The remainder of our time in Woleai was relaxing and enjoyable and the locals were very friendly and generous with what ever local produce etc. they had and as hard it seems to be they seemed to have a busy life, with a lot revolving around their Church, being Roman Catholics. In fact the last weekend we were there, a number of them were on a retreat which was held in the school. Their Priest is in Yap so he only comes to Woleai when the supply boat comes in so it appears that Tony (school teacher) is the Lay Preacher and he sure is a very busy man. Unfortunately, through a lack of communication and our misunderstanding we missed seeing the locals all making their special medicine out of coconut. However a couple of days later we had a very interesting day. A boat from the next island came to us and talked and said the mackerel were jumping and they were going to put the nets out. They stayed and stayed and then another boat load came over as well and they started joining up the nets. Gradually more and more boats arrived with nets and cane basket things which we later realized were fish traps. Eventually all the nets which were huge went out right across the bay in a half circle, about 3/4 mile and there were guys with snorkels and masks pulling out the nets etc. Eventually 100 people were involved and people on shore were pulling the long rope and walking towards each other to form the nets in a big U. Once they had the nets in place we went over in the dinghy and helped hold the net up to stop the fish jumping over the net as they were panicking. There were just tens of thousands of fish jumping and by pulling the nets together all the fish headed for the centre of the U where the traps were. We acquired a lot of fish as well which we had for a very late lunch, dinner and smoked some which we gave to some of the locals. They are very small and bony so we didn't want to keep too many. It was quite an amazing sight watching it all happen right in front of our boat and in all took about four hours. All the neighbouring islands join in so they can combine the nets and the labour as they need lots of people - a real community thing, great for bonding. On Sunday evening two of the local guys whom we got to know came over to say farewell and gave us three huge bunches of bananas, local oranges and a branch with about 15 coconuts on it. They did not want anything in return but I gave them rice and sugar. We were a bit overwhelmed. We left Woleai on Monday (22nd) at 7.30am and once we had cleared the lagoon and reefs had a good sail for about 2 ½ hours and then the wind died so ended up motoring the remainder of the trip to Ifalik which was 35 miles from Woleai. Dropped anchor at 5.15pm and then were inundated with locals coming up to the boat and welcoming us etc. One of the local Chief's (Mannu) was also there to welcome us and asked if he could come on board which we obliged once anchored. He finally left us at 7pm after scoring rice, sugar and cigarettes and having drunk about 6 cups of coffee! The people here are very friendly but for the first couple of days were inundated with locals wanting to trade coconuts and lava-lava for supplies but mainly coffee which we only have enough of to get us to Fiji. Some even had the cheek to ask if we had whiskey!! So different from Woleai where they never asked for anything and as the saying goes if you give you receive and I was probably a bit too generous there as our supplies to give away have certainly dwindled and each island we go to we have to have something for the Chief.