Blogs from Micronesia, Oceania - page 3

Yap, the island of stone money (that's probably why there is no ATM), cultural dances, topless women, men's houses, land crabs, beetle nuts, and manta rays. It 's located 45 minutes flying to the east of Palau. We stayed a week on this island and it was quite an experience for many reasons, one of them was because Lennard decided to book a homestay for this location in stead of an hotel. Arriving at the airport, we saw our first topless women and were offered flowers. The owner of our homestay, DJ Bungalow, was supposed to pick us up from the airport, but he was no where to be found. Fortunately we met a friendly Dutch dive manager from dive center Traders' Ridge, Mike, who helped us get a ride to our bungalow. Yap is a ... read more

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 must leave about 45 minutes each way to get to the shore or ship depending on your direction. We were all very happy when the Captain (Captain Jack actually) decided to try and go in ... read more

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 he has to crawl to the door in order to get to his dialysis appointments. There are many Aussies and Kiwis on board. They are good-natured friendly people and I really enjoy talking to them. ... read more

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. Three other kiwis we were with in Yap will join me on the same flight to NZ. We of course had Fireman Cliff with us in Yap and Also our buddy Patrik who has been ... read more

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 look at it. turns out it's awesome. we signed a 1-year lease and erik has already moved in. the only thing holding me back from moving in is the lack of a car. our new ... read more