6:20 am Palau | 2:20 pm LA
Day 2 in Palau

I was in bed around 8 pm (4 am LA) and was exhausted. I don't think it took me 10 min. to fall asleep. (Not 100% sure what time I woke up as the iPod was displaying LA time and I just found out that my Palm LifeDrive was 1 hour earlier) I listened to my iPod/dozed for about an hour then read 4-5 chapters of Y2K by Victor Poricelli on my Palm.

Rachel and Shauna are out doing their early morning workout and I'm eating breakfast (the other half of yesterdays lunch) and writing while listening to the roosters crowing, a couple of other birds chirping (not making nearly as much noise as the roosters) and some other jungle animal/birds.

Houses are anything from tin shacks, to concrete block structures to ??? Yesterday, on our sightseeing tour I saw two "resorts" and was told there's a few more on another island. It's looking (or actually sounding) like this might be another rainy day; nice thing is that the temperatures are mild...maybe mid-70s with a breeze. Trying to psych myself up for this morning's cold shower - I need to wash my hair - or maybe I'll just go play out in the rain for a while :)

2:00 pm Palau | 10 pm LA

Well it wasn't raining like I thought earlier. When Rachel came back from their workout she told me it was probably the winds...they've shifted from the West and are now coming from the East (at least that's what directions I'd call them).

Just got out of the shower and I did a little better today than yesterday. We went out and I learned how to stand-up paddle board and snorkel in Nikko Bay. We left sometime before 9 am and got back a little after 1. I was a little nervous at first with the paddle boarding and stayed on my knees until they got too sore from my weight. Rachel stayed close by and would ask if I was ready to stand up several times. I finally got brave and did it. Kind of floundered with the paddle at first but then I got my groove and my confidence kept building. If there's no wind or boat wakes, it's very peaceful and relaxing...hearing the water lapping at the board...when you have to deal with wind and/or wakes it's a little harder paddling (at least for me).

Snorkeling (in Rembrandt's cove) on the other hand, was scarier for me. Mostly because of trust issues - would the mask keep the water out and learning how to breathe out of my mouth through the snorkel...being a total nose breathing person. It just occurred to me that 1 of the problems I occasionally had was the few times I forgot and tried to breathe through my nose (also ended up fogging up my mask that way); then came the panic followed by water coming in my mouth. The interesting thing is that it came in waves...I'd be totally fine and enjoying the coral and fish and then came a brain fart and would start breathing through my nose. I did get some cool video that I'll post on YouTube at some point.

Fuanes, one of the locals who came out with us, had an anemone (?) in his hand and came swimming over to me to show it off...it felt way cool - I wish I would have had the video camera at that point, but it was some time after that when I got the camera from my wet pack on Fuanes' board. After my last panic time we got back on our boards and paddled over to see a sunken WWII Japanese trade boat (I did get video of it); then we paddled around to the next cove and sat down on our boards and had lunch.

After lunch we headed back to where we started/where the car was parked...oh, and the water level had dropped about 5' from the time we left.

I'm very proud of myself today :)