Yap, Day 2: An Exercise in Patience and Flexibility

So all last night I was hardly able to get more than two minutes of sleep at a time due to a barking dog that barked the entire night... It felt like the thing was just outside my window. I put in earplugs. Then I put my noise cancellation earphones on over the earplugs. Nothing worked. I eventually got up to put my packed bag outside my door by 6am and got ready for our flight to Ulithi on Pacific Missionary Aviation:



The plane holds 11 people, including the pilot. At any rate, we never got on the plane because there is currently no electricity in Ulithi. We waited and waited and waited at the plane station (I don't dare call it an airport...) for word from Ulithi regarding the situation. They radioed several times, and got no response. Eventually the people realized they had t connected the antenna to the radio, so they weren't actually broadcasting... Once that little "oops" was fixed, we got word about their not being any electricity, so we headed back after hours of just sitting around to our hotel, and started making plans for the day. I really wanted to go diving, and would have been able to dive until 4pm today, since we are trying to fly out to Ulithi again tomorrow. As a group, it was decided that we would snorkel in the morning looking for manta rays, and then take a land tour of the island in the afternoon. Since I really wanted to go on the land tour, I said I would wait to go diving another day. Once we got in the boat to go out snorkeling, the group leader unilaterally decided that we would go snorkeling on a coral head in the morning and then go out snorkeling in the afternoon to look for manta rays. We were already out on the boat when this decision was made, so it was not possible for me to get the chance to go diving today... I took this in stride, and just rolled with the punch.

The morning snorkel was boring compared to diving, and then we had lunch at the dive shop. After lunch we went out looking for manta rays. We didn't see any. It was a boring afternoon. Then we returned to the hotel where I was glad to find that they had finally "fixed" my air conditioner by taping all the holes in the door and wall closed so that the cold air wouldn't escape the room and the warm air wouldn't be let in. Finally, some good news after a fairly lousy day! I was so excited. Minutes later, the electricity went out. I thought that it must be an island-wide thing or something, but no, it was just my room and my room alone. Since our group takes up every bungalow/room in the place, there were no other rooms for me to be switched to, so I sat watching Brothers and Sisters episodes, too hot to go to sleep. Eventually the electricity was restored to my room and the air conditioner came back on, although it's still not even cool in here...

At any rate, at least now the lights are back on and I can pack for our second attempt at getting to Ulithi. We are trying again tomorrow to fly there, and will have to be up just as early tomorrow as we were today to get to the plane station to radio the island to see if they have electricity or not. So at this point, we are unsure whether we will actually be going to Ulithi tomorrow or not. If they haven't fixed the generator and there isn't any electricity, we will stay another day on Yap. If they have electricity, we are going to Ulithi. So, it has truly been a day where patience and flexibility have been needed, which for me are character traits that aren't my strong suit, although I am working on them... We will see what tomorrow brings when it gets here... Until then!


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Location:Colonia, Yap, Micronesia