Last Thursday it rained when Noortje and Sylvia left for Fiji and we took advantage of the gloom to stay aboard and clean...when we happened to look out in the afternoon there was a new sailboat next to us on the mooring ball, and the dark blue hull looked familar - SV Uliad with Steve, Kathleen, and Emmett just sailed in from Vanuatu! We were so surprised and happy to see them since it's been almost 2 years that we met them in our first season in Fiji! They are pushing to reach Darwin, AUS to join the rally to Singapore, but have enough time to celebrate Emmett's 12th birthday with us today!

Having Emmett in port is a serious bonus, as he provides not just kid friendly entertainment for the boys, but also doubles up as a babysitter. The fact that he was having a birthday too was extra special, which provided a day for us to hang out at the lovely pool at the shoreside hotel. Steve had gone ashore on Friday to find out what kind of activities were going on in town. He was told that there was a dance show at the King Solomon Hotel and we planned on going there together to see it. However they weren't able to make it, but Emmett babysat onboard Love Song for us (Allen was like, if you have any trouble, radio for your dad, he's a doctor, he can help!) and we walked a couple of blocks to the hotel. Allen was leery of walking in the dark, but the guard at the YC told us it's safe to walk around town in the night, and there were lots of people about and everyone was still smiling and friendly. Unfortunately there wasn't any show at the hotel, but we did meet an interesting man who I told that he sounded just like a fast talking Capt. Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribbean! He straight away invited us to his family's land in the Florida Is. and we may take him up on it! The cool thing that he told us was that he had two favorite groups of people he liked, first the Americans, because they saved his country, and second, the Kiwi's because they play good rugby! We were thrilled to hear that someone was finally appreciative of the Americans! Yea!

Saturday night ended up being the night of the show, so we had Emmett babysit again and his parents went with us to the nice dance show, which was still an hour long even though we were late! It was cute when the "Aunties" or mothers of the girls got up on the stage to join the dancers and were laughing and cutting loose, and then even a couple of men got up and knew the dance as well and they all hooted and hollered. It's so refreshing to see what appears to be a generally happy and free enough to laugh aloud and carry on even if the joke's on them! It's sooooo refreshing and much more my style, and although I appreciate my time and experiences in the RMI for the opportunity to better understand the differences between people and cultures, I feel infinitely more positive energy and want to hopscotch my way down the sidewalk!

Speaking of sidewalks, the one at the top of the street above the YC is sloped to drive into the gas station there, it's really alarming to get off a boat after a passage and have a steep slope like that and expect to walk straight! Either that or you feel like you're drunk!

Today we were able to go church service at the church we were anchored in front of last week when we arrived. No wonder we could hear the choir because they were singing right by the windows closest to the waterfront. I was surprised to see they were wearing choir gowns as well, insanely hot! There were also several birds that flew around the high ceiling and one mockingbird that chirped and whistled seemingly trying to be heard above the choir! Hopefully it didn't make any droppings on anyone below! When we got home from church, Dulce wasn't on her leash and when I commented that it's good I just inked our phone number onto her collar with permanent pen, Allen noticed that her collar was attached to the leash! It seems her ancient collar (it was originally Dallas' puppy collar!) corroded through on the buckle and it fell off, so off she jumped for a swim...a local boat behind us happened to be paddling over to Uliad to collect the mooring fee and he scooped her out but was afraid to take her to Love Song with the big dog barking on the back, so she went to Uliad for a visit! We were thankful she didn't get lost without her collar!

Another amazing sighting was running into some Solomon Islander friends from Majuro, a family that we knew from church there and Coop school! They were at the hotel pool and it was such a shock to see them there with their 3 kids, and it's their first time they've been back home in five years! It's a small world, isn't it?!

It's so exciting to be in a new country again, and tomorrow we are going across to the Florida Is. group to go exploring again. It's a holiday, Whit Monday, and everything will be closed, and pretty much everything was closed today unless they were Chinese or SDA (Seventh Day Adventist)! Roderick Bay has a mooring ball and a nice village that likes yachties apparently, and I hope to learn some dancing as they are preparing for a festival there mid July for the yachties. Uliad is going to meet us there so that will be special too!