Merry Christmas from Savannah!

One of the many alleys here in Koh Phi Phi.  Rows and rows
of shops and restaurants.

Our first week in Thailand has been pretty fun.  We’ve hopped from island to island and have landed in Koh Phi Phi Don for Christmas (Remember the movie “Beach” with Leonardo DeCaprio?…this is where they filmed it).  The boys have been playing non-stop and we have a big dinner planned for tonight (Christmas Eve) with a few of the boats here.  In some ways it's hard to believe we're in Thailand.  It's not like most of the tourists where they got off a plane and the scenery has suddenly changed drastically...we've slowly eased our way into SE Asia and Thailand doesn't look so different from Malaysia.  The biggest change is that there are very few muslims and way more tourists and hippy backpackers.

Posing with the monkey.

As much fun as we're having,  it’s the first Christmas on that boat that doesn’t really feel like Christmas.  The anchorage is a bit rocky with all of the boats zipping by and the evenings are filled with “boom chick a boom boom” coming from the shore non-stop until 2 in the morning.  And I have to say I’m a bit home sick.  It’s been a lot of Decembers away from home…I was telling Andy how pathetic I am…sitting in an anchorage in one of the most popular beaches in Thailand having trouble being happy.  So, I’m adjusting my attitude today and getting into the spirit.  I called my mom, wrapped presents and now we’re cooking up a storm (at least Andy is). 

So here’s to all of our friends and family wherever you may be, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the crew of Savannah…all the way from Thailand! I'll leave you with some pictures from the aptly named Monkey Beach!  BAD Monkeys!

Making good use of the stick...shooing the
monkey away.  They get a bit aggressive at times.

Mama monkey, winding down after a long day of harassing tourists.

Christmas in Palau...New Year's in the Philippines!

Santa ate his fudge and it looks like Rudolph chewed up a
few carrots...

Santa found Jake here in Palau and he spent all morning putting stuff together and trashing the main salon with all of his playing.  We spent Christmas Eve with some good friends drinking egg nog and Christmas night we had Bob from s/v Braveheart over for dinner and some lively discussions!  All in all, it was a great Christmas.  We’re back together, we’re healthy, and….. we’re leaving!

Homemade Egg Nog with Linda and Bob on Christmas Eve.

That’s right…we’re checking out of Palau this morning and getting underway for the Phlippines.  We’re all very excited.  We’ve thoroughly enjoyed Palau, but we are more than ready to move on.  We don’t have a very solid plan other than arriving in Cebu.  We’ll meet up with a friend of ours we met in Mexico and catch up a little.  Then we’ll move a little north and do some diving.  Following that, the only plans we have are to move through the northwest islands of the Visyas and make our way to Palawan. 

My brother and his wife went to Spain earlier this season
and brought us back some really neat gifts for
Christmas.  This was a small cutting board made out of
Olive wood.

All of our goodies from Spain.  We were VERY excited.

We should be underway for about 4 -5 days before we arrive at the first stop over, just before New Years.  From there, we’ll have to day hop to Cebu.  There are some strong currents and lots of debris in the water from what we’ve heard, so we’ll avoid moving around at night where we can’t see anything. 

Until then, we hope everyone continues to enjoy their holiday!  From our family to yours.

Andy and Sam getting the grill ready for the Christmas party
at Sam's Tours with the Yacht Club.

Jake and Maya - two peas in a pod.

He's really going to miss this little girl.

Jakes first solo dinghy expedition.

Merry Christmas from Yap!

The view from our hotel room...Savannah right in the middle.

Christmas came and went in a whirlwind!   Santa found us and brought Jake a bright, shiny, new bike (yes, this is his third bike and no, he can’t ride it yet…bikes and boats don’t mix but we’re going to try one more time).  He also brought just about every dinosaur Lego set possible.  We spent the entire morning putting together legos and our main salon has been taken over (I can’t seem to find the pictures of Christmas morning so I’ll have to post those later).

As for Andy and I….Jake and I bought Andy some new filet knives and lures and Andy got me a massage, manicure and pedicure at the local spa here.  As a gift to the whole family, we spent a night in one of the resort hotels, used their stand up showers, swam in the pool and watched cable tv!

Jake enjoying the iPad with free wifi in the hotel room.

Ice cream at our friend's house on Christmas Day.

I got up early Christmas morning and made homemade cinnamon rolls, chocolate milk (for Jake) and mimosas (for us).  After Jake opened all his presents and we had breakfast, our new friends here in Yap came and picked us up.  This is the couple that we brought back some stuff from Woleai (where they’re from), so to thank us, they had us over for a bar-b-que.  Their house is literally behind our boat and it’s a good representative of Yap; a strange mix of old, new, and somewhere in the middle.  They have a stove inside their house, but they prefer to use the old cooking house outside.  Vincent and Agatha (our new friends) wear western clothing while others in their family are more traditional (lava lavas sans shirt).  They have pigs and chickens, but the chicken we ate off the grill came from the grocery store.   It’s indicative of most of what we’ve seen in Yap.  Some people have spent much time away in Guam, the US, or some other country and have adapted their ways.  Others are holding tight to the old traditions.

Vincent and Agatha have a 10 year old son, Trevor.  He speaks perfect English and seems excited to have met Jake.  He and Jake played together well and we have future plans for Trevor to come out to the boat.

All in all, it was a great day.  We did have the chance to eat more turtle, but after a few bites, I decided to call it quits.  It’s one thing to try it, but another all together to get a taste for it.  Plus, the dogs pulled it off the grill and then Vincent rinsed it off and put it back on…I’m not sure how many times that happened before we got there.  When it was all picked over, he gave it to the pig.  The dogs snuck in again and took off down the road with it.  Quite the comedy.

We really like it here and have decided to look into getting Savannah hauled out.  We are in desperate need of bottom paint and we heard rumors it’s cheap to pull out here.  We would also like to take a look at some of those leaks we’ve been fixing along the way and see if there is any welding to be done.  There is a trolley that would be fairly easy to go up on, but we would have to go sideways…and then there’s the chore of trying to get the paint here.  I don’t know how feasible the whole thing is, but we’re going to look into it.  If it could save us a few thousand dollars, then I certainly think it’s worth it.

The weather is starting to ease up a bit, so it looks like we might get to go diving next week and not have our tails handed to us.  We haven’t done much in the way of tourism at this point, so lots to see and do in the next few weeks…

Final Picture update - Lamotrek and Woleai

I finally finished uploading the pictures from the outer islands.  Now we can focus on Yap :).

Click on the links for updates (or you can just scroll down)
Going Native
Culture, Culture and more Culture
Turtles and Taro
On to Woleai
Wolei and Beyond

For all of you geographically challenged people who still don't know where Micronesia is, I've updated our map at the right of our page as well.   You can move it around with your mouse, or click on the larger view at the bottom to see exactly where these islands were.

I've been seeing everyone put their Christmas pictures up on facebook, so I decided to add ours here since we're so close to Christmas.  We spent a day making ornaments and putting up all of our decorations.  It's not Macy's Window quality, but we like it.  There aren't too many pictures as well, we only have a small space to decorate....sorry.

Making tiny reindeers out of closepins, pipe cleaner candy canes,
and paper snowflakes.  If you're not impressed, you should be.
I don't do crafts very well.