but it was a great opportunity to hang out with Palauans and do something that tourists don’t get a chance to experience.
Moving on…
A word about Palauan Christmas. Awesome. Every establishment here has neon lights and huge blow-up santas in the windows, on the roofs, and tripping you on the way to the produce aisle. I’ve never seen a small town so alight. Palauan Christmas songs have also been out in full force. They are mostly adaptations of American Christmas songs, such as my favorite “cling cling cling” rather than jingle bells. We had our office Christmas party last weekend and the other court counsel and I were recruited to perform a dance to this song, as well as several other Palauan classics. I’m looking for a good picture, but I’ll say that there were grass skirts and some rockin traditional Palauan dance moves. I also won first place in the fashion contest!

For Christmas eve, my friends and I drove up to a beautiful beach in the northern part of Babledaub, the biggest of the Palau islands. We camped, cooked, danced and drank a lot of southern comfort. Felt very traditional…. Christmas day was gorgeous here. It was about 85 degrees and sunny. We swam and floated in the shallow water most of the day. Not the most traditional Christmas ever, but it was really a lovely way to spend the day.

Last Friday, I attempted to be a part of a group sail to the northernmost Palauan island called Kayangal. It’s about 50 miles north of Koror, so we set aside 4 days to get up there and back. We went on our friend Frank’s 40-foot catamaran, which was amazing. It had a full kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, couch and what looked like a little fireplace inside. We got about half way to Kayangal on Friday, and anchored just north of Babledaub, by a beautiful beach.
After a very rocky and rainy night, we decided Saturday morning that the seas were just too rough outside the reef to make it all the way to Kayangal. So we waited. WE spent the day fishing, kayaking, kite surfing, eating and drinking. When the wind still hadn’t died down by Sunday, we gave up and sailed home. Not to sound defeated though, because the three days on the sailboat were absolutely beautiful! A spotted eagle ray about 3 feet wide jumped out of the water about 20 feet in front of the boat, Jirka caught a great barracuda, and we saw these amazing fish called Dugongs, which look like manatees, off the port side on the way home. We also had enough wind to fly the spinnaker, which was really, really fun! It was truly incredible. I also got some good sun, so that’s always a worthwhile endeavor! Dad, you should know that I caught a fish, albeit a very small fish!

Oh, on a completely different note, I may be directing a high school production of Mamma Mia this spring! I really love this island. REALLY.