Home in Portland/Vancouver...

Peter's mother passed away on Sunday, so we have made a quick trip back to the states this week.  

I will try - in some of my spare time - to upload some island photos for you all to enjoy at a later date.  I'll likely upload them here (on the fast internet connection, woo-hoo!) and then publish the posts when we get back to Kwaj.   

For now.... Us, 2011. 

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Kwajalein Island 4-1-1

One of our reader's requests for a blog topic was "more about the island itself"...  


Kwajalein (locals call it Kwaj)  is located about 8 degrees North of the Equator.  A common misconception is that we are a "South Pacific" Island, when in reality we're still part of the Northern Pacific!  :-)  Kwajalein Island is part of the Kwajalein Atoll which is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).  An Atoll is "a coral reef or a string of closely spaced small coral islands, enclosing or nearly enclosing a shallow lagoon."  Kwaj is the Southernmost and the largest of the islands in the Kwajalein Atoll.  Kwaj is about 3.5 miles long and .50 miles wide.  For the history of Kwaj and the Kwajalein Atoll, click here.  


The primary mode of transportation for locals who live on Kwaj is by bike.  For a cute write-up about Kwaj bikes, click here.  My bike is only 4 months old and can already be considered in Kwaj-condition.  My handlebars are rusty, my chain is rusty, 3 bolts are missing (that I know of), my basket is held on with zip ties, and I'm probably only a few weeks away from adding some duct-tape, somewhere.  :-)

Our primary location for "shopping" is AAFES (I believe Army, Air-Force Exchange Store).  There used to be three stores, but they recently (October) consolidated down to two.  Over the years the stores have had different local names but I call them the PX and the PXtra.  One of the stores is like a 7-11 in the states on light steroids.  You can purchase snack foods, soda, alcohol, household goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste, OTC medicines, coffee, etc.  We can also rent movies there.  The other store carries electronics, bedding, kitchen supplies, bike parts, garden supplies, pet supplies a few pieces of clothing, and other miscellaneous living-ware.  Neither store is very large, say about the size of a small 1-story house... Needless to say, if you need anything that the stores don't carry, you'll have to order it online and wait 2-3 weeks for delivery.  I would venture to say amazon.com, drugstore.com and wal-mart.com are kept quite profitable by Kwaj residents!

There is one grocery store on island; it's called Surfway.  They receive fresh fruits and vegetables once per week, on the Tuesday military flight from Hawaii.  However, sometimes the plane doesn't come and we go a few weeks without fresh food.  Really it's not that big of a deal.  The best time to shop is Tuesday at 3:30pm as the fresh foods have usually just been placed out for sale and you have the best selection.  Before we came to the island, the only information we could find online made it sound like grocery shopping would be very sparse, ie: one type of chip on the shelf, limited canned foods, etc.  However we have found this to be quite untrue!  While fresh foods can be limited, for the most part there is a large selection of chips, canned foods and dry boxed food.  Certain things just aren't ever stocked, for example canned pumpkin, but we learn to get by with what we have!  Sometimes you'll be shopping and you'll see something that hasn't been there before, so you buy 3 or 4 because you probably won't see it again for awhile!  The price of groceries is comprable to prices in Hawaii.  However, sometimes things go out-of-date before they are sold so you can get pretty good discounts.  When we first came on island, the frozen butter was past it's sell-by-date, so it was 75% off!  I stocked up!  I'm fairly certain frozen butter is just fine even if you use it well past it's sell-by date!

For recreation, there is no lack of things to keep us busy!  Diving obviously occupies a lot of our free time, but some of the other activities include: snorkeling, kayaking, rowing, fishing, sailing, volleyball, baseball, soccer, bowling, movies theaters, biking (!!), exercising (we have a nicely equipped gym)... and I'm sure I'm missing many others!  The movies are free; there are two theaters.  One is an outdoor theatre and the other is a partially indoor (it's an A-frame building, with exposed floors) theatre.  Peter and I haven't been to see a movie yet as we are usually too tired from diving all day, :-) but maybe we'll make it down there sometime. 

The work-week on island is Tuesday through Saturday.  Since we are on the other side of the international date-line from the states, they work T-Sa to stay on the same schedule as ConUS (Continental U.S.).  

If you want to leave the island, you have to plan ahead a bit since out-going flights (for non-military) are only 3 times per week.  Continental is the only airline that flies to Kwaj.  It's a 5 hour flight from Kwaj to Hawaii and another 5 hour flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, California.  I'll let you make your own calculations from there.  :-)  Prices to fly here are pretty high... but we promise if you come we'll make sure you have a wonderful time, and your accommodations will be taken care of!  That being said, we're limited to 90 days of visitors per calendar year, and half of those are already spoken for in 2012!  We have to obtain clearance for anyone who comes to visit, which takes about 2 weeks to process, but is a pretty simple form to fill out and then they perform a background check.  

Hopefully this covers some of the information you were interested in!  If I missed something you're wanting to know about, please let me know.  :-)  Now I will get busy answering some of the other blog-topic ideas! 

About Kwajalein...

Here's a very recent article that explains one of the reasons the U.S. is leasing Kwajalein from the RMI.  

(copied directly from the DOD website)

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U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)News Release 

On the Web: http://www.defense.gov/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=14920

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 958-11
November 17, 2011 
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Department of Defense Announces Successful Test of Army Advanced Hypersonic Weapon Concept

Today the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command conducted the first test flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept. At 6:30 a.m. EST (1:30 a.m. Hawaii-Aleutian Time), a first-of-its-kind glide vehicle, designed to fly within the earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed and long range, was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii to the Reagan Test Site, U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll.

The objective of the test is to collect data on hypersonic boost-glide technologies and test range performance for long-range atmospheric flight. Mission emphasis is aerodynamics; navigation, guidance, and control; and thermal protection technologies.

A three-stage booster system launched the AHW glide vehicle and successfully deployed it on the desired flight trajectory. The vehicle flew a non-ballistic glide trajectory at hypersonic speed to the planned impact location at the Reagan Test Site. Space, air, sea, and ground platforms collected vehicle performance data during all phases of flight. The data collected will be used by the Department of Defense to model and develop future hypersonic boost-glide capabilities.

The AHW program is managed and executed by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command program office in Huntsville, Ala. The booster system and glide vehicle were developed by Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M. and the thermal protection system by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, Huntsville, Ala.

The Department of Defense is using AHW to develop and demonstrate technologies for Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS). As part of the CPGS effort, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency conducted boost-glide flight tests in April 2010 and August 2011, results from which were used in planning the AHW flight test.

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More to come soon on Kwaj and our daily living as requested by commentors!  

Idea!

My Aunt Sherlene, one of our faithful blog commenters, had a great suggestion to help with my blogger's block.  :-)

What do YOU, dear reader, want to read about?  

Do you have questions about the island?    

Should I share more recipes?  

Do you miss hearing about Dozer?  ;-)

Are you curious about how to apply for a job here?

Do you need help planning your trip to come visit?  :-)

...???

Let me know and I'll blog away!

My Tuesday morning

Good evening readers.  I seem to have hit a (blogger) writer's block... any suggestions on how to move past it?!

Peter and I don't have a boring schedule by any means; contrarily we're enjoying every day here!  However I can't help but feel like my blog posts must lose some readability as they're constantly about sunshine, diving and sailing.

That being said, I had an amazing experience diving this morning that I must share as best as words can.  A friend of mine and I were on our way back from what we call the "Pinnacle" dive.  It's a beautiful 35 foot dive that takes us from coral mound to coral mound with breaks of open sand between each.  We usually see eels, sometimes octopus, sting rays and turtles.  This dive was no different with eels, puffers, and other various sea life gracing our presence.  We were just about to finish up the dive when my friend stopped and motioned for me to come over.  There was a beautiful, HUGE Manta ray - dancing right in front of us.  If you can imagine the motion of a ferris wheel - that was what the Manta was doing.  Flip, over flip, over flip, over flip.  Smack in front of our eyes - he couldn't have been more than 10 feet away from us.  After dancing for a bit, he gracefully floated off into the abyss.  I looked at Heather.  She looked at me.  We both motioned to our hearts beating out of our chests - and our eyeballs looked as if they could have popped out of our masks... then she pointed behind me.  He came back!  And danced some more!  He did this three times for us!!  Absolutely amazing.

In other news, Thanksgiving is next week - can you believe it, already?!  What are your plans?

Mini-update & Teriyaki Chicken Salad Recipe

I was just re-reading some of my last posts and noticed the past few recipes I posted were quite well-received!  I loved all your comments and that some of you tried the recipes and even reported back!  Thanks for the motivation to keep blogging!  

We've had a lovely past few weeks - sprinkled with a dab of stress.   Since we spoke last some friends of ours from Saipan came to visit.  Their 6 days here were absolutely wonderful for us.  Of cours we have made friends on the island, but there just isn't anything like friendly faces who travel so many miles just to see US.  We LOVED having T&S here and are hoping to head their way next year!!  

Also since we spoke last, Dozer became a VERY sick little kitty and underwent quite a bit of testing as we tried to figure out what was wrong.  The short version of a very long story - he quit eating & drinking completely for 4 days... he had absolutely no desire for ANY kind of food.  After putting him under anesthetic, inserting an IV, multiple CT scans, a GI test, an ultrasound and lots of drugs he is better.  :-) It seems something had been blocking food from getting from his stomach to his digestive tract.  After day 8 of no eating or drinking, we had made the decision that it would have to be up to him whether he'd live or not.  Since there is not a veterinarian on island (only a vet tech), our ONLY option was to put him on a plane to Hawaii to see a surgeon who could perform the endoscopic surgery needed to remove what was blocking his stomach... and mind you that was WAY more pennies than we have left in our wallet.  So - we medicated him heavily with drugs that would give him the munchies... cleaned up lots of vomit, and on day 9 he started showing interest in food again.  We're about 2 weeks into the entire ordeal now, and he's finally eating mostly normally again and drinking on his own.  He lost about 25% of his body weight, but I have no doubts he'll find it again.  

Tomorrow we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of another friend, one of our ministry workers who will spend a few nights with us!!  P.C. arrives tomorrow night (our Wednesday) and catches a flight to Hawaii on Friday evening.  So it's  quick trip, but we're glad for any time we'll get to spend with her!!

Now, more food talk... :)

One of my very favorite recipes that I typically whip up once a week is a super EASY Teriyaki Chicken Salad.  It's really not a recipe - rather, it's all in my head (the Dr. says this too!), but I'll try my best to get it down in writing and maybe you can replicate a tasty version also.  :-)

Teriyaki Chicken Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (thawed)
1/4 Cup Teriyaki Marinade (or more if you prefer)

1 Package Coleslaw Mix Salad
1/2 Package Ramen Noodles, crushed (discard the seasoning)
1 Large Bunch of Grapes, washed and cut in 1/2's
1 Avocado, sliced

1 Package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix
1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream + 1/2 Cup Water (or 1 Cup Skim Milk if you're health-conscious, not taste-conscious)
1 Cup Best Foods (or Hellman's if you're on the EC) Mayonnaise

1.  Cut the chicken breasts up into bite-size pieces.
2.  Cook the chicken in the teriyaki marinade on your stove-top until chicken is fully cooked.
3.  Toss coleslaw mix with crushed ramen noodles and grapes in a medium bowl.
4.  Toss in cooked chicken and any extra marinade with coleslaw mixture.  
5.  Top with avocado slices and serve with ranch dressing on the side.

DELISH!

If you make more than enough for one meal, I'd recommend not mixing in the ramen noodles with the entire salad and instead adding them to your individual salad servings.  That way, the noodles won't be soggy when you serve it again tomorrow... and believe me, you will DEFINITELY want some tomorrow... it's FANTASTIC as leftovers.

(please excuse my spelling errors - my eyeballs are fuzzy tonight!)

Octopus!

Folks, I just cannot, NOT share this picture.  

I didn't even cheat and compromise the photo quality (by compressing the photo size) so that it would upload faster.  It took all of 2 1/2 hours last night on our dial-up connection to upload!!  I took it on a shore dive yesterday; we were kicking out to a buoy which we would then descend along to our destination and Peter spotted this octopus.  We followed him for a few minutes, mesmerized by his color-changing, texture-changing abilities, and snapped MANY photos.  This one was my favorite!  

Peter and I just found some statistics on our computer dive logs that made me smile.  According to my computer I've sucked 91 thousand PSI of air since I started diving and Peter has sucked 86 thousand PSI.  

We're sure breathing a lot of air!! Hope there's enough for the rest of you! :-)

Baking Diaries: Perfect Banana Bread

Hi friends!  I recently stumbled across a recipe at the blog (I am Baker) titled Perfect Banana Bread.  I had my doubts.  I had made some banana bread a few weeks ago that was pretty stinkin' good.  However, I had two and 1/2 VERY ripe bananas that needed to be used and I figured I best prove whether this truly was the Perfect Banana Bread.  

It WAS.  It IS.  Perfect. 

You must try it.  You won't believe it doesn't call for one lick of butter.  You won't believe it has yogurt in it.  You won't believe how unbelievably delicious it is.

I'm quickly learning that my oven does not bake at the temperature it SAYS it is baking at.  This recipe requests a "325* preheated oven".  Hah.  I have a oven thermometer in mine right now and the hottest it's getting is 154*.  However, I'll have you know, 154* will still bake banana bread, it just takes about 2 hours.  :-) 

Finally, the recipe.  Full credit for this fantastic loaf of goodness goes to i.am.baker!

Perfect Banana Bread

2 eggs

1/3 cup vanilla yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup ripe mashed bananas

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½  tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare chosen pan.  (I used a dark, non-stick large loaf pan)

Blend together the eggs, yogurt, oil, extract and bananas in mixer with low speed.

Add in sugars and fully incorporate.  Then add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

(I would start checking your banana bread at 45 minutes.  The time to bake just depends on the accuracy of your oven.  Like I mentioned before, mine took two hours... hmm, I wonder if that contributed to the moistness of the bread?  I suppose that would be the equivalent of baking it in a slow cooker?!)

So, here are the ways I deviated from the recipe, for what it's worth:
-  I used 2 1/2 bananas (1/2 of the 3rd was moldy...) which equated to more like a cup and 1/2.  I didn't measure, but that's about what it looked like.
-  I didn't have vanilla yogurt so instead I used fat free Oikos plain yogurt.  Win-win - it's better for you and the bread still was delicious!  Oh, I also guestimated on this measurement - I'm a fan of less is more in the dirty dishes department, and yogurt doesn't come in 1/3 cup sizes.  At least not on Kwaj.  :-)

I hope you try it, and if so, please let me know if you too agree it's the Perfect Banana Bread!

Another bonus:  If you measure like I do, it only gets one bowl, one measuring cup, one measuring spoon and a bread pan dirty!  My kind of baking!

Baking Diary

Yesterday I made these Reese's Pieces Cookies and these Chewy Lemon Sugar Cookies to bring with us as we had been invited to dinner at some friends house.  Both were delicious, and quite simple!  The sugar cookies were the perfect balance of firm on the outside, but soft and chewy in the middle.  The Reese's Pieces cookies... well, is there much better than chocolate and peanut butter together?!  I can say "no thanks" to plain chocolate most any day, but mix it with PB, and I'm toast.  I like that the chocolate flavor in these comes from cocoa powder - I don't often bake with it, but really enjoyed it in this recipe!

Let me know if you make them, what you think!

Do we look different?!

I wish I had a photo I could share, but picture this:

Two goofy kids, cheesy grins, standing proudly at the boat marina holding our new shiny certificates...

We're officially licensed BOAT CAPTAINS!  

Peter and I both passed what they call the "practical test" on Thursday, which was our final step.  To obtain our license we had take a two-night class, pass a 100 question written knowledge test, a 25 question boat knowledge test, (Peter also passed the written portion of the sailing endorsement; I did not attempt this one yet), go on an orientation cruise and then pass the practical test.  The practical consisted of knowing all the islands on the East and West side of the atoll, knowing all the buoys in the lagoon, navigating the boat using a GPS, driving the boat from the lagoon through one of the passes to the ocean side, performing a satisfactory "man-overboard" drill, knowing all of the radio channels and proper radio etiquette and finally, docking the boat at the marina parallel-parking style!  

In reality, we don't have a pretty, shiny certificate to show off, but we do have another license number to memorize!  :-)

Ahoy Matey!  Come and cruise with us!

Weekend Recap

Hi friends!!

Just wanted to drop a line on our little space in the World Wide Web to let you know we're still alive and enjoying ourselves!  We had an awesome weekend.  It's funny how our idea of a productive weekend has changed so drastically in just a few months!!  It used to be that we didn't feel we had accomplished much if we hadn't torn down a wall or remodeled a room or laid some tile...?  Now we feel it's been a great weekend if we've logged a few dives, had a smoothie (or two) and soaked in a few rays.  :-)  Such was our time this weekend.  We logged four dives in the past two days and both logged our deepest dives to date!  (P. at 124 feet and myself at 120 feet- Yeah!)

Yesterday afternoon we dove two shallow shore dives - the first off of Emon Beach and the second at a wreck off of the ski-boat area (my personal favorite dive site so far).  This wreck is awesome!  The life on it is absolutely breathtaking.  We had quite a bit of air left on our way back to shore so we stopped at another wreck closer in (and much shallower) and were graced with the passing presence of a spotted eagle ray!  So cool!  We're both doing really well on air consumption - both of these dives we lasted over an hour on a 3000 PSI tank and surfaced with air to spare.

Today we dove two deep wreck dives - the first was Barracuda Junction (didn't see any barracuda, I'll have to find out where the name comes from!) and the second was K5 Upright (named after the buoy it rests under).  Both were pretty awesome.  Barracuda Junction is laying on it's side, and K5 upright, aptly named, is sitting perfectly upright in about 120 feet of water.  I won't bore you with the dive details, but if you come visit and are AOW (Advanced Open Water) certified, we will definitely take you to these two!  They're fairly easy to find with the GPS coordinates and easy to tie off to also.

In other news, Peter and I hope to be boat captain certified on Thursday!  Note, this is different than the sailing certification which we also hope to get... just at a later date.  We have our practical tests (meaning we have to take the boat out with an instructor, and perform all the required maneuvers and passes) on Thursday.  We practiced docking the boats this a.m. and both did pretty well.  Our captain on the dives we went on this afternoon let me drive the boat back in after our final dive, and I was able to dock it just fine again.  This was a great test for me since the boat we practiced on this morning was a single hull - VERY maneuverable, and the boat we rented for the dives this afternoon was a dual hull - NOT very maneuverable   So we're hoping we pass our tests on Thursday... at which point we can rent boats and take them diving whenever we want!  :-)

Tonight we had the crew we dove with today come over for tacos.  It was a nice, laid back evening with lots of laughs.  Dozer even approved of them all and spent all evening laying in the middle of the conversation.  :-)  (He usually disappears when company arrives.)

Tomorrow morning is the "island fluff" weekly ladies dive.  :)  That being said, I best get some sleep so I can join them!

Hope you had a great weekend too!  Aloha from the big blue Pacific Ocean!

Fried Crisp

I got fried today for my first time since arriving on island.  Complete accident.  All it took was 10 minutes in the 2pm sun.  Typically if we're outside we put on 30 SPF at least twice per day, more often if we're in the water.  Today it just completely slipped my mind. 8 degrees off the equator makes for some seriously STRONG rays!

Word to the wise when you come visit... wear sunscreen!  70-100 SPF is not a laughable thing here.  

Khao Pad Kra Prao Gai Recipe

My dear friend Liesl made this dish for us (remember this post) back in April, and we loved it.  She sent me the recipe a few weeks ago and although I had to wait an extra week to make it because our grocery store was out of Basil, it was well worth the wait!  This will be a staple in our dinner rotation from now on (as long as the store has basil). :-)  For us fresh vegges come once per week on a Tuesday flight from Honolulu.  

Let me know what you think if you try it out!

(Photo courtesy of Liesl's kitchen)

Thai Basil Chicken Fried Rice
(Khao Pad Kra Prao Gai)

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 cups "already cooked" jasmine rice or long grain rice (let the rice cool before using it in the fried rice recipe)

6 big cloves garlic (crushed)

2 to 4 Thai red and green chili peppers or 1 to 2 Serrano peppers (crushed)

¼ cup cooking oil

1 to 1 ½ lbs chicken meat (cut into bite sizes)

3 tbs oyster sauce

2 tbs fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 medium size red bell pepper (julienne)

2 cups fresh sweet basil leaves

1 cucumber (cut into bite sizes) *optional (garnish)

½ cup cilantro sprigs *optional (garnish)

First, heat the oil in a deep pan or wok over high heat. Wait till the oil starts to smoke. Add crushed garlic and crushed chili peppers. Stir quickly (don’t let them burn). Then immediately add sliced chicken meat. Stir. Add oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Stir until the chicken is cooked through. Add already cooked rice. Stir quickly until sauces are blended with rice (a couple of minutes). Stir in red bell peppers and keep stirring for few seconds then add basil leaves. Turn the heat off. Garnish with sliced cucumbers and cilantro sprigs. Serve Immediately.

Wordy Post...

Hi y'all...

Just wanted to catch you up on our Island life.  Our ability to upload photos has left the island, so I'm back to drawing you pictures with my words... sorry!  We're keeping our fingers crossed for higher speed internet to make it out to the housing quarters before too long, so hopefully I can upload more photos in the future.  Until then, it'll just be sporadic one or two photos, here and there as I find patience to upload.

Peter has spent the last month a very sick boy.  It started with a sinus infection, which moved into his lungs and turned into Bronchitis.  The Dr. on island put him on antibiotics for the sinus infection, but it was too far along and the meds didn't touch it, so after a week of sinus infection medications he had to switch to another 10 days of different meds to kick the Bronchitis.  He finished those on Sunday and seems to be on the mend.  We know how easily Bronchitis relapses though so he's taking it pretty easy.

Anyhow, that explains why I haven't been posting much!  We haven't been doing a whole lot for the past month except sleeping whenever possible and trying to get Peter better.  I've been diving mid-week, one or two times per week with a group of ladies who are also island fluff.  It's a nice way to get to know some of the shore dives that we are able to do, and I'm excited for when Peter will be able to dive again so we can explore together.  His Dr. told him no diving for the past three weeks... although he's hoping to be able to go this coming weekend.  :-)

We snorkeled quite a bit last weekend and went kayaking yesterday.  I'm continually amazed by the number of folks here that don't take advantage of the many things there are to do on the island!!  Especially snorkeling.  There's so much to see beneath the water surface, and it's practically free to do!  Anyhow, off my soapbox.  :-)

We're REALLY looking forward to our October company coming and are super excited because we just found out some more friends are coming in late-December/early-January!!  Yahoo!

I best let this be and get my day started!  Hope this finds you all doing splendidly!

Cravings

I'll begin by reassuring you all that I'm not the big "P" word.  These are just normal cravings by a gal who is limited to very little variety of foods these days.  :-)

1.  Indian Food, specifically Murgh Makhini - mmmm.  Do try it someday!  I practiced my hand at cooking it last night, and it actually didn't turn out too bad!  The recipe will needs a few tweaks, but the end result should help to curb this craving.  :-)
2.  Short Smoked Salmon Filet.  Peter and I would order this every.single.time we ate at our favorite American restaurant in Virginia, Sweetwater Tavern.  Our order would go something like this; "Two Short Smoked Salmon Filets, extra mustard sauce on the side, Ozzie rolls only and extra poppyseed butter please."  We could order the moment we sat down.  It was always a quick meal!  :-)  This, I'm afraid, I won't be able to duplicate.
3.  Thai food, specifically Chicken Red Curry.  Again, I should be able to duplicate this, just haven't tried my hand at it yet.
4.  Maple bars.  Oh boy, I could  devour a few of these right now!
5.  Captain Neon Burger from McMinnimins - I (we actually!) have been craving this since we left Oregon: thick patty, extra thick drippy bacon, blue cheese, special sauce... mmm.  If you eat it in just the right fashion, it'll drip all of the delicious sauce all over your fries.  It's a party in your mouth.  A heart attack waiting to happen, but SO worth it.  :-)

That sums it up pretty well for now.  If y'all have occasion to box some of those up and send them our way, we'd be much obliged.  ;-)

(kidding)

Sailing to Bigej ~ Monday

Over the past weekend we sailed up to Bigej (Bee-gee) and had a fantastic day of snorkeling and sailing!  It was fairly overcast all day, with a few quick showers once we arrived at the island.  What a pity... we got wet!  :-)

We usually snorkel as soon as we arrive for 45 minutes or so, then board the boat, fix some lunch, eat and jump in the water again for some more snorkeling.  We usually depart Kwaj around 9:30 arriving at Bigej close to noon.  We anchor until 3:30 or so and then begin the trip back, arriving back in Kwaj around 6pm.  However, yesterday's trip was extended a bit for two reasons:

1.  There was NO wind!  We motored the whole way and although we had the jib and mainsail up, they didn't do much work!  

2.  We met up with three power-boats which had 13 other folks at the island after they completed a dive on a wreck not far away.  They were mainly from KPD (Kwaj Police Dept) as they were placing the ashes of one of their officers who just passed away.

Those two reasons meant we arrived back at Kwaj at 7pm... but we weren't complaining!

There's a country song that I kept singing (to myself!) yesterday.  It goes something like this:

It's a great day to be alive

I know the sun's still shinin' when I close my eyes

There's some hard times in the neighborhood

But why can't every day be just this good? 

Sometimes it's lonely

Sometimes it's only me

And the shadows that fill this room

Sometimes I'm fallin'

Desperately callin'

Howlin' at the moon...

Ahwoo!

Ahwoo!

That's how I feel about this adventure for us.  Every day is a great day!  Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes there's not-so-pleasant things to deal with, but overall, it's a great day to be alive!  

Ok, enough with the blabbering, here's some photos from our trip!  We got some pretty amazing ones, if I do say so myself!  :-)

This one looked like a flower, blooming out of the coral below.

Do you see the grouchy fish?

These little (say 10 feet or so across?) coral pods are all over at Bigej... beautiful!

I love these little guys!  They're so photogenic. :-)

CLAMS!!!  These were one of the highlights of this snorkel trip... we saw SO many!!  Big ones, small ones, and they're all different colors!

The sea anemone's are beautiful here... can you spot the clown fish?

Hubby!

Ok, here's a question for anyone who knows anything about water creatures... Do you know what this is??  It was about three inches in diameter, and the "legs" were wiggly.  How's that for a scientific description?

Puffer fish!

Another big clam - about 3 feet across.

Another highlight!  We saw this HUGE (to me!) ray!!  She didn't have her stinger... but was still probably 5 feet in diameter!

My favorite clam from this trip.  Isn't it beautiful!?! 

Loved this little coral tree~

Doesn't this make you want to visit??!

Another clam!  This little guy (about 12") was inside one of the purple coral heads in the above photos.

...And another one, not far away!  While Peter was photographing this guy, I saw something right next to him change color.  Upon further inspection...

...it was an OCTOPUS!  How cool!!!!  Can you see his eyes?  They're the little red spots in the center of the photo. 

Here's a farther-away shot which shows the proximity of the clam to the octopus.  SO COOL!  We backed away hoping the octopus would come out of his hiding spot, but he only popped his head up far enough to keep an eye on us.  :-)

Amazing

Another clam!  They close up if you cover the sunlight above them, so the trick is to sneak up from the side.  :-)  Peter's gotten pretty good at it!

A beautiful sunset on our way home. 

I love the clouds in this one ~

And finally... our gracious captain, Rick.  He and Peter work together... we're so fortunate he enjoys sharing his boat with others! 

On a completely un-related note - they delivered our pack-out on Friday!  This means that I no longer have a rotation of only four tops and three bottoms (YAY!), we have a fairly complete kitchen set, OUR BED IS HERE, and the guest bedroom is furnished!!  So, please come see us! 

Kwaj life!

Finally I think we have a system figured out for uploading and posting photos!  

So, without further a-do... (and in no particular order!)

The following five photos are from one of our weekend sailing trips to Bigej, and the underwater photos are from snorkeling off the boat.  

Can you spot the turtle?

This clam was beautiful... it was about 12" across, and bright, bright purple on the inside!  We've heard the clams up at Roi-Namur (one of the northern islands) are HUGE - over 5 feet!!  We want to take a trip up there one of these weekends to see for ourselves... there are free, "space available" flights daily up to the island, so we'll try to take advantage of them soon! 

The boat, named the Panacea that we've been sailing on - that's my hubby floating in the water.  :-)  Someone asked him on this trip if he was part fish; I think while we were anchored he spent more time in the water than he did on the boat!

The next two photos are from the dive we did two weekends ago on the South Kwajalein wall.  This first one is just amazing to me - the beautiful reef and the abundance of life!  This was just before we went over the wall... the diving here is beautiful!!

One of the white-tip sharks that Peter mentioned in his earlier account:

This little guy gets in on quite a bit of action over by where the fishermen feed the sharks the "leftovers" from cleaning their catches of the day.  He nibbles right along with about 30+ nurse sharks and 5 or so white-tip sharks!  I'm sure he's glad for his shell sometimes.  :)

These nurse sharks were just hanging out, waiting for their free meal...

Usn's

The hermit crabs are EVERYWHERE here!  They're so adorable; you pick them up and they squirm all around trying to find the ground beneath them.  We eventually put them back down...  :-)

Beautiful... we see rainbows 3-4 times/week. 

This beach, (above and below) is one of my favorites for finding shells at.  In fact, I just might bike over there when I finish this post to do some hunting! 

Hermit crab pile - they're all fighting over one empty shell!

Just a neat photo~

This photo is taken just off the north tip of Kwajalein.  We did our check-out dive from this location.  The buoyed area is a swimming spot called Emon beach - you'll see it better in another photo below. 

Here's a better shot of Emon beach. 

Often after Peter gets home from work and we finish our dinner, we'll take a bike ride around the island... Yesterday we hopped on our bikes, rode about 1/2 way, went back home, changed into our swimsuits and biked back to Emon beach for an evening swim.  It was beautiful.  

Next up... hopefully delivery of our pack-out this week and then some photos of the house, inside! 

Pack-Out Status!!

We just got an update that our pack-out is on the barge that is scheduled to arrive.... 

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

Yahooooooooooo!  

There's a process for offloading the barge and distributing the goods, but we should get our stuff delivered to the house within a week!!!

Can you tell I'm EXCITED?!  It's going to be like Christmas... I can't even remember what is all coming! 

A few pictures...

WHEW!  Uploading these was a labor of LOVE!  :)

Our house is the unit on the left in this photo:

After diving one day...

Stroll on the ocean side of the island one afternoon:

Now you all have proof that we're alive!

I tried to upload some underwater shots but am getting an error... will see if hubby can help when he gets home. :)

SOLD!

Signed, settled and SOLD!  

We are officially, NOT homeowners as of 4am today! (our time)

To curb the curious minds, we put the house on the market on the 20th of June and had a ratified, full price contract on the 28th.  We only had two different families look at the house during those 8 days and it was the first family who made the offer.  They came back four times before submitting their offer - you can imagine we were on pins and needles!

So, although a move overseas could have been difficult and daunting, this transition to Kwajalein has been pretty seamless!  For that we're very grateful and we're thoroughly enjoying our time on the island so far!

Please come visit!  

Test photo

This photo, compressed from 3.3MB to 594KB took 12.37 minutes to upload.  

Please understand that until we get a faster internet connection, I won't be uploading too many pictures!  :-( 

Taken at a going-away potluck had for us by our Sunday meeting elders.  We have a little better tan now.  :)