At Sea and then Guadalcanal (Mar 8/9)

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Saturday, March 8, 2008
Today was a sea day as we are still enroute to Guadacanal. The lecture series has been very interesting as they do a very good job of summarizing the conflicts in this area and some of the early history of the area. They covered the Battle of Savo Island, which I had not really heard about but was one of the biggest defeats for the US Navy in history. If you watch the old movie Guadacanal with Willian Bendix, that movie actually does a good job of covering what happened on the island and nearby at sea. Tonight’s show was a cast show called: “Hit the Deck.” This was the same show that was on the Statendam last summer. It is a good show but we had seen it when the ship was in Alaska.

Sunday, March 9, 2008
Visited the US Memorial on Hill 73 in Guadacanal. Very nice memorial with a lot of information on it. Sobering that over 5,000 Americans died taking and holding Guadacanal. The memorial has the background on the ships sunk near Sabo Island, Bloody Ridge, and Henderson Field. We went to see both Bloody Ridge and Henderson Field. Bloody Ridge was a defensive ridge used by the marines to protect the approach to Henderson Field. We visited Henderson Field which is not much but jets, with tourists, do use it. Interesting enough the Japanese give money to keep it open for planes of Japanese tourists. It was hot with no air conditioned bus, about 90 with 90 percent humidity, and this is winter. The natives are friendly but the poverty is pretty pronounced. I took a bunch of movies for everyone to view later. We continue to eat our way across the South Pacific. Tonight’s show was George Solomon - since we were on the Solomon Islands I guess it was only fitting to have here. While I had viewed his website prior to leaving the states and thought his would be a relatively good act I was somewhat disappointed. It appeared he was suffering from a cold and all his songs were very nasal and he was out of breath, but he was still very energetic. He certainly can jump around a lot, even if he has a cold! There was a rumor on the ship of an incident that occurred while we were on the island, and actually several crew members said they talked to the individual involved, but again I did not see anything but we were warned about the area before we went on tour. The incident was that one of the HAL tour buses was boarded by a man with a machete. He held the machete to a woman’s throat and demanded money and was apparently given $40.00. Someone on the bus snapped a photograph of the man. These people are so poor and in need of so much, they do not even get an education - you must pay for it and only the rich can afford it. Our driver and tour guides stayed close by us the whole time and on whole the people were very friendly and welcoming. The island is suppose to have 10 ships (vs. 3 in 2007) come in this year.

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