Kwajalein Atoll.......

May 24th, Sunday (of Memorial Day)

One, long standing resident, tried to start the "first annual Kwaj beer mile". He used a public email list to promote it. His name is also Ben. He's a bit older, but in great shape. He did the "Rustman", which is the Kwaj version of the Ironman. 1000 yard swim, 26 mile bike and a 10k run. So he has all the credentials needed to make a successful running "event". Apparently, the colonel didn't feel the same way about the whole deal. The "First annual Kwaj beer mile" included running a quarter of a mile, drinking a beer (at least 5% alcohol), then continuing on like that for a mile. It sounded perfectly, sophomorically fun to me, and also a bit "loose" for this Island.

Turns out it was. The next email I received was a complete shutdown of the event. Mostly for all the reason you might suspect....stupidity, insensitivity and the like.....throw in Memorial Day weekend into that mix and well, you get the idea.

I think I have pink eye. I have one eye that, well, isn't right in the morning, or all day for that matter. I also have some sinus thing going on. There is something going around here that is taking people out for days. I think I just had some ocean water shoved up my nose so far it caused a little sinus infection. I talked to my buddy Josh, in Corpus Christi Texas the other day (his birthday), and he told me about the troubles he's had with his sinuses learning to paddle board in bigger surf. Sometimes, after an evening of surfing, I'll go home, go to bed later, wake up at three am in a puddle of water around my face from where it just drained out of my sinuses. Kind of weird, but when the surf is big, and things don't work out, as far as getting on the board, you get rolled. It happens a lot to me. It's happening less, but it still happens. On the surfboard, you sit out there, Oceanside of where it breaks, so it doesn't break on you, and you just look out to the ocean waiting for the right wave. The right wave for me, is a nice rolling 6footer that doesn't build and dump in an instant. It travels for a bit before coming to a peak and dumping on you. I have been here nearly 6 months, surfing for 5. I have found the "right wave" for me maybe 6 times. Surfing is brutal, unless you have it figured out like the rest of the bastards I go out there with seem to have. People say to me "wow, I thought we would be taking pieces of you out of here after that" or I've heard "Damn, that didn't work out". When I first approached one of the guys about buying his surfboard, well, it was his wife at the bar...I told her I'm a strong swimmer, and she shot back "swimming in a pool ain't shit". She doesn't surf, but I think she was looking out for the rest of the surfing community, because if someone gets hurt doing any activity, the activity gets shut down, or at the very least highly scrutinized. I got the same thing when I talked to someone about Kiteboarding.

Getting slammed in the surf here is scary. The waves can get big, real big. Well, double the size I want to see. It's not like the "Pipeline" on the North Shore of Oahu big, but its scary big to me. I paddled out Thursday evening. I got halfway out and punched thru a few big white washes, then looked up as a big set started rolling in. It's a wall of water, I mean this huge.....ok so its hard to put into words. I've gained respect for these monsters coming in, but apparently, I'm still stupid enough to keep paddling out because I see two others out there that I know. The big set subsides, and I make it out past where they break and another huge set comes in. As it approaches, my freakout begins. I get scared that I'm not out far enough past the break and its going to break on me (it has happened), so I lay down on the board and paddle my ass off towards the wall of water. I paddle, it grows, I paddle, it starts cresting. Most times I make it, a few times I haven't. Sean, the friendliest guy out here, got 30 stitches because he didn't make it, and got slammed on the reef. The bigger the wave, the more water it sucks off the reef. I slid off the board once, because the wave in front of me was cresting, and I was trying to avoid getting slammed while on the board, but my elbows hit the bottom. At high tide, when there should have been 5 feet of water on the reef, there was only about a foot in front of the wave.

When you are going with the wave, paddling to catch it, but the timing is not right and you bite it.....it's like...literally like being in a washing machine for ten or fifteens seconds. I try to just go with it and relax, because I know it's going to end and I'll get some air eventually, but it's a tough roll.
Anyhow, I think that is how I got my sinuses screwed up.

Today was my first day out with my boating license. I rented a boat from the KRS small boat marina to take some people out snorkeleing. Phelia, Emily, Ray, James, and myself went. Sherri got too drunk the night before to wake up and go. Here are some pics......