Ifalik to Puluwat We finally left Ifalik on Sunday 4th September, having the previous morning watched all the men in the village lift the roof up of “The Men's House” to increase the height from the ground as well as put in two new beams - quite a feat when the Men's house is 12m b y 11m and the big beam to go in is in one piece and all done by manual labour. They were also lifting the height in order for a bigger boat to go in. They all seem to keep their canoes under cover when not in use. As well as repairing the village boat Both Dave's were asked to try and repair of fix anything from small DVD players, clocks, torches, MP3 players and or charge them up for them! From Ifalik we did a 106 mile trip to Toas Atoll and we had a mixture of good sailing, motor sailing and then no wind and motoring under bare poles with sails all down arriving at 10.45 the next morning. It was a pleasant stop as there were no people on this atoll, although the anchorage was a wee bit roly. We were up and away the next morning at 845 for a 195 mile trip to Puluwat Atoll which included two overnighters. We had a mixture of sailing and motor sailing mixed in with a few storms and heavy rain with 35 knot winds but fortunately they are of short duration but are not very pleasant at all. We finally dropped anchor at Puluwat on Thursday 8th September and what a beautiful anchorage it was. We had a visit from one of the canoes telling us what was expected of us and as soon as we could we all went straight to bed to catch up on some sleep. Great having Fran & Dave to buddy boat with, especially as we are hand steering. We keep pretty close to each other most of the way and do much the same speed, although on the way to Paluwat they did get 11 miles ahead of us but we eventually caught up. Will make these updates for the blog smaller as sometimes we are having great difficulty getting through on Sailmail.

Ifalik to Puluwat We finally left Ifalik on Sunday 4th September, having the previous morning watched all the men in the village lift the roof up of “The Men's House” to increase the height from the ground as well as put in two new beams - quite a feat when the Men's house is 12m b y 11m and the big beam to go in is in one piece and all done by manual labour. They were also lifting the height in order for a bigger boat to go in. They all seem to keep their canoes under cover when not in use. As well as repairing the village boat Both Dave's were asked to try and repair of fix anything from small DVD players, clocks, torches, MP3 players and or charge them up for them! From Ifalik we did a 106 mile trip to Toas Atoll and we had a mixture of good sailing, motor sailing and then no wind and motoring under bare poles with sails all down arriving at 10.45 the next morning. It was a pleasant stop as there were no people on this atoll, although the anchorage was a wee bit roly. We were up and away the next morning at 845 for a 195 mile trip to Puluwat Atoll which included two overnighters. We had a mixture of sailing and motor sailing mixed in with a few storms and heavy rain with 35 knot winds but fortunately they are of short duration but are not very pleasant at all. We finally dropped anchor at Puluwat on Thursday 8th September and what a beautiful anchorage it was. We had a visit from one of the canoes telling us what was expected of us and as soon as we could we all went straight to bed to catch up on some sleep. Great having Fran & Dave to buddy boat with, especially as we are hand steering. We keep pretty close to each other most of the way and do much the same speed, although on the way to Paluwat they did get 11 miles ahead of us but we eventually caught up. Will make these updates for the blog smaller as sometimes we are having great difficulty getting through on Sailmail.