CHANGE IN WEATHER The weather has been awful since I arrived in South Pacific - in Tonga wet cold and windy - wet, warm and wind on the trip here. In Wallis Island it is still wet windy and warm very unusually for this time of year. Sunday there were blue skies!!! It is really beautiful and I have to keep pinching myself to realize this is real and not a dream. Brian and I went for a dive Sunday morning; for me to check out my gear and he wanted to check the anchor was secure with all the wind. [View Full Entry]

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Sorry about the lack of pictures on the last couple of blogs. On Friday, we waited for the customs and immigration people to come out to the boat. They never arrive so we went in and were able to do all the custom and immigration on land. It was late but I wanted to check my emails and put something on my blog before they closed. I had 10 mins. - not long when things are slow. I will put some pics up today. Wallis Island, French territory, currency = Polynesia francs. June 26th. We motored over to the port Mata [View Full Entry]

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Sorry about the lack of pictures on the last couple of blogs. On Friday, we waited for the customs and immigration people to come out to the boat. They never arrive so we went in and were able to do all the custom and immigration on land. It was late but I wanted to check my emails and put something on my blog before they closed. I had 10 mins. - not long when things are slow. I will put some pics up today. Wallis Island, French territory, currency = Polynesia francs. June 26th. We motored over to the port Mata [View Full Entry]

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June 22nd TONGA The 3hr flight to Tonga was uneventful - which is what I like. I arrived in Tonga and it was raining, windy and cold. My flight to Vava’u in Northern Tonga was cancelled and I had to wait for the later flight. I sat in the domestic airport - the equivalent of large shed - the only saving grace was the restaurant which sold hot and cold drinks and food. I had numerous cups of tea to keep me warm. While in the airport I struck up a conversation with an American girl work for VPO in Tonga. [View Full Entry]

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June 22nd TONGA The 3hr flight to Tonga was uneventful - which is what I like. I arrived in Tonga and it was raining, windy and cold. My flight to Vava’u in Northern Tonga was cancelled and I had to wait for the later flight. I sat in the domestic airport - the equivalent of large shed - the only saving grace was the restaurant which sold hot and cold drinks and food. I had numerous cups of tea to keep me warm. While in the airport I struck up a conversation with an American girl work for VPO in Tonga. [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Auckland this morning on my birthday. What a long haul from New York. All the planes were full so no chance of lying down and sleeping. Is there really a recession on? The plane from LA to Auckland was a double deck style and it was full appr 600 - 700 seats!! I managed to get some sleep so I wasn’t too bad when I got to Auckland. After checking in at the hotel, I took a bus tour of Auckland to get a feel for the city and the country. It was great and the weather was [View Full Entry]

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I have just finished a fabulous week volunteering as a liaison Officer for the tall ships. I was assigned to the ship Mircea - a Romanain Navy training vessel. 184 men and 6 women. They were all delightful from the captain down. They we interested enthusiastic, respectful, and sense of humour. My team of 6 were to assist the ship in whatever they needed to prepare for the next leg of the race to Charleston. We showed them around Bermuda. There were lots of social events planned which they took part in. On Thursday my team and I were able to [View Full Entry]

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It was good to see Rowena and met the son-in-law and the parents in law. Yesterday we went shopping - Rowena wanted/needed a pair of sneakers - her feet are expanding. The mall is like any other one - except there are men and women in Arb dress. It was Sunday equilviant to monday in the western world and the Mall was very quite. We bought the shoes and had a coffee at numerous Starbucks outlet. I have to say there is not much to look at here as Rowena describes it - lots of sand colored building a few tree [View Full Entry]

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I am sitting in Bahrain airport. It looks very similar toairports world wide except there are signs to male and female prayer rooms - also there are 20% of people in arab dress. I am disappointed as I could not see out of the airplane or airport as there is a sand storm at the moment. The wind is quite strong - as indicated by the flags just out side the window. My departure has been delayed an hour no reason given. I had 4 seats to myself and was able to sleep for a few hours from heathrow and Bahrain. [View Full Entry]

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Today was the survival section of the course - life jackets, life rafts, and sea survival. All very interesting and I hope that I never have to use any of it. It was rather depressing. For the practical part we were taken to dive pool and saw how the life rafts inflate then we had to jump off a 4 meter high board and get into the life raft. We ended with the mock abandon ship where we had to get into a life raft, using all the skills we had learned. I am impressed at how well the whole course [View Full Entry]

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