Our circumnavigation of (without landing at) Cuba, has begun! Over the last several days we have been doing maintenance on Swingin' on a Star (my buddy Cliff helped a bunch!) and cleaning and getting scuba stuff ready and cleaning and shopping and cleaning. Swingin' on a Star is in great cruising trim now!

We left home in Summerland Key yesterday and made way for South Riding Rocks at the southern end of the Bimini chain. Our original plan was to day sail to Cay Sal island but the wind was coming from there and the weather at the end of the week is going to be nasty. The southern area up to the Raggeds is pretty exposed and it did not seem like a good time to explore Andros (that is still on the list!).

So we overnighted with a sunrise arrival at the Riding Rocks, cut onto the Great Bahama Bank and headed for the northwest passage out into the Tongue of the Ocean. Chub is 15 nm ish from the NW Passage and since none of us has been there we decided to clear in there.

We've been motor sailing from the get go because the wind has never been more than 30 degrees off the bow (usually 10). Running 6-9 knts depending we've made good time. Yanmars are purring nicely after the fuel polishing last Winter.

The main reason we decided to go north was so that we could make more easting during the blow, behind the protection of the Exumas and Long Island. When things settle we'll pop out to the south of Long Island and head down to Acklins and Great Inagua, where we'll wait for a window to shoot the windward passage around Cuba to Jamaica.

Has been lovely motor sailing in 14 feet of crystal clear water.

Whew! Available at Amazon.com & Sam's Tours, Palau

Wow are we behind on the blog. Once everything is updated this post will seem a bit out of place. That said it seemed like the right place to start given the gap.

On July 13th we left Swingin' on a Star floating quietly on her mooring and headed for the airport. We have never left our boat alone before, not in the three years we have owned her. We did take a little trip to Japan for a wedding but my parents were aboard the entire week we were away. This is a very different experience, we miss our boat and being in the islands.

We have worked hard over the past four months to put together a cruising guide for Palau. The focus on getting the guide done and spending every spare minute trying to capture all of our meaningful experiences and discoveries in the book put a rather serious kibosh on our blogging, not to mention the gruelingly slow internet performance on Palau.

The book is now almost complete in so far as the research phase is concerned. We are now on our way to San Francisco to get the publishing process completed. With luck we will be back by early October with some proofs to test out on the critical eyes around the harbor. Finishing that process will put us in a one month lead window to release.

Sam's Tours has kindly offered to host a release party for the book so we hope to have The Palau Guide formally introduced to the world in early December.

The blog will slow down drastically while we are in San Francisco (not likely island cruising blog readers will be interested in exploits in a big city). We will be back posting the entries from the ships log in the days ahead however, and have many lovely pictures and experiences to share associated with the development of the cruising guide.

Thanks for all of the kind emails in the interim. We miss all of our cruising friends and hope everyone has found some blue sky in the rainy season (or moved to the southern hemisphere).

The genset has been acting up lately. The symptoms are difficultly starting. The generator run fine once started but it either does nothing when I press the start switch or it turns slowly and takes a bit to get going. Sometimes I have to turn it over for a bit and then give it a sec and then try again.

Upon inspection I noticed that the fuel shutoff solenoid was cracked. I messed with it a bit and it broke in half. Well, whether it was a problem before (which I doubt) it was now... Fortunately Napa had a replacement (with a metal case).

The next step was to have a mechanic friend, Chris, take a look at things. Chris suspected the starter external or internal wiring, which made good sense. Sure enough the starter hot was loose. A few turns of the wrench and the genset was back in good standing.

We visited the Peleliu state office in Koror last week to arrange for a visit and were given the green light. We arrived last night and called in this morning to setup a quick meet with the officials and then head out to take photos and capture the highlights for the guide.

Long story short, we were told yachts are not allowed to anchor in South Dock (the only place to anchor) and that we would have to pay $3 per day each every day we were on land. I explained that we were writing a cruising guide and that we were hoping to bolster tourism revenues for the people of Peleliu. It seemed not to matter. The governor pushed off our meetings twice and we finally gave up. We of course paid $6 for the privilege of riding all the way into town to be told to get out.

We got up early today (7:30) and talked to the governor of Angaur, Mr. Salii. He is a great guy and welcomed us to visit Angaur. His office is in Koror, like most government, but the cell coverage in Omekang was just good enough to connect us.

It took us a little over four hours to motor along our test track lines out the Denges pass, southeast of Mecherechar and around Peleliu to Angaur. We arrived in the Angaur dock at 13:00. It is a small place but as long as the state boat isn't in port, which it isn't very often (mostly on pay days as it turns out), you can just tie up to the wall. They get one or two yachts a year at present, so you won't have competition. We'd like to change that by getting the word out on Angaur. It is fantastically beautiful.

Angaur is not a big place, but you can easily spend a day biking around the island. The old WWII era roads are beautiful and the entire trek is under the cover of a lush canopy. Monkeys play in the upper branches and alert their clan members as you approach, two foot long monitor lizards slither across the limestone rocks, and brilliant red dragon flies flit about the verdant foliage hanging from the huge banyan trees and covering the ground.

Somehow the road stays clear. While you could arrange a place to stay in Angaur I would recommend a day trip, tie up at the dock, rent bikes or bust out those folders you bought but haven't used in six months and enjoy. There are blow holes, pill boxes, was memorials, a statue of the Virgin Mary looking out over the sea to protect all of the wayward fishermen, and pretty beaches.

The folks are very laid back and quiet in Angaur and there are only 80 of them. Outside of the small town we saw no one all day. Angaur is another secret treasure of Palau and we are so glad we visited. It is certainly the most lovely bike ride we have done in our recollection.

We raced the sunset at the end of the day and made it back to Peleliu South Dock. We are anchored inside and deciding whether to take another look around Peleliu (we've done one tour already) it to make for German channel early AM and keep capturing track data.

We finished the Rock Islands section research! Today we wrapped up Mecherechar and moved to Omekang and finished the soundings we needed there for the cruising guide. It was a lovely day. It rained a bit after sunset but we were already inside sifting through the days information. We have a visit to Anguar the southernmost island in the main group planned for tomorrow and then back to town.

Palau is an amazing place. It keeps surprising us every day we go look around. Today we found a low water snorkel tunnel that lead to an otherwise land locked marine lake. There was a WWII bomb on the bottom along the back edge, not to mention an amazing selection of different coral species and lots of good sized fish. A huge cloud of squid greeted us at the entrance. It was a great snorkel.