The flight was only about 40 minutes, and eventually the island where we are staying came into view:
The pilot circled the island to make sure the runway was clear, and the. Came in for a landing:
When we arrived on the island, the generator was not running, and there was no electricity on the island. The airport is also the post office, and since I needed stamps for some postcards, I went over with Dave (another guy on the trip) to the window of the post office to ask for stamps. Dave was asking about stamps and the attendant brought some over and then Samantha (one of the women on the trip who no one really likes because she is pushy and always takes the front seat in every bus we get on, is always the first on the boat to take the best seat, etc, etc) asks if Dave minds if she looks over his shoulder while he was looking at the stamps. Of course he didn't, and once Dave had chosen his stamps and I was about to reach for the ones I wanted, Samantha barges in front of me and starts picking out the ones she wanted. I said, excuse me, but I was next in line, do you mind waiting until I'm done getting stamps? Well, she looks at me like I was Satan, and said, you were way over there writing postcards, I didn't know you were in line, to which I replied, I'm standing at the post office window with money and postcards in my hand, what did you think I was doing? We were here and then you came up and asked if you could look over Dave's shoulder. I was here first, you will just have to wait your turn. She had the biggest hissy fit, and stormed off like a child. I have never seen a 60-something year old have such a conniption fit in my life. At any rate, I apologized to the post office attendant, paid for my stamps and waited to be transferred to our lodge. When we got there, I was given a room at the back of the hotel (there are four rooms that face the ocean, and four that don't - I got one of the four that doesn't face the ocean).
Here is the view from the front of the hotel:
Here is our view from the back of the hotel:
Not exactly fair, considering we all paid the same price to be here (except for the singles, like myself, who paid even more per person, but I digress....)
Still there was no electricity, and we had to wait in the heat until the second part of the group made it to the hotel (the plane we were in wasn't large enough to take the 12 of us). A couple of hours later, the rest of the group arrived, we had lunch, and then went out for an afternoon snorkel. The water was very warm, and we saw a bunch of cabbage coral that wad teeming with fish. We even saw a shark! We were dropped off outside the reef that is in front of our lodge, took a look, and then made our way back to the hotel. To our great surprise, the electricity was back on, so we all rushed to our rooms to turn the AC on! We had dinner, and then since it was nearly s full moon, and the stars were bright, I pulled out my iPad and started the constellation app, and everyone came over to ooh and aah (all except Samantha, of course, who was still pouting). There is apparently an alignment of the planets that is supposed to happen this weekend or something, so we were looking for that, but most of the planets were below the horizon and wouldn't be up for hours. We eventually called it a night and all went to bed. Tomorrow we are having an early morning snorkel, the. A land tour of the island, and then in the late afternoon, we are supposed to go to an island where turtles lay their eggs, snorkel around a bit in the afternoon and then wait all night on the beach to see if we can spot a turtle nesting and laying its eggs! should be a good day!
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Location:Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia
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