We are still in Suwarrow and feel like we have settled down into a wonderful little community.

The boys are having the time of their lives, school in the morning and playing on the island all afternoon. Mary started calling it Boys Scouts for grown ups as well. The caretaker family lives well below what we thought was bare bones technology on the boat. Donated batteries scattered here and there were hand wired to a few home made lights and a fresh water pump. Wires from the battery ran to a nail in the wall and they would attach a wire to the nail to turn something on. As a way of helping out, I convinced Wayne from Daydream that with all his spare parts on his boat we could easily rewire the place. Thus the project began John, the park caretaker, had several large buoys washed up on his beaches and we cut them open to scavenge their solar panels and batteries. A medley of 6 scrappy batteries are now in his radio room wired together into a single battery bank with solar panels mounted on the roof for charging. Power runs to the house with a nice distribution panel for the radio, chargers for the DVD player, lights, pumps etc., and an actual on and off switch for the water pump and house lights. We had a blast doing it and the two week maximum stay here has somehow been completely forgiven.

Now, the issue is how much food we have left and when the kids' school books will arrive in American Samoa. Thank goodness that fish here are plentiful and amazingly easy to catch, we are otherwise reduced to the staples of rice and beans. Butter, jam, olive oil etc. are long gone and we hit empty on the big water tank last night. We will be sorry to leave, but probably heading out sometime next week.