Shortly after arriving in Palau from Palau New Guinea, I travelled home for a month for family time. Jim stayed with the boat as it was not in a good place to leave unattended. I arrived back at the airport in Koror, Palau after 30 hours of travel. could not take their assigned seats. My flight left Honolulu half an hour late and missed the connecting flight to Palau in Guam.

United rerouted me through Manila so I arrived much later at 2:20 am instead of 7:30 pm. United was going to call Jim with the changed schedule. Unfortunately he had run out of phone minutes so never got the message, did not meet my plane and I could not reach him by phone after arrival. Many kind people offered rides but I did not accept thinking Jim was just running late. I finally accepted a ride from the last United agent departing the airport. I had no way to get to the boat from the dock, so had stale coffee with the night watchman until Jim woke up around 5:30 am and found my text messages which got through.

Jim hurried out on deck to come get me only to find the dinghy missing. He paddled ashore in one of our kayaks in the dark and pouring tropical rain. After confirming I was there and a brief chat Jim paddled back to the boat for the second kayak and our big dry bags. We used our kayaks to transport luggage and me to the boat. Travel does not always go as planned. We just have to roll with the punches!

Friends from another boat lent their dinghy and outboard. Jim searched the vicinity thoroughly. We then called the local water rangers and police so that if it was found they would know that we had not fallen overboard. A search and rescue effort could be avoided. Also, if the dinghy was reported found they would have our phone numbers. Jim hiked into the newspaper office in pouring down rain to put an ad in the newspapers offering a reward for the dinghy.

We have company coming for a two-week visit in a few days. It would be a challenge managing four people without the dinghy. We started looking at options given that there are no dinghies for sale locally.

Crews from Sam's Tours dive boats offered to look for the dinghy while out conducting SCUBA, snorkeling and kayaking tours. Friends offered to lend us their dinghies for trips until we replaced ours.

We got a call first thing this morning from someone whose brother had found our missing dinghy. It had traveled out through the Pinchers to the Rock Islands by itself! Jim had searched as far as the Pinchers in a borrowed dinghy the morning the dinghy disappeared.

Someone had seen the newspaper ad Jim posted offering a reward. The paper was distributed this morning so it got results very fast. In less than an hour after the call the state water police in their Search and Rescue boat delivered our dinghy with the man who called right to our boat. We were very happy to hand him two crisp new $100 bills! I offered them a coffee but they had just gotten a Search and Rescue call and were off in a flash.

It would have cost at least $2000 to replace the dinghy itself not counting the very expensive shipping costs. It might not have been possible to get a new dinghy shipped to Palau. Jim has tried unsuccessfully for a month to get new solar panels shipped from the US to Palau. A new dinghy would have taken months to arrive by ship from the USA. We also would have had to replace the dinghy painter, lights, anchor, custom cable for locking the dingy ashore, seat cushion/locker and safety gear carried in the dingy. Yup, the finder was delighted to receive the $200 reward and we were very happy to pay it!

We are shopping for a replacement for our dingy. We are happy that we are not forced to do it right now! We are also very impressed with the kindness of many locals and cruisers who offered assistance.