After that, we headed to the highest point of the island, which had a nice view of the island and ocean beyond. It is also a highly frequented make-out point, which was evidenced by the used condoms littering the landscape. At least they are using protection, I suppose... After that, we headed to the village of Muuluu to visit a men's house. In Yap, they have men's houses and women's houses, where the appropriate sex goes when growing up to learn the gender specific activities appropriate for your sex. If you are male, you get to learn to swim, fish, build a house, etc. If you are a girl, you learn to weave, sew, cook, clean, etc. Sexism aside, the building was a neat piece of local architecture.
After this stop, we went to the village of Duchmer to meet a chief and his niece and nephew, who offered us pineapple and invited us into the men's house to chat. We were told some local legends, some of which were really good, but are too long to write out (most were really long stories). At any rate, we had a nice time in this village, which happened to be our guide's hometown.
After that, we headed back to the dive shop for lunch, and then went back to the hotel for free time. In the meantime, the weather started deteriorating. The wind picked up, and it was raining off and on. Then, as I started to pack, the electricity went out, and I had to pack by flashlight (torch for my Canadian and English friends). The weather had really started to get bad by this point. The wind was really blowing hard, the lightning continuously lit up the sky, and the rain began to come down in buckets! I looked online and learned that a tropical storm was heading right for us, and the forecast made it sound like it would only get worse until late tomorrow morning. Since we are scheduled to leave at 4:30am, I began to get very worried that our flight would be delayed or canceled. We are scheduled to fly to Honolulu, connecting through Guam, with only 30 minutes to change planes in Guam. If our flight is delayed, it is unlikely that I will get to Honolulu as scheduled.
I sat outside, watching the storm. The palm trees were swaying harder than a congregation of a Pentecostal church on Sunday. Eventually I decided to take a nap, and slept until just before it was time to get out of the room. By the time I woke up, the storm had passed. I finished with the last minute packing, and we were taken to the airport. The system was down, so we had to be checked in by hand. All out luggage tags and boarding passes were hand written. Our bags were hand searched, then we went through immigration and then security. We entered the waiting room, and had to wait around until the staff came by with our seat assignments. Some people got theirs, but about half of the plane (including me) never did, so when it was time to board (which was actually at time we were supposed to be leaving) there was a mad dash to figure out everyone's seating assignments. We ended up leaving 30 minutes late, which was the exact time as our layover in Guam, so I started to panic a little bit. We were told we'd make up some time in the air, and we did. We arrived with 21 minutes to make the connecting flight. I was first waiting to get off the plane, but since the flight attendant didn't put down the number of passengers in transit on the manifest, we had to wait until that was calculated and given to the gate agent. Finally we were able to get off the plane, and I made a run through passport control, then security, and a run to the gate. At the gate was more immigration officials, and finally, I was sitting in my business class seat on the flight from Guam to Honolulu. Finally, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and sit back and relax. I would have hated to missing my advanced open water diving course that starts Sunday morning. It's weird to leave Guam Sunday morning, and arrive in Hawaii on Saturday afternoon, but that's what happened...
We made it to Honolulu a couple minutes late, I dealt with immigration, my bags made, I hopped in a cab and made my way to my hotel. I got checked in, caught up on emAil and blogging, then finished my online dive course for tomorrow's dive! Should be good! A long day, but a good one! Glad to be in Hawaii for four days!
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Location:Colonia, Yap, Micronesia
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