Bike ride to the beautiful Palau Pacific Resort

The Palau Pacific resort is donned in gorgeous orchids, many varieties and colors. The resort has it's own orchid greenhouse. After exploring the resort and checking out the menu, we enjoyed a glass of red wine before our long bike ride back to Creola.

This is a view of the resort from out on the point looking back. Originally, this area of Palau was set up as a seaplane base and the Japanese used it during the war. There is a bunker on the top of the point from where we took this photo.

This photo of the resort is also taken from the point.  You can see part of the white sand beach and the boathouse.  The snorkeling is claimed to be wonderful with many giant clams over 3' in size. We are anxious to return, biking the big hill up and then down to the Palau Pacific....or maybe next time we will take Spicey out and around.  

Summer Memories 2009 - Happy Labor Day

Huntington Lake, July 2009

As September arrives in the states, and Labor Day weekend is underway, they seem to mark the end of summer, even though fall is a month away. Most have returned to school and work routines, leaving summer a fond memory of the past.

It has been a month since our return to Palau and Creola, resuming our cruising life. But the fun memories of our month at Huntington Lake remain. This is where Linda spent all of her summers growing up, swimming, sailing, canoeing, hiking, trips to Kaiser Pass, Kaiser meadow, Little Eden hot spring, the waterfall, and Indian pools. The wildflowers, meadow frogs, and deer complete summer at Huntington, along with filling the cabin with family, friends, dogs, cooking, eating, campfires, horseshoes, bocce, Frisbee golf and other fun play.

As a tribute to our family and friends, please enjoy these reminders of our summer past at Huntington Lake, 2009. And when your life gets hectic and you long for warm sunny days, these memories are just a click away.

Cheers, Bill and Linda (Nonie and Papa)

Thirty Gallons of Water Added To Tanks

The water maker is working once again...

It has taken several tries to get it going with new seals and O-rings, leaks, ruptures, frustration galore, but today at 1010 hours, pure sweet water once again flowed into Creola's tanks. Now we can enjoy Palau more, write more stories and paint a book or a bai.

First Nonie and Papa Book Almost Complete

The first in the series of
The Adventures of Nonie and Papa
is Almost Complete

After several years of writing stories of our experiences for the limited audience of our nine grandchildren, we have decided to rewrite the stories in a booklet format with full color photographs on every page. The first series are focused on the pre-K and will be field tested in California this fall. Primary and Intermediate level version will have to wait for now.

For additional information go to our other Blog at nonpaadventures.blogspot.com.

Update From Palau

Creola floating gracefully on her mooring in the anchorage off Sam's Tours.  We are off in Spicey to do land chores.

No Clowning Around Today

This Clown Triggerfish is enjoying itself, but there was no clowning around on Creola today.

After diving the Chandelier Cave yesterday, (sorry no photos) we had some air left in our tanks and Creola's bottom needed a scrub. So most of today was diving under her bottom and removing the inevitable growth.

We did learn that we had many little rudder buddies and Linda took care to feed them the small oysters taken from Creola's hull.


She's clean and ready to go now, so someday soon we'll be off to the Rock Islands of Palau.

Jellyfish Lake - Worth The Wait

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Linda read about Jellyfish Lake in Palau some twenty years ago and added it to her Things To Do List. On Saturday she checked this one off her list after diving the Blue Hole and Blue Corner for the second time. As we arrived at the dock serving Jellyfish Lake, we noted the Latitude and Longitude, for it is a Virtual Geocache location. See Goecaching.com.

This landlocked lake is home to thousands and thousands of jellyfish that over the eons have traded their stinging ability for a daily migration pattern across the lake. The lake is brackish and it is a steep climb from the sea level dock up over the limestone ridge and then back down to the the lakeside dock. It's not all that easy carrying mask, snorkel, fins, cameras, etc.

Linda approaches the top of the ridge before descending to lake level.




Bill rests. After all, he was 90 feet below the surface just ninety minutes ago.

The lake is surrounded to the shore with thick jungle vegetation. The dock provides easy access to the water which is warm and comfortable. Linda described it as surreal and unbelievably relaxing.

Others might think it claustrophobic as after a brief swim you are surrounded by thousands of small, medium, and larger yellow jellyfish. They are bumping you, staring into your mask, swishing about your fins, arms, and legs while they pulse to wherever they're going.

Many fit in your hand nicely. Others are just babies about the size of a quarter and they pulse along much faster than their older siblings. You can see that they have maintained their jellyfish figure, but lack those stinging tentacles that make the Box Jelly the most deadly animal in Australia.

Linda holds a fairly large specimen and between breaths announces, "They are so cute!"  Yep, Jellyfish Lake, is worth twenty years of waiting.   You can find a video of the lake on You Tube.

Until tomorrow, B and L