Camping

Friday the 13th, it is a good thing that I am not superstitious, because if I was…well this weekend would have been really interesting. We went camping this weekend…not to Ant like we were going to, but to some tiny island that was closer to shore…I don’t know the true name and I can’t decide if it should be named Crab Island or Mosquito Island. There were tons of Mosquitoes on that island...like Friday night I got bitten so many times…and I was using that bug repellant that the travel health people say is really good and that the military uses it (although it didn’t do much good, they were hungry little buggers and didn’t seem to care that we had poison on us…I didn’t count my mosquito bites but I think I have over 50 bites.) I think that those travel health people should try out that bug repellant sometime and go sit on a bug infested island and see how they like it. There were also tons of crabs that were climbing around, on the trees, on the hut we were sleeping under, all over the ground…in the water…big crabs, little crabs, hermit crabs, red crabs, green crabs, black crabs…yep they were everywhere…and their holes were dotted everywhere…and those holes were huge!
Now on Friday it was the high school picnic…and they took 7th and 8th grade to one island and the high school to a smaller island. The plan was that the staff would stay on the islands that they were assigned to and then we would come and pick them up and take them to the island where the 7th and 8th graders were. Now those elementary teachers were to pack our stuff and then leave the campus no later then 5pm…because then we would be going to the island in the dark (not good) So we were all ready by like 3:30 and we went out to wait for the trucks to come back…which was fun and all, soon Nolie I actually don’t know how to spell his name) was back with the piece of junk dump truck and the other yellow truck was in tow…now the yellow truck had a flat tire and they needed to change it. Which was the funny part…they have a whole bunch of used tires in a pile by the garage door…and Nolie and Cabel were picking each one up and looking it over and discussing which one to use and what was wrong with the others…Marla and I were sitting on the red truck and watching this with great interest, all of those tires were balled, they all looked just as bad. Cabel was holding a tire and Nolie showed him another one and was like “This one is good…except for this” and showed something that was a matter with the tire…Cabel took one look at it and decided “this tire will do…” ‘This tire’ referring to the tire he had in his hand. So Nolie left the other tire in the stack and they went to change the flat tire. Now in a island that has lots of rain you would think that having traction would be a good thing…but to tell ya the truth I have yet to see where they can get new tires…there are plenty of used tires to go around…and I don’t even want to think of how much it must cost to get tires shipped to them.
So since we had to wait for the tire to be changed…we didn’t leave at the correct time, actually we didn’t leave until like 5:30 which is a big problem since we had a 45 minute drive ahead of us and well the sun sets at 6:30. We loaded all of our stuff into the yellow truck…and most of us got to ride in the little blue dump truck…which is like rusted through in many places and with Nolie driving and trying to make up time (he is a very fast driver…and if you are not holding on you will probably fly off the truck on turns or over bumps) But needless to say I think we got there in like 35 minutes. So once there we had to unload and reload things into the boats and then pile in…by that time it was dark and it is very interesting to find ones way in the dark over dark ocean in a little fishing boat that has no lights…Well that was until Mark brought out his heavy duty flash light that he uses for spear fishing. Then Mikey used the light to try and find the little green and red markers…which happen to tell you were the coral is and where it is safe to be going so that you do not crash your boat. Now Mikey would flash the flash light around looking for those markers, since by now it was quite dark trying to find where on earth those markers were…he located the red marker…but couldn’t find the green one…because instead of being sensible and putting little green and red lights on top of these markers…they just put little reflective panels on the signs and well they are hard to find. I don’t know much about boats or driving them, but hearing Mikey saying over and over “where are they?” or “where is it?” and flashing the light about over the water in search for them and then having Cabel yelling out every once in the while “Coral” just didn’t give that safe feeling…when you know that you are basically floating in a tub and that it would only take a medium size piece of coral or a rather nice wave…to do some damage to the boat. And then thinking about what might be under the dark waves…that might like to eat you…well you try not to think about it…and joke about other things as we all look for the markers…and we did find the markers...and as Mikey suspected we were on the wrong side…in fact we were smack dab in the middle of the coral reef…which was o.k. cause it was high tide, but not ideal. Actually all the way to the first island to pick up the high school teachers we were on the wrong side of the markers.
Once we got the high school teachers we headed off to the island where Becky and Rusty had been left to wait for us. We bounced around looking for the markers…some we found and others we missed…we would locate Mr. B in his boat and then search around for the markers…I think that we only found one set to go through that was correct…the rest of the time we were bouncing over Coral. But the sky was beautiful, the stars here are amazing, we all just sat on the boat and looked up at the sky and watched the stars and got really excited when we say an airplane…cause there is only like one plane that comes through here per day and just too see a plane flying through the night sky is just awesome. Cause you are kinda like “People!” which is an exciting thought…people that are probably heading to like Hawaii where there are stores and fast food and other good things like that…
When we got to the island, the first thing we saw was how flat and long it was and that Becky and Rusty were just waiting for us and so happy to see us. They thought that we weren’t coming and that we were just going to leave them there…The next thing was when we were out of the boat, was that there were lots of crabs…actually Maggie discovered that…a crab crawled onto her foot. There was really only one good place to set up hammocks…it was under the shack like thing…In the end we had six hammocks strung up and two people sleeping on the floor. Marla and I ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then ate some popcorn…drank some water and then sat in our hammocks…cause we couldn’t sleep and well since we couldn’t we sat and talked and ask each other questions…in all I think I got about 3 hours of sleep…I just lay in my hammock listening to crabs walk around underneath me or fall out of the trees and land on the ground or the top of the shack like thing we slept under. Very entertaining.
When Saturday morning finally came, Marla and decided that we should go exploring…there was a path and we wanted to find out where it went. I should mention that the island that we camped on had been used during WWII, now I don’t know which side had the island of Pohnpei and it’s outer islands, but there were old bunkers, and a water tower thing, and even some old and very rusted gun mount things…they were circular…and I would have said that it looked like part of a submarine if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a cement block (very broken mind you) a few feet away…with the circular imprint on it…so that is where that circular thing came from…I told Marla…well it is obvious that this thing got hit…(considering the first half of the circle was about 15 feet from the concrete structure…which now had a coconut tree growing out of it…and 10 feet from that were some random rings…and about 25 feet from that was the hatch to the circular gun thing) and that totally had to suck for the guys stuck in that bunker…that is if there was anyone inside of it. There were smashed and broken bunker type structures all over the island…either the war or the ocean hasn’t been very nice to it over the years.
Anyway on our first excursion we found a lot of mangrove trees and swamps (hence the presence of mosquitoes) and crab holes and crabs. We found this weird plant that looked like a pineapple bush, except in tree form, but we were told that it wasn’t by someone else…so who knows. We found this little beach and wandered around on it…we found sand dollars and really cool shells…the sand dollars were everywhere…very cool. Then we walked back to our camp site and dumped off our shells ate another sandwich and headed off in the other direction. Which was slower going cause we had to walk in really wet sand and that is where we found the wrecked gun thing or whatever it really was…kinda hard to tell after all of these years. We walked around the island until we could go no farther and then we looked at a island not too far away, I wanted to jump on the sandbar rounds to get to the other side…Marla didn’t want to, but when we found Becky she said that she would…and so we went exploring…we hopped across the little channel in between the two islands and explored that small island…we found sand that was like quick sand…it sucked our feet in and we were feeling like we would never get out. After that adventure we walked around the island until the mangrove forest kept us from going on…then we trudged through the forest and Becky had me lead…I don’t think that she liked the all the spider webs…I got them all…but the forest was really cool. The entire time we were out there I had forgotten to put on sunscreen and I was so I am now a tiny bit on the red side…oh well…I haven’t really been in the sun for the last 3 weeks…so this isn’t bad.
After our adventure Becky and I were really hot and we wanted to swim, the tide hadn’t come in all the way yet and we were really wanted to just jump in. But when we got there we found out that the water was rather on the murky side…and that you couldn’t see more then like 6 inches at a time…and I had see a lot of shark fins just a cruising around and knowing that they are there when you looking out of the water, but are unable to see them underwater is rather unnerving don’t you think? So I voted on not getting in the water…Becky did, but she was out of the water just as quick…not really in the mood to be eaten. I went back to the hut and slept for about 2 hours…I was rather tired, after I awoke I found out that a group had gone back to the school…we had wanted to go back cause we had a lot to get done Sunday, with grades being due and all. But the feeling that you are going to be stuck on an island for another night is actually not a very nice one. Then Marla started to get really sick, she has a weird disease of the intestines and she didn’t have enough medicine with her…and she was in a lot of pain…we knew that as soon as Mr. B got back he was going to have to go out again and take us back to the shore. I hate waiting and we waited all afternoon, and Marla got worse and worse…no one can really understand the pain, I mean unless you have the disease. But around like 6:30 they came…and by then it was really dark and Mr. B said that it was alright that we had to go back; Raymond was going to drive us back from the drop off (he had punctured his foot with a rather sharp piece of dead coral, so he needed to go back too).
I still don’t know how Mr. B does it…he knows the water like the back of his hand…he was going at full throttle the entire time and we can’t see a thing! Except a great amount of blackness, that didn’t change much on the trip back. But when we got back to campus we were all able to take hot showers, Marla was able to get medicine (she didn’t have to go to the hospital), we got to eat salad, spaghetti, and this fruit called sour sop. Sounds gross, but is very good in a very messy way. So we were very happy SM’s, we were warm, full of good food, away from mosquitoes and crabs and content to just sit. So really that part of the weekend was good…it is now Sunday afternoon and I need to get busy.