Last Tuesday morning (23 Aug) Mannu came over and then took us to the meet the other Chief, Steve and while there Dave was asked if there was anyway he could fix one of their three village boats which had a crack in the hull. As we had the fiberglass repair stuff on board it was something he could do so the next few days he spent a bit of time ashore fibre glassing the crack which is a foot long. Mannu comes over every morning for coffee and honks through the sugar in it so have cut him down as we have less than 2kgs left - I have made a joke about it! He even asked one day if we had whiskey, Dave said no we only drink beer so then he asked if he could have one, so on Thursday afternoon just after 5pm he arrived for a beer and then after he had finished asked if he could have another one. Dave said we only have one beer, once a week so our supplies will last!! We have to watch him as he would be over here every night for one or more and we have not got a huge supply on board, in fact it will be lucky to last us until Fiji. Every day he asks us for things and we feel awful but we have lots of other islands we need to have stuff for. We gave Chief Steve 2 packets of cigarettes and a lot of the local men were sitting with us at the meeting and he gave all the men a cigarette, including Mannu who accepted which we thought was a bit on the nose as he had already managed to get 2 packets from us and we know he keeps everything for himself. He has been educated in the US and went to University in Oregon so speaks good English but at times we do find him hard to understand. All very interesting. He has banned alcohol on the island but he is not averse to drinking himself, as long as the other locals don't see him. Friday he asked if he could have some bananas and took one of the bunches which had about 30 bananas on it, and then the next day he came back and asked for more - didn't mind as we had heaps (several hundred) and they are all ripe but ironical that we are at a tropical island and we supply him with bananas!! He says he has only one tree and it is no good. He arrived for coffee every morning between 9.30am and 10am and one morning even asked if it was beer time and could he have some!! We have become friendly with one of the Chief's nephews, Jensen, and last Thursday he bought us a huge yellowfin tuna. Unfortunately before I had a chance to say what I wanted with it Dave had cut it up and put it in brine for smoking so on Friday he smoked it and it was lovely, so gave some to Jensen. Friday morning Jensen picked Dave up at 5am to go fishing in his local canoe with a sail but unfortunately they had no joy, did get one and then lost it. Also went out again the next morning but there was not enough wind for the boats to go fast enough to catch them, in fact Dave got transferred on to a bigger boat which had 12 on board. All very interesting and their canoes really move when there is enough wind. They use the sails to steer them as they have no tiller and they have an outrigger on one side which the mast is attached to. When they change tack the whole sail is swung to the stern end and that becomes the bow. The sails are made from fibre glass Portland cement bags sewn together. Throughout Micronesia the men seem to only wear loin cloths and the women are mostly topless and here they wear lava-lava's which they make themselves out of banana leaves to get the thread and then they weave the fabric - I now have four of them and they will certainly make good table runners. At Woleai they told me that all women were expected to go topless here but when we arrived I asked and was told it was up to me, so naturally have not gone topless, but they are not allowed to show the leg above the knee!! When a couple gets married here they go to the women's village to live. It is very much a class society and if you marry down you go down. We have spent time ashore with Jenson and his wife Maxine and they have a six year old daughter, Precious and are expecting another one in January. The island really is beautiful with everything so clean and tidy with no rubbish lying around at all. The paths are all swept with shrubs planted on each side. Maxine had made both of us a beautiful lae to wear on our heads made out of tropical flowers. We had them for dinner on Sunday night along with a niece and a nephew who they seem to have adopted and Maxine had done a local dish as well as a contribution. Jenson had made himself a stove which is virtually like a home made smoker so Dave has shown him how to smoke fish in it the way we do it so he is delighted. Dave also made him a gaff as it is jolly hard pulling tuna into their canoes with hands!! All in all an experience at these atolls that money cannot buy. Fran and Dave on Melric 11 had been having a good run once they got in to the Philippine Sea but then about 200 odd miles from here the wind died and they were struggling as well as worrying about fuel, however on Tuesday the wind did pick up and they arrived here at 5pm yesterday. It was so good to see them as it was December 2009 when we last saw them. They have been inundated with the locals visiting and trying to trade etc. and last night I had them for dinner and they had a good nights sleep as they had been sailing for 18 days from Borneo to here. It will be great to have another boat to travel with and it looks like we will be virtually travelling together all the way back to New Zealand. We will leave here on or Sunday and head for Taos which is just over 100 miles from here so will be an overnight passage but as we are both concerned about our fuel supplies we have decided to detour a bit and go into Chuuk (Truk) to replenish our diesel supplies. Chuuk is about 450 miles from here but we have a couple of stops en route.