I have been making a mental list of the things that I miss and bother me and whatnot and I thought this is a good place to write them down. The radio is a great source of background noise while driving. In the states it is very annoying listening to the radio because you must listen to twice as many commercials to music. Out here on Pohnpei there are not commercials but the music selection truly is a mix. One minute you are listening to some recently released rap song then the next minute its some old country song from the 50's followed by some reggae. It truly is a mixture. Also coffee out here is not the greatest. Sometimes you can get some good coffee but its ruined because there is no cream only coffee mate. I really miss riding my bike as well. What else? Cold weather. What seems strange is tourist season is just beginning out here where in most places it is ending. When it gets cold everywhere else its still hot here. Year round the temperatures stay in the 80's and for me that's not always a good thing. I love the cold weather and when the coldest temperature out here is maybe 75 all I can do is dream of snow. Caroline and Richie left this afternoon to go to Ace Hardware convention things in Chicago and Denver and I told them to bring back some snow. I just had this thought, so if a toilet flushes counter clockwise north of the equator and counterclockwise to the south will a toilet flush if it is placed directly on the equator? I had to buy a watch while I was in Guam. Why? Well back home I just flip open my phone to check the time but I have no phone here. The thing is I don't miss my phone either. The grocery stores are quite different, half of the labels I cant read because they are written in some Asian language. One of the few things from the US are cigarettes and for once I have something in common with a pack of smokes. We are both from NC. Their are maybe 3-4 brands sold out here but I don't see people smoking. Tobacco is one of the things people put in their betelnut and that's why they buy it. Betelnut is much grosser than anyone who dips or chews tobacco. You take a betelnut bite the end off and bite it in half. Then you rip a section of pepper leaf off and pack it inside the nut with crushed up coral or lime. Those are the basic ingredients but then most people also pack some tobacco inside the nut then they pop in in their mouth and chew. Somehow the combination of a green nut, green leaf and white coral makes red. So people spit this red juice and its gross. You can tell people who chew because their teeth are all red and sometimes missing. Its funny on the signs that say no eating no drinking they also say no betelnut. Just one of those cultural things people do here. As for other happenings in Pohnpei mommy cat never came back and I have been milking babies multiple times a day. There are only two which are still alive and I would like at least one of them to survive. Noah had his birthday party along with his first ever sleepover and he had a blast. Lots of people went out to an island yesterday. We maybe had 35 people and returning we went outside the barrier reef and the swells were huge. Surf season is starting up out here and the waves can be 10-15 feet on a normal day this time of year. Again I must think of more things to talk about. See ya later.

Baby kitties.

So Mae's family has a cat named Coco and she sneaks out at night to see the boy cats. Well as a result Coco's tummy became swollen and would move around sometimes. Yes, Coco got knocked up and she was pregnant. Well what happened the night before last? Ok I'll tell you Coco birthed her 5 babies on top of Rich's basketball clothes in the room which I stay in, then she left. I opened the door the next morning and she bolted out and we have not seen her since. So we waited for her to come back to feed them but she hasn't. So this morning Mae and I took a tiny syringe and tried feeding them just regular milk. There is a girl here who took a 3 day old abandoned cat and helped it out so maybe I can get some advice on how to nurse baby kittens. Other news Noah is having his 4th birthday party this evening and he wants to have a sleepover NO GIRLS ALLOWED. Guess what? I'm in charge. So it will be fun of course. We went and saw one of the many many waterfalls the other day but of course I didn't take any pictures. I have been going to tennis practice a few times too. My cousin Caroline is like the elite tennis pro best ever and coaches kids some of which compete on the national level. I am running out of breath already, I don't know what else to say. On my previous posts I miss spelled some names just about all of them except Connor because he does not have island spellings and accents on his name. So the correct spellings are Taeyanna and Jourdyn.

Well it has been quite a while since I have spread the island news. Where do I start? If you were waiting on my return for one reason or another I am not coming home . . . when expected. I have changed my tickets so I arrive in North Carolina on the 27th of October. As strange as it seems my trip is shorter on return. Not counting time in airports before and after flying my trip was about 25 hours to get to Guam. I leave Guam at 6am and then arrive in Raleigh at 4pm how does a 25 hour trip turn into a 10 hour one? The international date line is the only genie that can let you go back in time and somehow make time disappear. On that note I had to talk to my uncle who lives in Chuuk about the ticket to go back and visit him. They are enjoying their 7th day without power today, and when I say enjoy I mean not enjoying. I am now back in Pohnpei and my trip to Yap and Palau is now complete, I have now been there and done that. While returning from Yap we stopped in Guam and picked up some things to bring back to Pohnpei along with meeting some new people. My record of seeing rainbows in Guam every day has now ended very depressing I know but someone must have found the pot of gold. While we were there we meet some graduate students and other marine biology people at a lecture about a study this guy did about moving corals. I understood nothing about the lecture and fortunately I was not the only one. At the end I understood that you can transplant corals to other locations but that was about it. I talked to a girl who has him as a professor and she said "even if its a topic you understand somehow he will loose you." Well one thing lead to another and we ended up eating the one homemade meal of our two week trip in Guam. The guy who made us dinner seamed a little depressed that he didn't make the pasta. He made the spaghetti sauce, the bread, the salad, the salad dressing, the ice cream, the other ice cream, he made everything, everything but the pasta. Personally if someone makes that much of an effort to make all that but not make the pasta they are slacking off. So I respectfully declined the meal because he did not put enough effort into the meal. Then I got hungry and ate it. It was delicious and I didn't even taste the box in the noodles. If you believed me about our chef not putting enough effort I was just kidding, im not that mean. While our chef/designer was cooking he put parsley stems in a little cups and I had to borrow a camera to take a picture. I could just see this perfect picture. So I took it. Around his apartment he had collected just about everything you could find on the beach. One of the coolest was beach glass, so what did I do but I went out and started collecting some beach glass too. So there are a few other interesting things about Micronesia which I have learned. Did you know the state of Yap is the largest consumer of Budwiser products per capita?
So the kids in the pictures are Tayana in the first picture. Jordan (on the right) and her friend and the second and Connor in the third. Jordan is Mae's oldest and Tayana is the second oldest. Connor is just one of their cousins that lives nearby.

Milk ppllleeaassseeee

So fresh milk is one of those things I enjoy along with other dairy products like cheese and even cream for coffee. One of those downfalls of traveling to what one may call the middle of nowhere is there are no cows. No cows, no milk, no cream, no cheese. Then that means no macaroni and cheese, pizza, ice cream, milkshakes. . .unless you want to drop lots of money. I have been told about a lady in Pohnpei who runs a store which sells fresh milk and cheese, and its not cheep. A gallon of milk flown from wherever is around 5 times as much as gas (in NC when I left) fifteen Washingtons. And a one-pound block of cheese is twenty-five hard earned dollars. With limited land availability it is hard to do lots of farming and difficult do grow many vegetables because of water. Not that there is not enough water but there is too much. Other than that the day before leaving Palau we went with a group of guys working for PCS, Palau Conservation Society who were measuring corals in a protected area in Palau. This was an area thought to have survived a major coral bleaching which also has some of the biggest corals in that area. In the pictures the stick they are using to measure is 3 meters long to give you a reference on how big these actually are. Well when we were done there I left my hiking shorts which I was using as my swimsuit in their truck. So yesterday here in Yap I went looking for a replacement swimsuit. After visiting I believe every place on the island I found 4 huge swimsuits at a dive shop a handful of kids suits in the back of a grocery store and finally I found one. There was a small clothing store filled with primarily traditional hand sewn clothes and a few other random items. And there it was, the one bathing suit in their store hand sewn by a local Pilipino lady, and gold. It had that island look with the flowers on them but they are more like roses. They are not the most attractive things but they remind me of drapes hanging in a fancy house. Every day the weather is about the same, mid 80s, partly cloudy, humid with a mid day shower and like that through most of the year. So swimming is one of those nice things to do when you have a chance to cool off and enjoy the water. So yesterday we jumped off our 4-foot balcony into the bay with was refreshing and fun at the same time. The since of community on these small islands is just amazing. Everyone really does know everyone and if they don’t know him or her they have most likely heard their name. Along with that every one is so nice and so helpful. If you need something people don’t have a problem dropping what they are doing to help out. We were in a restaurant across the street and my cousin went to use the phone to see if the lady she was meeting with was at the hotel yet and the hostess said oh no her cars not here. The man who drove us from the airport knew everyone my cousin was meeting with as well. They are just normal people not famous nor stand out figures. It’s just so nice the differences where people actually know who you are. As short of a time I have been here I even recognize people on airplanes and every time I go out recognize faces of passerby’s. In a place the size of Raleigh I could walk across town and may not even see one familiar face. I went over to the post office to mail some things and checked to see if I could mail things in Yap with stamps from Palau. I found out I cant, sure doesn’t make much since but stamps have to match with the country they are sent from. I find so many people amazed by the traveling involved in the trip but they don’t know about what I am doing while I am here. Other than my family I have been meeting with many biologists, naturalists and conservationists that are known through the country, through the pacific and through out the world. The scuba diving is not necessarily just a typical place to go scuba diving. It is written about in books, magazines, and online and people pay thousands to travel from Australia, Asia, and all the way from Europe and everywhere in between. I have meet people from Greensboro, NC, Utah, Texas, Michigan who come to dive. I talk to them and they say you are learning to dive in one of the world’s premier locations in pure amazement. I have learned so much about the history and the environment along with animals, plants, foods as well as myself. A couple times I have thought of studying marine biology in California or Hawaii because the oceans are so interesting. Time to go save the world.

Ever swam with Jellyfish?

Lucky for me I have access to a brand new computer with fast internet here in the hotel. When I say new computer it was put in two days ago. I had tried getting online on the other one to just check my e-mail. Before I gave up the internet closed on me six times and the computer shut down on me twice. After all that I still didn't get to check my e-mail. I just have to say that traveling with my cousin while she is doing work is an exceptional privilege. Okay I may have to sit through a meeting or two every day but we have been to places tourists pay hundreds of dollars to go to along with places only researchers know about. Not only do we get to go to these places but the people who are in charge of these areas are taking us to these places and showing us everything. I have been taking lots of pictures underwater and above and spending at least half of my days on boats or in the water. There are so many unique things about Palau that are found no where else in the world. One really neat place here in Palau are the rock islands. There are hundreds of these islands that range in sizes and shapes. The rock islands along with much of the land through Palau has a mushroom shape where the rock meets the water. Many people believe it to be erosion solely from the waves washing the bottoms of these islands away. Its much more complex than that. Although the waves have a slight effect on the erosion most of it has to do with the acids from the plants and algae. The acids break down the rock and then the waves wash that rock away, it's called bio erosion. There is much more unique to the rock islands such as nesting areas for sea turtles and the largest reptile the salt water crocodile. After getting seasick from too much time on the boat I scuba diving at a location called blue hole. One of the neatest places I have adventured to in my life. You start off in water about 5 feet deep with lots of corals and fish around you and all of a sudden there is a hole. The hole descends down around 70 feet into a very large cave. As you descend down you can see many different kinds of corals anemones and fish. We decided to exit the hole where most people do down towards the bottom on the side. There is a large opening on the side of the cave which opens back up into the ocean. It is a very strange feeling when you get to this point because it is a sheer drop of hundreds and hundreds of feet with nothing in sight except this wall descending down. As we swam along the wall we were able to see some sharks along with huge fish and a sea turtle when we ascended back to the coral flats. While we were down the tides had changed and as soon as I reached the surface where it was much more choppy than before I threw up a few more times form the motion of the waves, it was worth it. Well after that we went to a location called jellyfish lake. This is a saltwater lake that is on one of the rock islands which has been separated from the ocean for many years. In this lake there are jellyfish which over time have lost their ability to sting. The lake is maybe 2-3 acres, not very big at all with a depth of around 100 feet. Yet in this lake there are 13-15 MILLION jellyfish. They range in sizes from 1/2 the size of a penny to a little larger than a softball. It is like nothing else to swim with millions of jellyfish. There is so much more that I could say but it would take all day to type it. Mangrove crab is a delicious treat but I have not yet tried fruit bat. The fruit bats here are huge I thought it was some kind of raptor the first time I saw one flying. I have been told they can have a wingspan up to 6 feet. Yes, people do eat it here and no I don't really want to try it. On the other hand I do want to eat it just so I can say that I have. Oh that picture of that building up there is not from my school field trip to Washington D.C. that is the capitol building here in Palau. Yes it is outrageous and twice as big as it needs to be but the government of Taiwan built it for them. It is simply a waste of money when you travel about the rest of the country. Well it has been an interesting adventure so far to the Republic of Palau and tomorrow morning at 2am I will be landing in Yap. Yap will be the third state of Micronesia which I will be visiting and unless something changes I will not be going to Kosrae the last state of the FSM. Off I go to enjoy my final day in Palau.

Adding stamps to my passport

Sorry for not posting in a while I have been occupied with more kids than you could ever imagine. There are my cousins, their cousins and then their friends, over 20 of them under the age of 11. The worst part about it, they always come and pick on me. My welcome to Pohnpei was a game of trying to tie up Wren. It was great fun but then when they start to fight and cry it was a little less fun. Well there is a lot more that has happened and I was quite busy in Pohnpei and that's why I only updated this once. I am now in Guam after a not so good arrival. First of all we were on a plane that landed at 4am, and that's after one time zone change. Well that part is not all that bad, but once we get through immigration and whatnot we were suppose to have a hotel shuttle there. Well they weren't there, so once we got a shuttle there we found out there are two Days Inns and we did not know which one we had our reservation at. Well we get to our hotel and "your conformation code is the right sequence but we don't have a record of it." So we got the last available room which was only one bed and smoking which was not what we were supposed to have. So you know your a redneck if you sleep with your cousin. Anyways that is not it. The power in the room does not come on unless you put your door key in some little slot and we had no idea we had to do that. The lady was supposed to bring extra pillows and stuff, guess what, she never did. Oh and checking out to be nice they decided they would give us the cost of the one bed room instead of the two bed room which we were never in. I am back in the Guam airport writing this after our short layover on our way to Palau. Well other than travel annoyances I had a great time in Pohnpei. I like to call it the island of big leaves. It is the rainiest place on the earth and everywhere you look there are huge green plants with very large leaves. I suppose my biggest accomplishment so far over this trip has been in Pohnpei. I have become certified to scuba dive and it is amazing. The ability to just float and swim with fish underwater and see things you otherwise never could is so cool. You just feel so free underwater and everything just looks so different. Its fun blow water rings, like a smoke ring and watch them float to the surface. All of these pictures which I have posted came from our refugee relocation trip to Sand Island. (Actually we just went for fun.) Oh, and if the boat looks crowded there are 8 more people on the boat up on the bow including me where I was taking the picture. The island is located way out on the barrier reef which goes around Pohnpei. On our trip out to the island we were able to see sting rays flying through the water. As we were traveling out to the island we were able to see two stingrays flying through the water, really cool to see. The two little girls are Keavae on the left and Nicole on the right which are both 2 years old. I am not sure how much access to Internet I will have in Palau but there are a few things of interest I there. I hope to do dive there if I can along with see monkeys which are native to that island along with swimming with jellyfish. I have told they eat bat along with the intestines of sea cucumbers, both sound very disgusting but Vansana insists that I try everything. As I look out the window here in the airport of Guam I see another rainbow. This makes my record for seeing rainbows in Guam 5 for 5, I have seen one every day I have been here. Time to hit the road again, or the air for that matter. Palau here I come.