super duper

Lots of very very interesting things have happened in the last few hours. Saw a pwa pwa pwe pwe, a happy (pwa pwa) sea turtle (pwe pwe). This was a huge turtle being like 2-3 feet in diameter. It dove under as soon as our boat got close but it was a great thing to catch a sight of. Next we saw a waterspout. First ever waterspout for me and the third time my uncle had ever seen one. That was a really cool sight, seeing this skinny looking tornado worming its way through the sky. Then we watched the sunset followed by the lunar eclipse last night out on a sandbar with a perfect cloudless view. First time for me that I can remember, it was quite a sight. The whole lagoon was lit up from the full moon and then (an hour later) the lagoon was dark and you couldn't even tell the moon was out. Followed by some more fresh fish and a cold shower. This morning I flew into Pohnpei and still haven't seen all 9 of my little cousins yet. Pohnpei is very pretty and very green. Not as third world as Chuuk but there are similar things. The airports are similar where you walk across the runway and baggage claim is a guy pulling bags off a cart, none of those automated machine things here. Manual labor baby, people here are tough (that's why I'm here). So I'm sitting here in the Nature Conservancy Office here in Pohnpei and it just feels like home. I'm near some somewhat hippie coffee drinking nature loving adventuresome down to earth people. Anyways, life in Micronesia must continue. Bye.

I'm ready for cold weather

Well I can now say that I have explored the whole island. Today I went with Iromy and Morgan to Xaver High School. It is a catholic boarding school bringing students from all over the south pacific. The school is an old Japanese command center up high on a mountain with some spectacular views and one of the most remote locations. From up on the rooftop of the school you are able to see out to the outlying barrier reefs which make up the atoll. If I was to live somewhere here in Chuuk I think I would want to live there where the school is. After are departure from the school we simply went exploring. We took one road to its end going to a remote village and another which did not look like it had been driven on in years. It was a great tour of what I would consider a nicer part of the island. Other than that we had a great time sailing yesterday. With just light winds for the lagoon we were able to get some good speeds. It was a lot of fun so maybe I will take it out again soon. Well we also had some Micronesian style sashimi last night, maybe the best yet. It was marinated in lots of lime with some onion and soy sauce and it was delicious. I tried a local Tapioca also, not the best food ever but I tried it. Well plans are to go fishing this afternoon, we shall see if that happens. I sure do want to catch a 50lb fish, but that is small for out here. The tunas and sailfish, marlins and whatnot can get HUGE. When I say huge I mean huge and that means hundreds of pounds. Well time to go enjoy Chuuk, tomorrow is my last day here then I leave for Pohnpei early Wed. morning.

Cold Showers Feel Good

Yes, cold showers feel good and they are very nice and refreshing when its hot and humid. But then if you want hot water, there is none, so suck it up. Have you ever seen someone climb a coconut tree? Well, it is quite a sight. To see someone climb up barefooted, stand in the very top of the tree and kick down coconuts. Then take your handy machete and cut it open and drink out the juice. I drank my first coconut yesterday along with trying the meat. The only way to get it fresher was if one drank it while sitting in the tree. I didn't think it was all that great just because I don't really like the taste of coconuts. Other than finishing Life of Pi, (yes mom I have been reading) and beginning to read the first Harry Potter book I have been working on getting a Hobie cat ready to sail. There are a couple sitting around along with some other boats falling apart and I said to my uncle, "I'll fix up a boat, and you teach me how to sail it." Sure thing maybe today it will be ready to take out on the water. I went out on one of the fuel boats to deliver fuel to The Odyssey. It is a live-aboard dive boat which people stay for a week and dive 3-5 times a day. They dive many of the sunken ships here in the lagoon. Here in the lagoon there are around 50 sunken ships and a submarine along with at least one bomber. The lagoon was a very large Japanese base during WWII and the Truk Lagoon has been called the Japanese Pearl Harbor. Anyways, I was given a tour of the dive boat, quite a nice boat and a great way to see the wrecks if you are into diving. Here is another better picture of Morgan, her birthday is this Friday the 31st and she will be turning three years old. I don't know what it is but she will not smile for a picture. I finally got a picture with her showing some teeth so here it is. This other picture is from the beach at my uncles beach property here on Weno. You can see some of the other island in the background across part of the lagoon.

Hi!

Another day spent in the islands with out "island power" but there is still the solar electricity that we use. We went to two other islands in the lagoon yesterday Uman and Tonowas to check on and repair some solar panels at some LDS churches. Those islands are even more remote and 3rd world than Weno, the main island which I am on. One of the islands has very few cars, we did not see any while we were there. They also have a power plant but it has been down for the last two years. Uman on the other hand is very small and they do not have any power, any cars, nor any roads. They have muddy footpaths connecting villages. It is interesting how much attention we bring to the people there, I suppose because we are white, and I am tall. The little kids stare and the ones that can speak English ask if we are missionaries. While we were in Tonowas I was able to play some basketball with the two missionaries and some of the village kids. That was fun, interacting with some of the local kids. They were very friendly and were pretty good at basketball too. I'm trying to think of things to write about... the food in the grocery stores; I have never seen so much canned meats. Did you know that some ripe oranges have green peals? Not a very orange orange eah? And bananas are green here, but they are still ripe. Asparagus juice how gross does that sound? Ill be sure to bring one back for you dad. I know you like gross things like that. Oh and something else, that headlamp you raised your voice about and insisted me not to bring mom . . . remember that? It has come in very handy with no lights in my room when the power is off. Anyways, I am going to go enjoy the heat and humidity. Bye.

It is very fishy here.

If you have not figured from my previous posts people here like to eat fish. I enjoyed a new kind of fish last night, parrot fish. The parrot fish is a reef fish and has a different, softer kind of meat. There are so many kinds of fish and they are everywhere. Tiny ones and large ones too and they come in every color. We went snorkeling yesterday and saw many fish and interesting corals some very large and interesting. The water was not as clear as in the bay in Guam but it was still amazing. We went out into some deeper water yesterday maybe 20 feet but there did not seem to be as many fish as in Guam. At Tumon Bay the waters are protected from fishing and that probably made a big difference with the amounts of fish we saw. Other than all the exciting news about fish I talked to my cousin, May about my plans when I go to Phonpei. It sounds like loads of fun. I'm goign to go explore more of Chuuk today and hopefully bring back some good pictures, if it does to begin to rain again. As for what I have explored so far it is very different from the US. I was expecting it to be 3rd world to Guam after Guam was 3rd world to the US. It was true. Here you are whelthy to have a car or eletricity or clean and running water. I saw a sign for a highschool which looked like it had been sitting for years, broken windows, grass grown up, in very poor condition. I asked if that was the old highschool. Nope, thats what they still use.

No Power, No Problem

So the plane hit the runway quite hard last night around 9pm for a safe arivial here in Chuuk. Quite an intresting place. Just about every car is a car I have never seen before. They are cars imported from Asia with steeringwheels on the right side of the car and are not imported into the US or Guam which is apart of the US. Woke up this morning and my fan was not on. Why, oh the power went out. No power is just one of those things that people deal with here, its apart of life. The economy is so poor and there are problems with the government and it is hard for the power company to run all the time if they can't get the recources they need to opperate the plant. Sometimes power is out for an hour others for a week. It has even been out for a whole month. My uncle sells solar pannels and lights and whatnot for those who can afford them. We still have access to clean water and some electricity with the solar energy there at the house. Here at the store which he owns there is just about always elictricity because the land lord controls the elecricity with his own genorators. Morgan is one of my little second cousins that is living here at Chuuk with Larry and Iromy. She is very cute and about to turn three. She is one of 12 grandchildren of Larry. Here is a picture of her. I will try to post as often as I can here in Chuuk but internet will be a problem. Right now I am running on 50kbps just because power is out on the island. If power were on more people could be online and the speed would be even slower than it is now. Bye for now.

So long Guam.

So this evening I will be leaving Guam and traveling to a new and exciting place called Chuuk. It sounds somewhat like 'chuke.' Chuuk is one of the four states in the FSM (Federated States of Micronesia). It is made up of hundreds of small islands but very few of them are inhabited. Weno, the largest island is where I will be spending most of my time at a size of only 7sq. miles. The approximate size of all of the Chuuk islands is only about 49sq. miles. The state has a very interesting geography being a lagoon, where there are mostly larger inhabited islands all inside of an atoll which is a string of protecting barrier islands similar to the outer banks of N.C. but much smaller and made up of corals. It is a complex process beginning with a volcanic island which begins to erode and sink into the ocean as the reefs form around the island. Sorry, I'll stop talking you to death about the geography of landmasses in the south pacific.
So other than that I enjoyed some snorkeling yesterday evening out in Tumon Bay seeing different kinds of corals and thousands of fish of many different varieties. One of my favorite experiences was diving down into a school of Blue Chromas. I would get down in the middle of hundreds of them just swimming around and the way they reflect light they are blue on one side and bight green on the other. There were also lots of Soldierfish, Damselfish, Sea Urchins, Needlefish, Porcupine Fish, Wrasse and much more. Apparently snorkeling is much better in Chuuk than in Guam, we shall see. I should have access to a camera down there I can take underwater so watch for those pictures.
Thanks to Bruce Best for showing us around Guam and hosting us in his house and letting us use a car. He works here at the University of Guam doing all sorts of things with communication systems, news and weather on low frequency radio out to all of the pacific, traditional style canoeing, and biological studies and whatnot. Quite a character he is "long live the navigators." The other goofy guy with his tongue out is my uncle Larry Bruton. Without his large amount of collected frequent flier miles I would not be out here right now. So thanks to him for that and a spare bedroom for me to stay in. As for now esta ki as the chamorro people say for see you later.

Hafa Adai!

Hafa adai is similar to aloha but this is not Hawaii so Guam had to come up with something better to say. When someone says it it sounds sort of like "half a day." We went around the north end of the island yesterday by Anderson Air force Base and Ritidian Point. There is a National Wildlife Refuge up at Ritidian point and some of the cleanest most beautiful beaches here in Guam. One of the guys we have meet here in Guam is a Swedish guy who has come here to Guam to study the Brown Tree Snakes. They are a poisonous snake introduced here which has taken out almost every bird on the island. There scales are a little different from other snakes and they do not have fangs. They are very skinny and the one we were handling was around 4 feet long. They have been known to eat small dogs and fully grown rats. Yesterday I saw some of the biggest waves I have ever seen but those may have been only around 8-10 feet. Not big at all compared to what you can seen during storms and on other islands. In the pictures the picture with the palms and the large hotels is Tumon Bay, it is the Waikiki of Guam. That is one of the few places that have sandy beaches, but as soon as you get in there is broken coral and lots of tropical fish. There is so much variety in lifestyles and scenery on such a small island. The island is only about 232 square miles. I would have to say that most of this island is a tropical paradise ghetto. The biggest eyesore is the junked up cars on the sides of roads and in peoples yards. "Guam Bombs" are what they call their cars that are P.O.S. New and used cars are imported here mainly from Asia and some from America and very few from Europe but there is no one exporting them or disposing of them in any way. There are probably more cars than people here and more non working cars than ones that do work. There is too much to say about this place but I have tried a few new things too. Sashimi is something new for me along with sea weed. I had two kinds of sashimi yesterday. Both yellow fin tuna but cooked in different ways. I would have never thought that raw fish could be so good. As every day goes by I add at least one more reason to my list of why I don't think I will be coming home.

Dont forget insect repellent.

Well we drove around the southern end of the island yesterday and saw quite a bit. I never realized that Guam was so small. I never knew that Magellan had landed here in Guam, we saw the cove that he landed at where they had some forts and whatnot. The oceans are so blue and so clear. We stopped at one cove and I was walking through the water a bit you look down and there are tropical fish everywhere. Apparently there are over 3000 species of fish around Guam. Lots of lizards running around also. Its fun to pick up the Geckos and watch them change color to your skin then put them on other objects and watch them change to another color. I was walking around and caught a glimpse of a monitor lizard 2+ feet. He scurried away too fast before I could get a picture. Enjoyed a grilled fish sandwich yesterday. We keep talking about food so I guess we will eat a lot. Lots of fish is eaten around here along with crabs and lobster. We finished the day off with watching the sunset on a rooftop. Today we are going to do some snorkeling and seeing more of the island. Ill put more pictures up as I take them.

So long, Sorry you cant be here.

Safe in Guam!

Well Guam is defiantly a different place from America. Lots of flowers different plants different way of life. There are dogs and chickens in the streets and to some people this is third world. I'm told that Chuuk where I will be going from here is third world to Guam. "The way we can tell if someone is driving drunk is if they drive straight and don't avoid the potholes." It is defiantly a really cool place. Hot and humid but very interesting. I finally got to Guam around 5pm 3am Raleigh time. The strangest part of the trip, no one ever asked to see my passport. After not sleeping at all on the plane I finally got to sleep around midnight, 10am back home. Defiantly a long day. Maybe five hours of sleep in the last 3 days. Off to go learn more about Micronesia, brown tree snakes, reefs and whatnot.

First Class Baby!

So I have never flown first class before. Thanks to my uncle for booking my tickets for me to fly high class. If you have ever flown first class you may know what I am talking about. Currently I am sitting in the Continental Presidents Club, three floors of cushy seats, wireless internet, food, showers, even a bar and its all complementary. I'm sure if I asked for someone to massage my feet I would be offered a full body massage with that. Because the presidents club is designed for people over 21 I was escorted to the bar to meet the bartenders...to make sure they knew I was under age. Sorry mom I don't think I'll come home, your breakfast is nothing like what I just had. First I get my warm towel to wipe my hands. Oh, so nice. Then comes my tray with my silverware wrapped nicely in a napkin my glass of orange juice and ice water right next to it and the fruit. A luscious bountiful plate full of grapes, mango, cantaloupe, strawberries, and pineapple. Thats just the first course. Next comes my warm dish of eggs, ham, sausage and potatoes mixed with onion and peppers. All I have to say is mom if you expect me not to live on an airplane you need to step up your game. My only concern of lounging here in the Presidents Club is that I may spend to much time blogging and sipping grapefruit juice that I may miss my flight. Time to move on through this mega mall of food and shops with an occasional airplane gate. Time to go to Guam. -Wren

P.S. 4am was early, See how excited I am to go fly!!
and i'm excited and ready to be there.

less than 60hrs till takeoff

So some people know about this exciting journey that I am about to take part on but lots of people don't know anything about it. Here it goes; as a graduation present I was invited to fly out to the south pacific and visit my uncle and some of my cousins. This is definitely an opportunity that very few people may ever have in their life. So instead of going to college in the fall, I decided to take a semester off and go to Micronesia. As for the trip I leave in three days on August 14th. It's hard to believe that this trip is actually happening, the idea was brought up months ago and in a few days its actually happening. First stop is Huston, then to Guam for three days. Hopefully I can post while I am in Guam and let you know about life there. I guess its time to pack. Enjoy!