Saturday, March 15, 2008 Today we arrived at Yap Island, the Land of Stone Money, at approximately 6:00 am only to find that the pilot boat- this is a local person(s) that helps direct you through the harbor and to the dock. In this case they did not arrive at the ship until after 7:30 am. They work on Yap time which is apparently similar to Lake City, Colorado time - at your own slow pace. We were supposed to anchor out in the harbor and then use the tenders to go to shore. This is a slow process and you [View Full Entry]

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Think about your first imaginings of a romantic Pacific island and you are probably seeing Yap. It lies low in the water, surrounded by a reef and lagoon. It is not dramatic like Hawaii or Bora Bora but it so natural and beautiful it’s like you are Robinson Caruso landing on a deserted island. The island is part of The Federated States of Micronesia, a republic, but legislative decisions must be approved by the tribal chiefs, there are fourteen, and by the head chief. Movements to open the islands to development have so far been resisted by the Chiefs. Only the [View Full Entry]

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Friday, March 14, 2008 Today was another sea day so the activities calendar was filled to the brim. It is always a matter of pick and choose since there is really too much to choose, let alone try to do everything. The day began like most by going to Mass, exercise class and finally breakfast. I ate with some folks I met on Cruise Critic - that has been really great meeting, or getting to know people on cruise critic and then travelling with them so you get to know them even more. I have had a good time getting to [View Full Entry]

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The people of Guadalcanal are smaller in stature to the people of PNG. Beatle nut is still chewed in PNG and young men’s teeth are just stubs. Older men have none at all and many of the women and children chew. The UFO (unidentified floating object) was identified as a marine tracking device, perhaps tracking tuna or whales. The most seriously injured passenger from the scaffold collapse was a very, very heavy 48-year-old man who is on dialysis. He will be disembarked at Guam. His cabin is not handicapped equipped; the doorway is not wide enough for a wheel chair so [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday and Thursday, March 12/13, 2008 On these two days we were at sea travelling to Yap Island in the Federated States of Micronesia. On Wednesday night at about 11:00pm we passed over the equator and if you haven’t had the opportunity to do that on a ship it is quite the ceremony. Of course the joke on the ship was to go out at night and watch for the bouys that designate where the equator is - I doubt anyone would fess up to going out on deck to look, but I bet a few folks did it. Both days [View Full Entry]

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11 Oct Well it is back on the blog again, after an absolutely wonderful break in Yap. Unfortunately as my camera spent most of the week in its underwater housing I did not get many good blog type surface shots. I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Guam and we depart this afternoon for Cairns where I will stay twelve hours and then fly to Auckland. Tom and Shirley etc. are continuing on with the original plan of driving to Brisbane and then flying from there to NZ but I have decided to forgo this section of the trip. [View Full Entry]

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02 Oct Well, I didn’t get my blog away last night as I bumped into Rohan Ellis and lost track of what I was doing. It was good to catch up wih Rohan who has lived now in Beijing for six years. I am currently in Agana airort in Guam and nothing is open so no access again. I will send this tomorrow from Yap and as we will be there for a reasonable time I will stop the blog until I am on the move again. I did, it must be he drink. Well we are now in Yap and [View Full Entry]

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sorry it took so flippin long to write to you guys! my life has been absolutely crazy since i have been here. i'm sitting in an incredible boring history class that sucks up every saturday from 8-5, so i thought i would write you an incredibly detailed update on my life instead of listening to the soul-sucking speaker. housing: even though my house is amazing, my landlord is really creepy...60 years old and would bring home 2 mongolian strippers at a time. yuck. last weekend, my roommate erik and i heard about a 2-bedroom bungalow for rent, and we went to [View Full Entry]

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morning :) it's 5:10 am here and i can't sleep in any longer. here's a recap of my life the past few days: i cried all the way to msp airport. all the people thought i was a crazy... once we got to msp, there was another plane in our landing dock, so we couldnt land for 45 minutes...my plane to tokyo started boarding at 2:10 and we were not able to get off the bji plane until 2:36 (according to anne hogland's watch). i raced out and ran to the shuttle, which of course took a few minutes, and [View Full Entry]

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i just found this place, and will hopefully be updating it often during my time in saipan. i leave the us on monday and will be teaching 7th grade science on the island for the next 2 years. keep checking back for current news :) [View Full Entry]

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