A Great Adventure for Bob and Naomi

Departed Honolulu early on the 26th and arrived the same day at Chuuk on the 27th? How's that - it's because we crossed the International Date Line...Bob had to continually change the time on his watch as we chased the setting sun west. I (Bob) just had to include this picture of an Alaskan licence plate on a car in Hawaii! Obviously someone made a wrong turn somewhere.! We arrived at the Honolulu airport around 5 am for our flight at 7:35 am and had no issues with checking in and off we went on what the locals call the Island Hopper. We did end up meeting our pilot and hsd an interesting conversation with him. Our first stop was to Majuro of the Marshall Islands. Most of these islands are usually atolls with a large lagoon in the center. The runways are usually very narrow man-made extensions on the shores of these islands so the pilots have minimal room for error as they fly in. Each stop took about 30 minutes to off load then onload new freight and passengers, which w...

It is 5:45 PM on Jan 25th and we have just arrived in our room on the 3rd floor at the Airport Honolulu Hotel. Our view outside our patio door window certainly would not be found in any promotional Hawaiian travel brochures! We have to keep in mind that it is just a quick overnight stop on our journey to Truk. This our first time in Hawaii but no time to explore, that will have to wait for our return leg of our trip. Think tonight will be a bite to eat then bed with an early wake up call. Our next leg leaving Hawaii will be island hopping through Micronesia until we finally reach our destination, Truk Lagoon!

Well it has been an adventure today just as we promised.  We boarded at the Calgary airport without a glitch.  Our landing was smooth at LAX but the rest not so much.  We simply went to the United desk to get our next boarding passes and were told we could not travel the route we planned via Shanghai.  The reason given was that they said we required a travel visa to enter their country ( Shanghai, China).  So, we quickly had our luggage removed from the plane....so relieved that worked and are now overnighting in Los Angeles. We have researched the policy and see that we could have done the trip under the 144 hour visa exception policy that is in place.  However, United Airlines rerouted us to Truk via Hawaii.  So, here we sit in LA having a nice dinner while in shorts contemplating a 6 hour flight tomorrow rather than the 13.5 hour flight we were booked for today.  We wil overnight in Hawaii tomorrow and than have an adventure island hoping to ...

Well here we are at the Calgary airport waiting for our flight to LAX which takes off at 7:35 am.  From there it will be a 13 hr 50 minute flight to Shanghai, China.  It was an interesting night at the hotel.  Bob went to climb into bed only to discover that the entire bed was wet....yuck!  Room change occurred and the new bed was wonderful.  Hope all our beds on this trip will be as nice but that will be unlikely.

Only 1 more sleep until we board the plane(s) and head for our first adventure.  Our days have been very busy with finalizing all the last minute details that must be taken care of before leaving for 2 and 1/2 months of sun, fun and we hope an adventure or two that we will never forget unless dementia is in our futures - who knows about that one. LOL. The preparation has been amazing and literally has taken us months from start to end.  The "to dos" have included things like finalizing the trip, ensuring all banking is done (not too tough a task for Naomi), cutting of keys for family and friends, arranging hair braiding ( for Naomi of course), refreshing on both diving and dive computers, packing and learning new technology (blogging).  We can finally say we are feeling ready and that's a good thing given we fly out on January 24th. So today we will leave you with a picture of what we look like before we get on the plane tomorrow morning.  Thought this would be f...

We are having technical challenges with blogging.  Please be patient with us as we learn "blogging" before we head out on our great adventure.

Time is ticking down now and we still have many things to finish up before we leave. We have been working diligently on upgrading our understanding of our previous dive training including diving on Nitrox Gas.  It's amazing how many things you pick up on a refresher...lots of good tips on how to be a good dive buddy! We have been using our Recreational Dive Planners like good students before an exam...soon we'll be under the ocean...just can't wait. We will be picking up some new dive equipment in Edmonton this Friday and are looking forward to our week at Truk Lagoon on the Odeyssey Dive boat.  We have to keep pinching ourselves as we realize that we are really doing this most amazing adventure!  That's the update for today as it is time to focus on accomplishing the lengthly "To Do" list.  See you soon on our blog.