New Year's Eve 2014

This might have been our last day in Palau as our 30 days visas and boat permit expired today, but in best cruising fashion, plans changed. Rapidly.

Our bank of eight deep cycle house batteries haven't been charging or holding their charge well for more than two months. On Tuesday we were in the hardware shop to collect a 5 gallon drum of diesel oil David spotted marine batteries on the shelf which had previously been empty, and they were on special offer. Back at the yacht club a search on the internet showed these were usable, though perhaps not absolutely perfect, as a replacement option so we returned to the shop to make more enquiries. When it was confirmed there were more than enough in stock and a further 25% off we decided to buy.

The knock on consequence was they needed to be slow charged and wouldn't be ready for delivery until 2 January so taking the money we'd saved we went to immigration and extended our visas and boat permit for another 30 days. The bonuses were home more reliable batteries, greater options in picking our weather window to leave for Philippines, New Year's Eve at home rather than at sea and David could brew another batch of beer.

The beer was started this afternoon, we relaxed about when to leave and enjoyed fine steaks on the barbecue on a warm and dry evening.