We all know that life really does revolve around the stove, about two to three times a day, but who would have thought it would influence our travel plans for the next twelve months! As many of you know, we've been whining about the stove for over a year now, but it hadn't quite got on the top of the replacement list until a couple of months ago when one of the top burners decided to impersonate a flame thrower. Ordering a new one seemed like a straight forward non-event, and it was. Getting it shipped to the Marshall Islands is a whole new adventure. It was just a touch too heavy for our US postal service. Luckily we met up with one of the business owners at a local hardware store. He gave us a couple of great options, we could purchase space on one of his containers that arrives every month from the States. We would handle the purchasing and shipping it to his container. He also suggested that he could also order it for us and charge us the retail plus a bit for the shipping, thus he would make a little as well. We looked at both options, and decided to let Larry at "Do It Best Hardware" handle the whole thing since that was something he was good at. The price worked out about the same both ways anyway, and we do try to buy as local as we can to support the local businesses. Well, it all seemed like a great plan....until the freighter arrived, and, well, you guessed it, no stove. Larry, as distraught as we were, started right away to trouble-shoot the problem. And of course, we started thinking where can we go if we miss our weather window and can't get back to Fiji. So, here's the plan. If for some reason we can't get enough easting in to make Fiji, we will go to Vanuatu instead. We will then have two choices for the next cyclone season, either go west to New Caledonia and on to Australia, or back up north to Micronesia, westward to the Philippines, and then down to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. We know that Australia is the most logical choice until one remembers that we have a fuzzy family member and the Ausies have special rules (and expensive ones) for dogs. We are contacting them now for the details for our situation. The Marshall Islands is not on their "approved" list and since Pearl hasn't touched land since we left New Zealand maybe that will help. Either direction or scenario, we will have a great cruising season this year. Just as I was getting ready to send this post, guess who called? Larry! He has great news for us. The stove has been located and it is on the freighter now and should be here on April 7! So, it looks like now we have a nice back-up plan for this year. So, Plan A: We go to Fiji, stay there for cyclone season so that Chuck can go back to Alaska for a few months, while I work on woodwork and sewing projects with Pearl. Plan B: Vanuatu with cyclone season either at Australia or SE Asia.