Sunday morning

Sunday dawns...another day in paradise. It's warm and humid, and somewhat overcast, but the clouds keep the temps down, so I'm not complaining.

Yesterday, we had a lovely, if not somewhat challenging, hike to a gorgeous waterfall. It was worth the sweat, mud, slipping and sliding to get down there. It rained off and on as we hiked back out, but we really didn't mind, because we were already soaking wet from playing around in the pool under the falls, and it did keep the temperature down. However, the running water down the trails did make it a little more slippery. We'll post pics as soon as Kirk pulls them off the camera. We've all got tired and tweaky muscles this morning, but I'm not feeling guilty about missing my usual double Jazzercise class on Saturday morning.

After a driving tour around the other side of Babledaob (the largest of the Palau islands), and a brief respite back at Waterfront Villa, we headed out to the housewarming party at Aussie Acres, the Australian compound here in Palau. They don't have an official embassy, but a hillside collection of three beautiful "kit" houses shipped over from home and constructed on the spot in a gated, guarded neighborhood.

They offered champagne, wine, beer, soft drinks and a great spread catered by the German dive master-turned-cook, Rene. He own's the restaurant "Kramers" which we're likely to visit later in the week. He brought egg rolls, with sauce, seared, blackened sashimi, with wasabi, spicy chicken wings with dressing and something Ron was calling ceviche, but Kirk and I called poki. In either case it was a raw fish 'salad', tossed with citrus and seasame seeds and spices. It was all very yummy. Oh, and I almost forgot, some excellent mangrove crab! I didn't attempt it when I went through the buffet line, but Ron brought a claw over so we could taste it - Wow.

At the party were many Internationals, military and other characters. Lots of fun, despite the fact that we were so tired.

Kirk's going to post some pictures, post with you later -lj