Palau. What a jewel. Palau is so beautiful you could sit and soak up the beauty all day long and not get tired of it. The islands are so
unusual i that they are so steep and so densely covered in vegetation. That in itself is a miracle as the islands seem to have no topsoil at
all and the roots of each plant, including trees have grown down into the rock. It rains prolifically here, and if only they were able to share
it with parts of our parched Australia.

Life is very laidback here as with many islands, but at the same time the Palauans are very busy people, but they always have time to
stop and chat. A good balance seems to have been struck here. We had our own personal taxi driver who was never too busy and
never minded waiting for us. We hope to see him again too.

It's a short blog tonight. We will check out tomorrow about 1100. All the departments will come around to Sams to check us out. It's all
relaxed here. We plan to head northwest towards Taiwan and then will go through the Bashi Channel, the north part of the channel
between Philippines and Taiwan, then head almost straight across to Hong Kong from there.

So, with a tinge of sadness at leaving Palau, we will contact you all from the ocean between Palau and Philippines John and Ginni..