Blogs from Pohnpei, Micronesia, Oceania

Welcome to the capital of Micronesia. Little geography lesson to start with. Micronesia is made of 4 main islands. I visited the island of Chuuk to dive the multiple wrecks back in 2018. If you are a diver, do dive Chuuk before it's too late...corrosion is happening after so many years! Pohnpei is the capital, there is also Yap if you want to dive with mantas, and finally the island of Kosrea. Micronesia has a total population of 113,000 people, with 36,000 of them living on Pohnpei. You can get here with the weekly air shuttle doing Brisbane-Nauru-Tarawa-Majuro-Pohnpei, or with the other air shuttle, offered by United doing Guam-Chuuk-Pohnpei-Kosrea-Kwajalein-Majuro. That shuttle is something like 2 or 3 times per week. It doesn't always stop at Kosrea neither Kwajalein. The later is in the Marshall Island and ... read more

The Lost Stone City – NANMADOL Last May 2010, I travelled to Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia to conduct a risk assessment training course (Image 1). That was one of the most enjoyable training courses I ever had. The Micronesians were so quick to learn and apply the knowledge gained. After all, risk analysis is one of those subjects that you learn by doing. No matter how many reference materials you read, if you don’t do it – it will be guess work!! And as an outcome, we are now in the process of releasing an introductory training course manual on risk analysis, maybe in a couple more weeks. It takes about an hour or so by boat (Image 2) and another half an hour beach walk. Before reaching this archaeological site, you can have a ... read more

Feb 01: Well just like Alaska, the weather can affect all things here on Pohnpei Island. Today I saw the effects of Typhoon Yasi which is hitting Northeast Australia. I’ve never seen such intense rain. It rained for about an hour that flooded the streets, overflowed the rivers, and just created havoc everywhere. This afternoon is much nicer and the sun is starting to shine again. ... read more

Jan 27: We were invited and had dinner at the US Ambassador’s house last night. Most of the food came from his wife’s garden, except for meat which was either caught or raised locally too. Today’s kind of a slow day with only a few meetings. Went for a nice hike to a high spot on the island, beautiful view. ... read more

Jan 25: We arrived at Pohnpei Micronesia yesterday. Back to reality. Our bus ride to the hotel took about an hour to go about 4 miles because the bus kept breaking down. The humidity is so thick you can cut it with a knife. I woke up early and decided to go for a run. It helped to start the day getting all of sweat out of me. It helped keep me cool the rest of the day. This place is absolutely the tropics. Very beautiful. Much cleaner than Dili. ... read more