It's been a while since we've taken a trip which I thought worthy of taking the time to create a web page for.  This is one trip for which I'll take the time.

    We've taken four cruises in 2002 starting with Egypt and the Nile River, then the Mississippi River paddlewheel cruise from St. Louis to New Orleans, and a Caribbean cruise down to central Mexico and the Mayan Ruins.  The Mississippi was far and away the most interesting, best entertainment, best shore excursions, and the trip I would most recommend.  However making a web page didn't seem quite the thing to do.  Everybody has seen the Mississippi, New Orleans and the South and heard all the Civil War stories.

    So getting back to the South Pacific.  This cruise was specifically designed for World War 2 Veterans who were involved with the War in the Pacific.  The few of us, and there were very few, who weren't involved were a little left out of the picture and a tad bored.  There were many days at sea with nothing to do.  I sat in the room or on the balcony, reading, doing cross stitch, or crossword puzzles, and Shirley watched movies on the television.  However when we got to one of the islands that everyone has heard of, and very few people have seen, the reward was worth the wait.

    The map below is self explanatory.  You can see how far it was between stops.  Guadalcanal was below the equator.  The weather was mostly hot and occasionally very hot.

Midway today is mostly a bird sanctuary, with about 20 people living on the island.  Until the first of this year there was a company offering tours and accommodations for weeklong guests with a couple of flights in from Hawaii each week.  That's all dried up.  Now only a few Department of the Interior folks live on the Island.  The Department flew in a number of people from Hawaii just to accommodate the influx of sixteen hundred people from our ship, for the one day visit.

    The One token palm tree on Midway.  The trees to the left of the palm tree are an introduced iron wood tree.  They are leaving them there because some native birds are using them for nesting sites, and of course the famous Goony Bird (Albatross).  We were there the wrong time of the year to see them.

    From Midway our next stop, five days later or maybe it was six, we arrived in the Marshall Islands and the Island of Majuro.  I walked around a bit took a few pictures while Shirley took a bus ride, but it was so hot and muggy that I went back to the ship as quickly as I could.  It is a very small island, less than a half a mile wide and a few miles long, and the islanders didn't seem to have anywhere else to put there solid waste except on the street or in their front yards.

    Here is some left over war debris and a couple of pictures of the town.

    Then another five days at sea where the Princess people tried to sell jewelry, watches, ceramics, tee shirts and any number of other items.  Bored people had nothing else to do but shop and buy, and they did, buy that is.  Guadalcanal was a bit of a disappointment because we were unable to go ashore.  They had had some sort of State Department warning and the Princess people were playing it safe.  So this is all you get of Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands, a few pictures from the ship.

    The first picture shows Henderson Field it's that little green patch just to the right of center in the first picture.  Then a couple of photos taken through the binoculars.

   This picture shows some war debris.  There was a great deal more of it but it was hard to take pictures

from a mile off shore.

    Well after maybe ten days we finally were able to get off the ship and treated to the beautiful island of Guam, a U.S. possession.  Although hot and the tours badly organized (let me rephrase that to very badly organized), it is a very delightful place to visit.

  Lovers leap is the first and second photo, you can see the very clear water along the shore in the photo.

Then on the other side of the island the beautiful lagoons.  Then trying to get back to the boat, to have lunch and catch the afternoon tour, our bus failed and if it hadn't been for one of the passengers being a diesel mechanic we would still be sitting there.

We did get back in time to just catch the afternoon tour witch included Laddie Park where there were some Japanese caves left over from the war, and the War Memorial where all the names, and there were thousands, were listed of those who were killed in the invasion of Guam.