Guam (USA)

Still broken - no repair in sight. This could be a long visit... Had a lot of coordinating to do before I got to go anywhere, so really didn't see much of the Pacific Islands Club today. I laid out under an umbrella near the pool and relaxed for a few hours before Thor told me he had a vehicle! Around 1600, we left Tumon Bay and drove south to the tip of Guam. Along the way, we saw the landing site where Magellan discovered the island in 1521, some old forts and great beaches - the ocean comes right up to the road in some places. Just before sunset, we saw a sign for "Jeff's Pirates Cove" and pulled over at the first real sign of tourism/food in quite a while. It turns out that a Japanese soldier, Shoichi Yokoi, surrendered to the local people here in 1972 - 28 years after the war ended! He was living in the mountains nearby and finally decided the war was over... He was a local celebrity and bar favorite (when he visited from Japan) until his death in the 1990s. We went in to look at the souvenirs and saw there was a bar. We were just planning to have a drink but we ended up talking with some of the other customers (semi-locals). Since they were in the same line of work, we chatted for awhile and they told us to stick around for Jeff's 60th Birthday Party - it was today! We felt a little uncomfortable at first, but by the time everyone was singing "Happy Birthday" we were invited to partake in free beer and lobster! Some of the employees wondered who we were, I think (remember the movie "Wedding Crashers"?), but we stuck by our new "friends" and made more acquaintances - including Jeff. It turns out he is from Buzzard's Bay - only a few miles from where I grew up. He had some other friends from Cape Cod in attendance, and I had an interesting chat with one of them - he was an aquacultural engineer (growing coral reefs, planting fisheries, etc.) who works all over the South Pacific (very interesting). Thor wasn't feeling well, so we took our leave around 2000. Spent the rest of the night trying to coordinate our return mission (no luck - not sure when help will arrive). We may have to go back to Japan to get fixed, ultimately...