Half Way Around

2009-02-11T00:03:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. I know it has been a while since my last post, and I am sorry about that. I am really getting involved in a lot of things out here. I don't have enough time to post some pictures but I will in the next post. Sorry about that.
Mom was out here last month. It was great to see her and talk to her and receive all those hugs sent from home. They were nice. Thank you very much. We had a great time. I took up to another island called "bigji" for as afternoon of snorkeling. I think she was a little nervous about being in a small boat in some pretty rough water. I tried to make the ride as smooth as possible but with the winds that we have been having lately it is a little hard. LOL. The island is about a 25 minute boat ride but it is totally worth it. We got in the water and it was great. It is that water that you see in the movies and in pictures that is just crystal clear and sandy. One of those places that you think can't possibly exist but it does and there we are. We snorkeled around for about an hour or so then went back to the boat. I found a shell for her but the more it dried off the uglier it got. As does a lot of the shells I find in the water. Mom received a necklace with some calrie shells on it and a Marshallese picture frame made from palm fronds. It was really cool. She also spent a lot of time being a beach bum. I set her up with a chair and a good spot on the beach and if I couldn't find her in her room that is where she would be. LOL. I even got her to play some bingo with me. We didn't win any of the games but it was some good company. (I know what some of you are thinking and yes, I do play bingo)

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be a participant in a basketball game against a team from the capital of the Marshall Islands, Majuro. The team is on island for the Marshallese Liberation Celebration. I am currently learning more about this celebration. The game was a lot of fun and we ended up winning 87 to 52. I was very honored to be considered a member for the kwaj team. Pictures to come. Right after the basketball game I had a softball game to play as well. I was one tired dude by the end of the night. LOL. I am on a team called the "Podunkers." We are an A league team and we are having a lot of fun. I am playing second base which is really weird for me since I have never played that position before. I told the coach that and he put me there anyway. After our first practice he said I played it well, I told him it was from watching the Texas Rangers on TV. LOL.

For the last month or so I have been spending a lot of time just hanging out with friends. Doesn't matter where or when. I am really getting into the whole beach bum thing. :) We play a game called Baggo. There are 8 bags full of corn and object is to throw the bag into a hole in board twenty feet away or to at least land the bag on the board. It can be a lot of fun. We just sit there and soak up as much sun as we can and talk about what ever is happening on the island. It is a great way to get to know people. There are several different groups of people that set up their hang out spots along the beach and tend to bounce from one to the next.

Sorry this one was so short. The next one will be much better. Hope to hear from all of you soon.

Nate.

Chili Cook Off on Roi-Namur

2008-11-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago the people on Roi had their big annual event, the Chili Cook Off. Since so many people went to the cook off, they ran two boats up there that holds about 100 people. Both boats were full early. Roi is 50 mile to the north and three hours by boat. Does anyone see where this is going yet? I'll give you a hint, the winds were up and the the waves were big. Yeah, many people were sick for the last two hours of the trip. Thank goodness I did not get sick but it was a very long trip. I will spare you the details and skip over to the good food and activities. Roi is a smaller island and there are only 60 to 70 people living on the island right now. It was also the site of some very intense fighting and the Japanese were heavily fortified on the island. The American ships bombed the island for 22 consecutive days before attempting a landing. I learned all this on the tour that I was lucky enough to be a part of. The ruins on the island are much better preserved on Roi than those on kwaj.

Here are a couple of gun emplacements. These are 135 mm gun if I correctly remember. These guns are so well preserved that I was amazed. Never seen anything like this.

Here is a Japanese ammunition storage building. Looks like it was hit pretty hard during the raids. Some of the raids lasted for hours. Just being in an area where something like this took place was somewhat weird. Never have I seen first hand the effects of bombs and bullets that were aimed to destroy.

This is a place called headquarters. The Americans made is so once they had established control of the island. Most of the building is missing due to erosion over time. I am sure that the bombs didn't help the preservation of the structure.

On to the fun stuff.

Well there you have it, Roi-Namur. This place once started out as four separate islands and the Japanese made it into two and could cross between the two parts at low tide on the reef. When the Americans occupied it they made a land bridge between the two islands to make one big island. On one half is the air port and all the dorms where those lucky few that live make their homes. On the other half is all the mission critical stuff like the radars. There is also a jungle that covers an underground hospital that was built before WWII started. Some say that is haunted. I think that one of those ghost chasing teams from tv should come and explore the myth. :)

Does this look like a fun place or what? The entire lagoon side of the island is beach. I need to just go up there for a long weekend and set up my hammock in a great location and just hang out the whole time. What do you think?

During the cook off there was a fund raising event that some people had to sit in a chair while others threw pie in their face. The ones in the chair are some of the island "big shots" from kwaj. Here is a great pic of my big big boss getting knock out of his chair. This was great!

This was a lot of fun. This was a good chance for some of us to unload some frustration in a very fun way. And the kids had a blast with it too.

Here is our Lieutenant just after he was ambushed by all those kids. He is the next step under the Commander of the island. Great fun. The food was great I am glad to say that I did not have to endure another boat ride back to kwaj. I was given the oppertunity to stay on the island for the weekend and just get on a plane back. That place was a ghost town at sunset. There was never anyone out riding their bike or just walkint around. Some where at this wonderful little place called the Outrigger. This place serves the best hamburger in the Marshall Islands by far. It was some good eatin'.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my Veterans day weekend. Hope to hear from you soon.

Work Happens, I Promise

2008-10-15T02:07:00.000-07:00

Work actually happens. We are a customer based operation and, according to the commander, we are very good at it. He has only been here a couple of months and I think that he will soon realize how untrue that statement is. (This is where you laugh) But the point is that work actually happens. I do have several projects going on. The biggest one is at the marina. The only place where I have been working on a high voltage disconnect and turn around and be able to see the entire lagoon.

There are several noteworthy boats at the marina. There are some LCM's and LCU's. This is the "Great Bridge."

It is the largest work boat in the fleet here at Kwaj. It transports large items to and from the outer islands.

This is the "Double Eagle." It is currently up on dry dock for repairs. My projects is electrical boxes located all around it. I am not working on the boat just on some big plugs for the welders to use. I don't know when this boat was built but from the look of it, it can't be less than 50 years old. Crazy.

That is the small boat marina behind me. Those are the boats that I am allowed to rent out for diving or fishing. That one there is one of the older ones and is great for diving. It is a Boston Whaler and has a section in the side that can be removed for quick access in and out of the boat. Notice how that ramp to the dock is almost level. The tide is the highest that I have ever seen it. There can be a 5 foot difference between high and low tide. The ramp is normally steeper than what is shown there. By the way, I am at work in this picture. And just in case there is someone reading this that still doesn't believe me,

So there it is, me at work a whole 50 feet in the air and and 55 feet above sea level, at high tide that is.

We currently have a plane here from Orbital Sciences. It is a L1011 that has a very big rocket attached to it is belly. I have had a small part in setting up everything needed for this plane and the mission that it is here for.

And there it is. I have been promised a tour of the plane and I will be sure to get some pics of the rocket too. You can see it attached to the belly of the plane and is not a small one that is for sure. This mission has been posted on the Internet by Orbital Science so I don't think I am doing anything wrong by posting this picture. So don't worry, I don't have to kill you now that I have told you. :) That is some of the things going on here on Kwaj.

Beware of Rocket Scientist

2008-09-16T02:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, just wanted to tell you about my first trip to an outer island on the atoll. The island is called Meck (easy to remember). I was sitting around the office at the end of the day last friday (Thursday in the states) and my boss walked and said, "By the way, did I tell you that you are going to Meck tomorrow?" My first thought was "awesome" my next thought was "awe man!" That was when I remembered that the boat leaves at 6 am. There are a lot of things that happen there especially during mission time. The island is an hour boat ride and I just missed the boat. I got to the dock as it was leaving the harbor. I was on the phone with Harbor Control begging for them to turn it around and pick me up. They said they would call me back. They called back and told me that another boat was going that way and that I could hop on that one. So all I had to do now was track down the captian of that boat. Not an easy task. I didn't know who he was. I did manage to find him and he was a nice enough guy to pick up a hitchhiker. It was a small boat but a very comfortable ride.

Well I showed up with a box full of parts and a few tools and nobody was expecting me. My job was to install a Hazmat washer and dryer. Sounds harder that it actually is. The first thing that really got my attention was this sign...

Only at Nasa and Meck can you see something like this. Meck is a very small island and it only took about ten minutes for my grand tour.

The harbor at meck

A tree overgrown with grass. Interesting.

Downtown meck. Not excatly your New York skyline is it? When I took this picture I was about 50 feet above sea level, the highest I have been in almost 5 months.

And finally, after a long moring and a rather boring afternoon and the lunch I finally got at 3 pm, the ride home showed up.

I wasn't sure how this thing was going to get out of that harbor but it will spin on a dime. It was crazy.

What a sweet sight to see after such a long day. It was an hour boat ride back to Kwaj I turned my ipod on and drifted away. I tried to name all the islands I saw on the way up there, I will need to know them when I get my boat licsense, and didn't see a one on the way back. Well that was my first trip to another island and I would do it again. Maybe next time I will actually catch the boat. lol.

A weekend on Kwaj

2008-09-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

Man, have I been slacking. Sorry about that. Well lets see. Nothing too exciting has happened lately. Life moves pretty slow around here. The only exciting things going on is that the produce plane is broke down in Hawaii. So far we are out of milk, and if that plane doesn't get here soon we will be out of a lot more items than just milk. Oh yeah, and there is a Coast Guard ship here to work on all the buoys in the water. So exciting! Right. I did manage to do a couple of dives on Sunday...
This is an Ahku. They have some mean looking teeth but some really good tasting meat. :)

A 4 foot black tip shark. Very curious little guy.

Morrish Idol. I finally got a good close up of a face of one. I am not zoomed in. It was right there.

I don't have a clue what it is but it sure is pretty.

On Monday I laid around my room most of the morning and managed to pedal my way out to the golf course for a quick round.

Around the airport...

and pass the two runways along the long and windy road next to crashing waves up to the course. :)

The parking lot is always a crowded one at the Holmberg Fairways.

See, I told you so. ;)
There I am trying to decide if I should go over the palm trees or around them. Really it is just a surprise every time. I do manage to play an average of 27 holes a week. I love it!!! I figure that I will know the course pretty well by the end of two years. LOL.

While I was at the far end of the course and far from any shelter what so ever, it decided to rain yet again. I was really into the game and forgot to pay attention to the clouds that were coming in. I got soaked! You would think that some one who lives in an area that averages 100 inches of rain a year would "invest" in an umbrella, but all my experience is from eastern New Mexico where I use to laugh at people who wasted their time messing with umbrellas. Oh how little do I know. LOL.

That is what a typical weekend is for me way out here in the middle of nowhere. I did start my boat orientation class tonight so I will be able to rent out my own boats. That means all day diving trips to an outer island and laying on the beach between dives. :) Hope to hear from y'all soon.

Swimming with Sharks

2008-07-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Have I got a story for you. This last sunday I sucessfully completed four dives. I slept well that night. The first two dives were on a German battleship That lays in 100 feet of water at the deepest point with the rudder and one propeller sticking high above the water.

As you can see this is a very large boat. But I am not writing this to talk about boring old war ships. No, I am writing this to talk about the crazy day of diving that I had. It was a day that was all about the animal everyone fears in the open water. Yes, I am writing to tell you about the sharks that I encountered.

The first i saw on this battleship. There were four of us diving on this ship and a nurse shark came out of the ship right into the middle of all four of us. it was like it didn't really know that we were there. It saw us and just bolted, it swam around two of us really fast and luckly I was fast enough to smap off a picture.

This is a nurse shark and it was about 5 to 6 feet long. These sharks are pretty harmless and stay away from people.

The other shark that we found on this ship was actually asleep.

Yes, believe it or not. That is a picture of a sleeping shark, or it is playing peek-a-boo. It is the same kind of the previous one. I handed my camera to a buddy and slowly swam in to the area that it was in as close I felt comfortable getting, which was about ten feet.

After a few pics were taken another diver that was watching all this started moving his hands around like he was trying to get my attention. At first I didn't know what he was talking about and then a split second later I was freaking out! I thought he was telling me that the shark had woken up and was moving around. Now, keep in mind that I am in 90 feet of water and breathing 3 times the normal amount of oxygen which can and will play some really mean tricks on your mind. So, I am in 90 feet of water with nitrogen narcosis playing games with me a thinking that a 7 foot shark is mad at me for waking it up. I just froze. I couldn't turn around. The Jaws theme has started playing in my head and only making me freak out more. Once I finally made myself turn around I discovered that the shark had not moved and the other diver was talking about something else entirely. What a rush.

Now we get to the part of my day where all the guys will go, "Man, that is awesome, I wish that I could do that!" And all the girls will just think that i am crazy and that I should never do anything like this again. Let me give you a little background. Discovery Channel did a show about the top 10 most dangerous sharks in the world. Number seven on that list was the was the Gray Reef Shark. They average 5 foot in length and have the best hearing of any shark in the water. Well after our final dive we decided to pull up anchor and just let the wind and the current take us where ever. During that time a 7 to 8 foot Gray Reef decided to come up to the boat and chech us out. Well we were hitting the water and the side of the boat and I got the bright idea to grab my camera and stick it in the water to try and get some pics of it. then another guy decided to put the ladder in the water so I could climb down and get in the water and get some better pictures then I was getting. Like the typical guy that I am, I agreed to it. The only thing that i wouldn't do was take my feet off the ladder or let ease up on the death grip I had on the boat. At one point the shark came swimming right up to me. I jumped out of the water and on the boat only to the other divers amusement. After we located the shark I climbed back down on the ladder to get more pics. Later I realized that I was tresspassing on the territory of one of natures mose feared and skilled hunters for just some pictures (I would do it again if i got the chance).

Okay, okay, I will show you what I came up with. Keep in mind that since I would not take my feet off the ladder and the sea was bouncing the boat up and down and I was literally shaking in my boots the pictures came out a little fuzzy on the edges. But you can still enjoy the in your face shark pictures thanks to my crazyness.

And now my personal favorite and the one that made me jump back in the boat...

Underwater Adventures

2008-07-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

I finally have pictures! I got my underwater camera and have some pictures that I would like to share with you. These are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Yours truely in action!

The famous honeycomb grouper fish. Most of the time these are hard to spot.

These little guys just stand out compared to the Honeycomb fish.

Two Morrish Idols. The streamers on the top can grow to over a foot long.

See. :)

This is the most interesting photo that I think I took. I was above another diver and i saw his bubbles floating to the surface, so I put my camera in the middle of them and this is what came out. Kinda crazy, huh.

Well that is all for now. I hope that you enjoyed them and let me know what you think. Thanks for looking and talk to ya'll soon.

I swam with Sea Turtles

2008-06-16T02:35:00.000-07:00

I went on two dives today, and they were awesome. We anchored the boats to and got all our gear ready. This was my first boat dive and I had to fall out of the boat backwards while wearing 50 lbs. of dive gear. That was an awkward experience. Once I made it through that and everybody was in the water we began our dive. The dive plan was for a depth of 60 ft and how ever long our air lasted. I think I was the one who ran out of air first. It is clear to me now that it helps to be in shape for that sort of thing. We swam to the southeast of the the boats along a moutain of coral abundant with sea life. I came to realize that I was swimming with fish that people pay hundreds of dollars for in the states. There were all sorts of life that were all sorts of colors. There were hundreds of little blue fish that were swimming in schools that formed a long blue strip under the water. About half way through the first dive I looked at my buddy and he was pointing at something below me. I looked and there sat two sea turtles. They must have been less than ten feet from me. One of them swam off and the other just sat there looking at each diver that passed. It was kind of funny to see. When I turned around to continue swimming I saw the other turtle that swam away. It was just right there swimming along side me. It worked it's way back along the other divers. Later that day I was eating dinner with the instructor and he told me that the turtles don't usually stay that close to people. He also told me that he was close enough to reach out and grab that turtle. That was about all the excitment on that dive other than a few small sharks, and some other sealife that I have no idea what it was and I was told to stay away from them. No problem.
The other dive was not as exciting but I did get the chance to see a very large shark. It was either an overgrown reef shark or a silver tip. Either way this thing had to be no less than 8 ft in length. It was massive! It never did come close thank goodness. It would have been intresting to see a big shark up close but not on my first dive. I'll pass on that. The instructor took an empty water bottle down with him to make noise with. The noise from the bottle really caught the intrest of a small reef shark. I did not get to see this happen but the instructor said that the little shark was swimming circles around him and going thru his legs. I wish I had seen it, but I was busy trying to keep up with the the instructors assistant. There are two types of divers, those that swim casually and poke around at things and those that just swim hard and look at things for only a short period of time. The guy I was following was the latter. It was very hard to walk around tonight.
I am still working on a way to take pictures so that I can visually share these experiences with all of you. I can't wait for you to see the mountains of coral that sustain the vast sea life out here. Let me know what you think. Hope to talk to you all soon.

All there is to do

2008-05-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

I am discovering all the things that Kwajalein has to offer. I am currently enrolled in a scuba diving class and we are about half way through. This past Monday we diving off one of the beaches. Since we live on reef there is great diving within 200 feet of the island. We just walked right into the water till it was deep enough and put our fins on and dove down. It is amazing how clear the water was. We could see about 60 ft horizontally. We swam from coral head to coral head looking at all the different fish and aquatic life that was just 40 feet below the surface. The corals were small but full of life. The bigger fish would swim away as we aproached and the small fish moved around in schools and looked at us just like we looked at them. There are so many different types of fish and the coral looked just like all the ones I have seen on tv or in movies. What I found amazing was that In just one hour I had a great time and was not really that tired. I was wearing about 70 to 80 lbs of gear but it was like the weight was not even there. I was so weightless and free. Scuba diving is one of the best things that I have ever done and did not completely exhuast myself doing it. I am looking forward to some deeper dives. I have heard that there are a lot of wrecks out in the big pond. We are allowed to dive down to them and look around. These are ships that have been underwater for 40 to 50 years. They were used for testing with nuclear weapons on an island not too far from here. I have been told that there is nothing but great diving all over this place. Other than the wrecks all the good stuff to see is 80 feet and above. I can't wait to get my certification and go see what lies beneath the waters.

Deep sea fishing is another weekend hobby that many have here on Kwaj. I have been out fishing twice, the first trip was an exciting one. We found a group of birds that were feeding on small bait fish on the surface. If the small fish are on the surface that means that there are bigger fish below them feeding as well. We drug our lures through the fish and both poles hooked something at the same time. I was on one pole and I had hooked a Yellow Fin Tuna fish. It swam straight down for 200 yards. I thing that I put too much pressure on the line and the fish snapped the lure right off the end of the line. What a bummer!!! My boss told me that the fish weighed about 75 lbs. It is possible to go fishing for just 40 dollars here, and that was with a three man crew. I don't know of anywhere else in the world that someone can do that. This place is a lot of fun and has so much to offer that it is almost impossible to get bored.

If someone were to get bored on this island then they are in the wrong place, thats how I feel about Kwajalein. The things there are to do here are things that I have always wanted to do, and now I live in a place where most of those things are just something to do on the weekends. Thats all for now. I hope to talk to you all soon.

Life in Paradise

2008-05-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

Well I finally made to the tiny piece of land that is now my home away from home. The trip out here was a long one and it started in Lubbock when i was chosen for the random search at the security check point. Then in Houston it was about a mile in a half from the terminal that i arrived at to the one i was leaving from. Then i get on the plane and there is some sensor that was out and we had to sit on the plane for two hours before it was fixed. I made it to Hawaii and had a goood time there. I got up at 330 the next morning and was checked in at the airport at 430 and then found out that my plane was delayed. I spent 8 hours just roaming around the airport and lugging a very heavy bag around. It was a very long day.

Alright, enough complaining. The flight into Kwaj was a scary one. I had a window seat and was looking out the window as the pilot was coming in for the landing and hoping that land was coming soon. We just kept getting closer and closer to the water, finally a small peice of land came followed very shortly by a runway. When they opened the door of the plane i instantly felt the humidity. It was like nothing i have ever felt. I got off the plane got my bags and put my them in my new room and then went had some burgers at a house right next to the Pacific Ocean. The first couple of days were different, i didn't know where anything was and certainly didn't know anyone but i quickly learned that everyone around here is very friendly. I found out how to get to the golf course and I am already a member a have play several games since i got here. You would think that with the small size of the island there would be a whole lot to do but I have yet to try everything there is to do. Slowly but surely I will try everything that Kwaj has to offer.

I went all over the island one afternoon a took a whole lot of pictures of things that are on the island. I thought I would share them with you.

This the view of the sunrise out my window, I know what some of you are thinking and yes i was actually up before the sun. That is my bedroom and office area. That was day one and it is already messy.

That is about all the kitchen I need right there.The name of the road my building is on. This road is our "main street." It runs the length of the island and everything branches off this road.

This is a shot of Lagoon road.This is a Yellow Tip Shark. They come into the marina when the fishermen come in to clean their fish. I have been told that they are not mean at all. I don't really care to find out.Our always crowded parking lot.This is the Kwaj pet turtle. He probably weighs around 200 lbs. The definition of the island life is: Everybody has time. So hang loose and take care of yourselves. Talk to ya'll soon.

The long process of getting there

2008-03-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

When i first started in the construction industry i had always heard about these government jobs that seemed like really good jobs. I had also heard that when you got your license some company that had a contract with the government would send you some job offers because they are always short handed. Well, when i got my license, i was talking to a buddy of mine that his dad use to work for a company that did work for the government. We talked to his dad and he gave me a web address and told me that all i had to do was pick out a job. I found one that i met the qualifications for and sent in my resume. About a week and a half later i got a respones that they liked what they saw and wanted me to fill out an application.
All that happened in late November. I spent several hours filling out papers and faxing them in as well as mailing them in. The day after Christmas i recieved a phone call from the electrical supervisor on the island. This call was my interview. The interview went really well and the supervisor told me that he really wanted me down there and i took that to be a really good sign. But, this is where i ran into my first glitch, I had a little more that four years of experience and the job required five. I had two things going for me, they are short handed on the island and I have a license. The guy that interviewed me said that he would put the paperwork through and see what his supervisor says. About three weeks later I was eating lunch with my dad and he asked me if I had heard any thing about the job yet. I told him no and at that moment my phone rang, it was the human resource office for that company. They had offered me the job!!! I was really excited, i went told mom later that afternoon and her excitment surpassed my own. The next day i recieved a packet of papers that I was to read, fill out, fax in, and mail in. After that I was to have a physical and some drug test done. There office is the one that was to schedule the appointments. Weeks and weeks went by, nothing. I was starting to get impatient, maybe a little upset and finally I sent an email to a contact and asked what was going. I waited so long because i didn't want to be pushy. I got a respones saying that they were looking for a clinic in my area so that i didn't have to travel. So i responed saying that if I had to travel even a few hours that it was not a big deal. It is something that is a part of life when you live in a small town in New Mexico. About a week later I received all the information that was needed for the physical and blood test. This was the first big thing that has happened in two months and I was ready to get it over with.
I am not sure if you have noticed what has been missing from this story. A departure date. I still don't know when i leave. I have the job, I signed a contract for it, I got all the paperwork filled out, physical and blood work done and everything done the way it was requested of me. This is a process that started sometime in November and here is the middle of March and no one has told me when i get to leave and start working in my new tropical paradise. Almost everyday someone ask me when I am leaving. There are three words that I really don't like to hear my self say and they are, I don't know. I have spent some money on some cloths that should be more comfortable in the tropical environment and all they get to do is sit on a shelf in the closet.
That is the story of the long process that taking this new job is taking. All in all i can't wait to get started on this new adventure that will teach me more about life than i could every hope to learn by staying in a small town in NM. I am really looking forward to all the new experiences that will help me out later on in life and help shape me into the man that i want to be.