Project Pacific Islander

 3/18/2022 - Happy Friday to everyone, with the season of Lent upon us (now 3 weeks in), I thought fish Friday was a good topic to post on. Guam has a very large percentage of the population that this Catholic, 75% from the recent census, I don't think that I have ever been in place with that high of a majority. With this comes some fun advertisements for Lent. My favorite is the KFC ad that shows 5 lent friendly fish / shrimp / crab options with a KFC bucket of chicken carrying a halo, just in case you are willing to bend the rules.  Joan and I tried the BK options this week, an impossible whopper and the big fish sandwich. We don't do fast food very often, we were enticed by the ads. I was surprised how good the impossible burger was, actually quite close to a beef burger. Maybe something we will try more of in the future, this veggie based meat alternative. For now, I will stick with my fish sandwich. Its wasn't quite the Friday fish fry at church, but very yummy none th...

  3/17/2022 - A little spring thinking for all you readers that are in cold climates, we are close to the first day of spring. Obviously, here on Guam its more like summer year round, 85 - 90 degrees and humidity around 60 - 80%. There are seasons here, wet and dry, kind of like a tropical rain forest. There are also many seasons of flowers. Our Soursops are just about done for what I understand as the year, the mangos are on their way, and the Hibiscus are in bloom. The images above are from the front yard of the big house up front, quite the little garden around here that Vilma keeps up. Personally I don't have a lot of knowledge of plant species or the different growing seasons; these Hibiscus blooming really make me feel like I am in a tropical place. My understanding is these are native to Guam, and quite celebrated. Their use is decorative, and can be used as die, or as a floral flavor for drinks and some meals. Happy Spring to you all, here is to warmer winds to come and lon...

  3/16/2022 - Joan and I have been working on our PADI Dive certification, today was our in person class day. This process has been a couple weeks in the works, to become certified there are a few critical items to complete, there is book work and quizzes, in person review of the quizzes, a final test, and then two days of active diving where you work to sign off on critical skills. In many ways this is like going back to school, so the picture above is my back to school picture for 2022.  MDA is just south of where Joan works, today I picked here up and we headed south for our in person review, quizzes and tests. Joan being the more recent test taker than I have (she is always over the bar, Im not sure I can jump that high), she kicked my booty and scored 6 points higher than I did. No, I am not bitter about it, well maybe a little bit but with the amount of salt water to come, I will let this one go.  Saturday and Sunday this week will be spent in the water and learning...

  3/15/2022 - The camera really broke out this week, different moving target today, our Booney Dogs. When I say our, they are adopted for the short time here on Guam, owned by our host family. (No Mom and Dad you don't have grand puppies just yet)  Booney Dog is the slang term for "mutt and wild dog" here on the island. As I have spoken in earlier posts, Guam has quite the dog population, many with what I would call loose ownership. Collars are yet to be seen here, from other travels, this ownership idea and care for the pets is a very modern idea, not sure of the history but I bet it was "bred" out of Europe. Some of these dogs are chained up, some live loose, and some have a nice fenced yard that somehow the pups can still evade (such is the case for these two). Joan and I are very fond of these pups, we riden the, ahem, ups and downs with them as they go through colds, removal operations, and bumps and bruises during our stay.  Digo is the light colored male ...

 3/14/2022 - During the week day, the past couple weeks, it has been common to have flyovers over our tiny house. I thought today would be a good day to try and capture some photos as the planes came over head. I am enjoying this camera, one of the perks is I can zoom way in, post capture, to get a better view of the planes and see what they are. These look to be F-15s , they make quite the noise as they fly over, very distintive pitch which is very different than some of the commercial traffic. My last image shows where Joan and I live in relation to the airport and and air bases. We are in surrounded by the three landing strips. Anderson Air Force base is just North and East of us, we see many jets coming in daily as well as the fighers.  The north west strip is no longer in use based on my reading, this was where we saw the last mission memorial. The airport is south of us, which gives us commercial traffic in the area as well.  Joan and I rarely have a phone call any ...

  3/13/2022 - After a full day of chores around the house, we decided a much needed break was in order. So off to Ritidian we went via bike, this was the same route as earlier this week, but a first time for Joan. We also thought why not try to ride from the tiny house instead of putting the bikes on the back of the car. This part will be revisited later in the post on why riding through our neighborhood via bike is categorized as one of those do not repeat ideas. Today I was on the mountain bike while Joan was on one of the road bikes, our host family has a number of bikes, but depending on the day some are in use while others are not. Off we went enjoying the afternoon and the scenery.  About half way along our journey we found a memorial that we stopped and took a look at. The road to Ritidian is an interesting route because each side of the road is owned by the military, you get this line of never ending fencing on both sides, the straightest fence you will ever see, so se...

3/12/2022 - Many of you know by now that Saturdays are big days on the island for us to do try something new. Today was another chance to get out on a hike, this time on the north and east sides of the island, a place called Anao trail. Finding the trail head turned out to be a challenge as Apple maps didn't recognize the address, and we lost service about half way there. We ended up being about 20 mins late meeting up with our friends, after doing many circles in some neighborhoods that were less than to be desired. All part of the fun. The trailhead for this place was hidden as can be, dense tree cover with areas that were just one human wide to get through the tall grass. We hiked close to a mile before we saw major elevation change, the pictures above show just how steep the mountains are on this side of Guam. We lost close to 750 ft in a matter of half a mile is my guess, in places we had to hold onto a rope that was placed as to get up and down the steep inclines. Approaching...