June 21st......longest day of the year...

The choice tonight was.....1. The Vet's Hall.  "Radar Love" was playing.  I do need to say that they are a local band, hence the name (Kwaj is an island full of radar dishes that look like small epcot centers).  2. Um ok I was watching some girl with a bow thing on the internet ...that whole series about the "Mocking Jay" and a girl with a bow.  Don't get me wrong, my lack of proper title doesn't mean I don't love the movies.  I think it just means I'm stupid about all that.  My number 3 choice was to throw a few beers in my manpurse (yea I'd rather call it that than a courier pouch)(I am not metrosexual) and head to the opposite side of the island where there are no lights and the people from the other end (the residential end) think people get mugged, because everyone knows all construction people are bad and stupid.

I made the right decision.  I just felt strange about looking at some science fiction deal on here (the internet) when I had two better choices.  I really kinda wanted to go to the bar, but I'm sure I looked wasted from a whole day of perfectness.  Oh and I had stepped outside a few times and looked at the starlit moonlit sky.

Ok, I'm fairly certain the word perfect has entered my life before describing well, my life.  I'm really hoping it will continue.  At the west end of the island, our surf spot has a wooden deck with some lounge chairs on it, a perfect aluminum railing set in concrete leading to the ocean...with steps, and a bench under a tree that shades you pretty much only in the morning.  I've never been out there at night, and I'm glad I headed west from my incredibly awesome lagoon front (yes largest lagoon in the world...yes be jealous) home instead of going to see Radar Love.  I have not taken enough time to go out at night and appreciate the stars out here.  In my defense, most times they are clouded over, but tonight it was a great way to just go chill and ...sit on the edge of the grandest canyon we have...

I need to explain todays perfectness...

I have a captains license, which allows me to rent a boat from the small boat marina any time I wish.  Since I am off Sundays and Mondays, I rented one for this Sunday.  There were so many on my minds list that I wanted to invite.  There are so many in our little shire that need to get off the island.  The lady in charge of the Marshallese that clean our residences, the two ladies that cook the best dinners on the island, ...............I'll just go ahead and say it.  There were 7 women on the boat with me, the lucky guy. 

I would have to say the coolest thing to come from that was Sheila, the lady in charge of the people who keep house around here, snorkeled for her first time.  I love seeing people discover new things.  I drug her backwards with my flippers on and her floating wearing a life jacket on her legs, to a coral head in the middle of the sandy bottom lagoon side at Bigej.  After a little convincing, she stuck her face under the water.  I can't really duplicate the sounds of excitement coming from the exhaust end of her snorkel, but she finally poked her head up and said "THIS is cool!"  There was one other girl there that had never snorkeled before either, but she was more comfortable in the water than Sheila.  Holly was also out celebrating her 25th birthday.  I will never get tired of seeing people have a great time.

We got back a little after noon, which is required for a B boat morning rental.  As we pulled up to the dock, a friend of mine who I met surfing was there (giving me Kudos for being on a boat with 7 women).  Joe, is the best surfer I know, great at kiteboarding, and never really seems to stop moving.  I asked him "where are you guys going?", and he told me he was there with Jobie and his wife Amber to take me out wakeboarding.  Jobie, would be the best kiteboarder on island.  The guy is originally from Kansas, but has basically grown up on Kwaj.  He's been out here since he was pre teen, I believe someone told me.  I think he's some kind of pilot.  His wife Amber is from Wyoming, and drives one of the ferries from Kwaj to Ebeye, which she says she really likes.  I had been bugging Amber to take me out wakeboarding for a while so I could get the "ski boat endorsement".  There is a ski boat out here, but you have to get "checked out" on it before you can "take it out" (ie rent it).   So, after just spending 5 hours (albeit morning hours....which means less sun) on a boat, I got on another boat.  I love boating.  We drove to the ski area, which was incredibly choppy (ennono is the Marshallese word for choppy), and I beat myself up wakeboarding and drove the boat as Jobie beat himself up wakeboarding.  I'm now halfway  to getting a ski boat endorsement, which just means I can take people out wakeboarding, but will still need someone with a ski boat endorsement to take me.

June 22, 2015

Breakfast is the crappiest meal of the day around here, but after 8 hours of not eating it can't be missed.  My alarm went off at 6:30 am, and I went and had the runny eggs, bacon, and oatmeal then came back and tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.  I made repeated attempts until around 11, and decided that it is completely wrong to try so hard to waste such a beautiful day by staying inside.
I got a facebook message from Amber saying they would take me out again to finish my "orientation" on the ski boat, which would allow me to go out with one of the guys from the small boat marina to get checked off for the endorsement.  She said 1 pm.  Around noon, Sandra, the second in charge here at man camp, came riding up as I was out on the beach trying to figure my kite telling me that Joe said to fly to the small boat marina or I would miss it.  So, with a muscle shirt on and no hat I road like a beast down there thinking they were going to take the ski boat out to get the last of my orientation drives done...which should have lasted an hour tops.  Instead they were heading to Little Bustard on Joe's Zodiac to go kiteboarding.  I have to be more careful about getting caught in the sun out here.  3 hours I was out there with no hat, no long sleeve shirt.  Not Good.  So now it looks like I am still wearing that muscle shirt and I'm sure my scalp is fried.  Bad Ben.  Here are some pix from last weekend.........

I love this one cause the water is so....awesome..

Taneeka had to put those glasses on...

Sherri and Sheila.....

Sherri and I.....and poor Mel in the back all wacked out on Dramamine..
 

Seven lovely ladies.....
 

hmmm

I think Shela over came some of her fear of the water on this trip...

Taneeka being....Taneeka

June 20, 2015

I think the higher your latitudinal number the more likely you are to appreciate that the northern hemisphere is on the eve of the longest day of the year....Northern Europe kind of just shuts down and parties and I would guess Alaskans do too. I feel very fortunate this year to be in a place where we just kind of think "hmm wonder what's for dinner?"

I've rented a boat tomorrow.  I invited two of the cooks (ladies), one who is in charge of the people who take care of our quarters (another lady) a girl from in town who sometimes plays Frisbee with us occasionally (and is completely fun to be around), and then one I work with who invited two others from her company (all three ladies) and then my roommate, a good guy James.  I realized, while visiting Gene Wilder (that's code word for going number two) tonight that when I talked to Sandra at lunch today and asked her if she was going, and she said no, and then I invited Taneeka in her place............that I overbooked.  The limit on the boat is 8. I somehow invited 9.  I told James this, and of course he backed out, cause he's a great guy, and he's a great guy.  So I'm going out on a bot to Bigej with 7 women tomorrow.  ...Pictures to follow...

June 13 2015

Everyone is nice, everyone is just trying to make friends and have fun.  It's the same as it is and should be every where.  Ok, so it's working out that way for me, but it doesn't seem to be for everyone else...

June 6, 2015.

     I think my new conversation starter around here is going to be...." how do you deal with this transient lifestyle?".  There are so many out here who have worked in really cool places, done really cool things all over the world, but I wonder how they deal with so many superficial relationships.  Or is it that they do develop connections with people, and I just don't know about them.  Maybe I'm just homesick.  Maybe I was just so grounded with great family and relationships with good friends back home that I took things for granted.

Ok the other thought is, and it sounds a bit egotistical maybe, but I'm getting stronger.  I mean, at 40 I thought I was stronger than at 30, then at 44, after being introduced to crossfit, I thought there was no way to top that.  Now, after being out here for 5 months, doing these simple workouts at work, surfing, playing Frisbee twice a week, and riding my bike 40 miles a week, and keeping an attitude geared to better health, I think 50 is going to actually top all the rest. 

June 7, 2015

This has to be the busiest, most draining weekend I've had since being out here.

Sunday evening two boats of us went to Bigej.  It's pronounced like Fiji, except with a B.  Our boat had 3 girls (friends of Lee's) Kacie, Monica, and Darlene, and Lee, James and I.  We had a total of maybe 9 beers.  I took only two, since I rented the boat.  The other boat with 7 people had two cases, plus multiple six packs of mixed type drinks.  We left Kwaj and headed north on the lagoon side of the reef (the ocean side was closed to boat rental boats probably due to big waves) at 1 pm.  Bigej, I heard is a pig farm.  Its not noticeable by looking at it or by any other of the senses.  It just looks like this Palm tree infested island with a great sandy  beach running the entire 1 mile length of the west side of the island.  The water is a turquoise as it gets with the sandy bottom extending way out into the lagoon.  There are some coral heads, but where we anchored the boats it was mostly just the kind of water people dream of being in. 

I guess the point of the alcohol count I mentioned is that I ended up having only 3 beers over a 5 hour period that we sat out there anchored in the afternoon tropical sun.  I tried to hide from it after about an hour of kind of playing in the water.  It felt like I had had ten beers when we finally got back to our quarters that night.  I was so tired I couldn't sleep.  Maybe its my age, but the sun completely takes it out of you out here.

And here are some pics from the last week.

Ok, so those little shoeboxes in the back are our living quarters.  Not great, not bad.  I have Ocean front property out here

a sunrise outside of my hut

The sun going down over the harbor / lagoon

Random boat in boatyard

yea, I took this with my camera phone...definitely some great sunrises and sets.
 

again....

Floating by Bigej

I don't go anywhere without a Frisbee






And a few more ....

 

June 2, 2015

I was out surfing tonight.  Joe, Kristen, Sean and I.  Joe, when I asked for his number a while ago told me the four digit number than said its "jew1".  I guess he does look Jewish if there is a Jewish look.  I'm confused about that anyhow, its a religion not a genetic "condition" right?  Anyhow, Kristen is his girlfriend.  She's a nurse, who has complained that there isn't enough to do at the hospital, and they are making her work more hours than she wants.  Joe and her both are great at surfing, they've had a lot of practice.  They are both also in the incredible shape that the love of surfing has given them.  Sean, I'm sure I've mentioned, is just an easy guy to be around and has been really nice to me.  He and his girlfriend have gone out of their way to include me in dinners and cookouts and snorkeling trips.  Great guy.  He is as close to me as far as surfing level goes out here, although he is a lot better.  Today, and the last time probably not so much though because he is coming off an injury where his elbow tasted the reef and he got some stitches.  He seemed a little lacking in willingness to go after waves tonight.  Go figure.

I was telling Joe about my contract and that I will probably be asked to stay after, but that I don't know if I want to except for the money.  I told him and Kristen that its not easy making friends out here, and that I had a lot of good people in my life back home.  He said it was very different 5 ro 6 years ago.  Back then you would have people out playing Frisbee with you every night if you wanted.  He said what ruined it was the internet.  "Not everyone had internet 5 years ago, now it seems they are content to just stay in their rooms and play on the internet"  SAD.

The maintenance guy for our "man camp" Jerry, has his (I'm guessing 25 year old) son out here.  I don't know the sons name, but my roommate James and I were talking to him at the cafeteria the other day.  He works there doing dishes and cleaning up.  He remarked how happy he was cause he had the day off tomorrow.  I asked him what he was planning on doing.  He said he was going to play video games all day with his dad. 

Even though, I'm obviously on the internet typing this, I just don't get it....and I'm going to work to change things on this island.  I'll admit its for me, but it will be fun for all.

Oh and here's some pictures

Ok so this was a picture of a boat from Roi, when I was there.  Notice, someone sailed that out here from NC!

Emily.  She is the drunk guy who got kicked off the islands' replacement

coral

more coral with a fish or two
 

a sea turtle.  He ran.  Smart.  They eat them illegally out here

May 28, 2015......

Tonight was a Frisbee night.  I regret a bit letting that title go out there, instead of calling it an Ultimate Frisbee night.  People only seem to register with Frisbee golf when you say that you are playing "Frisbee tonight".  It is incredibly different.

Regardless, it was a great night.  Unfortunately, lately, a great night for me at Ultimate is leaving it all thinking I might have taught our mentally indigent player a little bit about sportsmanship.  I don't know where he grew up, but he just doesn't seem to get it.

After the games, 5 of us sat around doing a new Friday thing which involves drinking beer and just chilling and talking.  It's kind of nice and relaxing right there on the field in the spiky little Kwaj grass.  Ted, an MIT employee, James (from my San Juan Lab), Ray (also from my San Juan Lab), Phelia, a school teacher, and I just kind of chill and talk about the game and have a few beers.  Its very nice and relaxing.

Its funny because tonight before the game, I was just laying there because no one was there yet.  James comes up and says "get up, trust me just get up and let's throw the Frisbee" ...so I get up, and he tells me Brandi is coming.

We went to the Vets Hall after the game and after the cordial after the game.  James, Ted and I.  Brandi, Midori, and .....well there was only about 6 people in there.  Brandi was drunk, she tried to fix me up with Amy (long story, short story).....

The cool thing, besides having drunk Brandi hanging all over me, was the ride home.  I wish I had pictures.  It's good every time.

Tonight, the moon was lighting up the puffy random cumulus clouds that looked very surreal.  It sounds incredibly weak to describe them that way, but it was hard to stop looking while pedaling back to my shoebox.  It's always hard to pay attention to the road on the way home later at night here, but tonight it wasn't just beautiful stars and moon, the clouds added to it all in a great way I'll never be able to describe.  It could be that its always like that and its just the euphoria of a few beers after a great day that makes me take it all in....in a more positive way.

5-29-15

Saturday night.  I went to the Ocean View Club, or better known as the Snake Pit.  I was talking to Sandra.  I think she's the head of the kitchen, but she also lives in the shoebox next to mine.  She's a large black woman who came from Alaska.  Super nice, very easy to talk to, and of course fun to be around.  We were talking about the weird social dynamics around this island.  It's weird in the sense that you have to get along with people, you're kind of forced to.  You work with them, or they serve your food, or they are your client, or any other example you can think of.  Even if you don't really like them, you just can't completely blow them off and be done with them, as might happen on a more populated island (ie the States).  Superficial politeness abounds, even with those that actually like you, but haven't exactly accepted you for one reason or another.  Subtle blowoffs are common.  As an example, I tried to buy (the young leader of the "non active clan"...that's what I'll call them) a drink while I was buying one of the helicopter maintenance guys I know a drink.  He says "No, I got it".  The same guy earlier at dinner said he had been making homemade salsa all day, and at dinner, while sitting directly across from me, told my roommate, not me, that he should come try some.  Subtle.  I watched him interact with another co worker tonight who asked if he could borrow his golf cart that he rented, and he told the guy that the place he wanted to go was closed, rather than just saying "no"(everyone knew the place was open).  Sandra and I both agreed that everyone does it, including both of us.  Maybe its just easier to keep things civil rather than just be downright honest.  Some might say its lack of spine not to just call it like it is.  Maybe it is, but the guy who cooks our breakfast, runny eggs and he never gives you enough of anything.  Do you say "Hey man, do you mind cooking the eggs a bit more?" Do you risk insulting him and end up with some fecal matter in your eggs or do you just eat the runny eggs?  Do you tell the idiot you play a sport with what you really think or do you ostracize him from anything else you can?  I've told a lot of people back in Ohio, about the meetup group that I joined 8 years ago, and finally started participating in 6 years ago.  There were 3000 members, most of them not active, but in the six years of being in that group I can safely say there was none of the weirdness that is here.  There might have been one ....kind of asshole, but he wasn't even that bad.  Everyone was accepting, everyone tried really hard to be polite and get along.  There were some odd people, but completely nice and polite and easy to be around.  The only difference is ...that the meetup group was completely a social group, while this island is mainly about work for most people.  I guess too, that its that we are so forced upon each other here...

That all sounds terribly negative, but it really isn't.  I mean Sandra told me at the end that "you probably don't notice any of it cause you are always running around doing your thing...you don't let any of the negativity catch you because you move to much".  My roommate, and coworker, James, wants to go to our island thrift shop and buy $1000 worth of kids stuff and take it to Ebeye and give it away.  Sean the guy I surf with, actually everyone I surf with is completely cool and accepting, but Sean and his girlfriend have made me like a brother inviting me to dinners,and movie nights.  Tim helped me get my b boat license.  There's a ton of great people here, just not enough like I had in Ohio....

Here's some pics...

This is  James.  I am Groot

Emily,  The drunk guys replacement

The rest  of them

 

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......

Its a German boat they sank out here in the fifties
 

the side of the boat

Ray

Phelia

Free diving....I'm not sure why they call it that....of course its free
 

um the same

posing
 

again posing

There  is a sea turtle in there ...