Sandra, I must have been a little punchy when I wrote that last post. THANK YOU should have been in there. When we opened the card I gave the female bookmark to Wakana to use in her books. She took hers and mine too as well as the card. She wants to work up a little display to show them off. It's a Japanese thing, I guess. I know that every gift we give her parents gets displayed in front of the little temple cabinet in the living room (chanoma)

There are many words to describe the events of the last few days. Busy is one of them. Hectic is another. There are others that do not usually get posted in polite conversations. I've used a few of them recently. You쳌fll note that I use no names in the following narrative.

Let's start with Saturday. The canoe had to go to Umatac this weekend for the annual Discovery Day festivities. Since Discovery Day fell on Sunday a group decided they wanted to sail the canoe to Umatac with an overnight stop in Cetti Bay. So, we had to gather at Paseo to help get the canoe in the water... at 7:30 in the morning.

I woke to the alarm clock, not something I've had to do very often since I retired. After a quick breakfast I headed out for a little canoe lifting exercise. I was early. At least a half hour early. Two more members showed up, and a few more trickled in, and finally we decided we had enough to move the canoe.

I don쳌ft think I쳌fve mentioned it before but the canoe weighs somewhere between 1500 and 2000 pounds. It is 22 feet long and 18 feet wide with the outrigger. It is a huge assembly of heavy wood. It takes a mess of us to move it.

Now, the canoe sits in a paved, covered, courtyard in the Paseo Park recreation building. There are two massive iron gates and a ramp down to the street. We turn left at the bottom of the ramp and then we are on the one-way street. There is a stretch of about 20 yards down the street to where we make a right to get up on to the grass and move down near the water.

We knew it was going to be difficult to get the canoe into the water when we put it in the courtyard but we also planned to build a trailer for it. The trailer was finished while I was in Japan. Last Saturday was to be its second usage. I had expected us to have a boat trailer that we could slide down into the water and just float the boat off. What they built was essentially a large dolly. It has 8 wheels that cannot be soaked in water, especially salt water, and we still have to lift the boat on and off.

So, there we were, four of us and one person to stop traffic. We trundled the boat out of the courtyard and down the ramp. We started the turn at the bottom and that is where things began to go wrong. The front steering wheels jammed and then one broke off. We managed to get the turn completed and moved far enough down the street to where the 6 or 8 cars waiting for us could get past. Then we started the turn on to the grass. We got up over the curb, part way down the grass when another front wheel broke off. We cannibalized a wheel from the back end and got the beast all the way off the road.

Now we started the long wait. So far only one person who plans to go on the trip has actually showed up. They trickled in and we waited. We had to lift the boat off the trailer using blocks installed one at a time while everyone else lifted. Finally we could move the dolly but lo and behold! The blocks are in the way! I was grinding my teeth by now.

We managed to get the dolly out without dropping the boat on anyone and we managed to get the boat down to the ground. We were still waiting but I figured they had enough people to get the boat in the water and I headed out. Wakana is still a little weak and I like to keep an eye on her.

I heard about the rest of the fiasco later. There were to be four people going down on the Quest. Five showed up. Then another! And they all brought camping gear and drinks and food and stuff and put it all in the boat. By then the wind had picked up. You do see where this is going, don쳌ft you?

The story from the crew on the boat is that the fishing boat that towed them out pulled too hard and the tow line was too short. Maybe. But I bet the load had a lot to do with it. Anyway, they swamped the boat. The first wave came in over the bow and just filled her up. Equipment floated out and away while the crew thrashed around trying to catch it and save themselves. After a long bail and a lot of urgent swimming they got the boat back to shore and pulled out of the water. The only thing that wasn쳌ft soaked was the beer in the cans.

Sooo, next morning we had to assemble at Paseo to put the boat on a trailer. One of our members has access to a heavy duty trailer, such as you might use to carry small tractors and other earthmoving equipment. The plan was to slide the trailer in between the hull and the tam (pontoon) and set the boat on a pair of sturdy timbers run across the trailer.

I once more woke to the alarm clock, once more I ate a quick breakfast and kissed Wakana goodbye and once more I drove to Paseo. I decided to go a little slower and arrived half an hour late. Once more I was the first one there.

Others showed up and finally we had enough to lift the boat high enough to get the trailer under it. That was higher than our previous lift. We had quite a slew of blocks under that boat and I was worried about stability.

Now we needed the trailer. When that showed up we found that the jack for the front end had fallen off somewhere between the ITC building and the hospital road. Off we went to look for it. An hour later we gave up looking. The trailer fit well under the boat and we chained the timbers down. Then we set the boat down on the timbers and tied it off. We were finally ready for Umatac.

We had walkie-talkies for the trip down. The intent was to use cell phones but too many we still drying out from the previous day. We formed a convoy. I was in the lead car followed by the canoe and another vehicle behind that. Other members brought up the rear.

It is about 25 miles from Paseo to Umatac by road. It is some pretty country with lots of mountain views and plenty of ocean vistas, long ocean vistas, as seen from the top of the many hills we had to traverse, on the two lane road we had to use one and a half lanes of.

It was a slow trip. I kept to about 25 miles per hour which is 10 MPH under the legal speed limit and about half of what the locals do on that road. When the traffic backed up too much behind us we pulled over to let them pass. I had to stop for gas in Agat. We all stopped frequently to check the load.

There is a long sweeping downhill curve going into the village of Umatac. At the bottom you have to make a hard turn and then you are into the village. There is a Viet Nam War Memorial at the top of the hill and I suggested we stop there until we could reconnoiter the traffic situation in town. Unfortunately we sailed right on past it and headed down that hill. We carefully worked our way through the tiny streets and came out at the park, right into the middle of a full carnival with cars and pedestrians walking and children running, and dogs fornicating (they do that anywhere, everywhere, all the time). I pulled into the first available parking space and got out. I saw the boat go by me and head into the crowd. The driver has nerves of steel. He also drinks so I was worried that his nerves of steel might be the result of 쳌gDutch courage쳌h.

We got down to the beach and found trucks pulling jet-skis all over the place. They had a jet-ski race planned for 2:00. There was a roar of motors from across the road from a motocross race. A sound system blared out island music. The sun was unmerciful and to make matters worse the beach at Umatac is black sand.

Miraculously we got the truck through the crowd and down on to the beach. We unloaded the boat and moved the truck out of the way. We got the boat rigged and set up the coconut palm frond to lubricate the bottom for the slide into the water. Wakana showed up and brought me a couple of my favorite sandwiches, PBJs.

Now, back in the old days, i.e., longer than 5 years ago, Discovery Day was the celebration of Magellan쳌fs landing in 1521. Then Chamorro pride got caught up in it and they started pushing to make it a celebration of the first discoverers back 3500 years ago. Another faction of the Chamorros wanted to make it a reenactment of Magellan쳌fs visit, complete with the murder of the Chamorros and the burning of the village. To that end they erected small coconut huts to burn. These 3 factions exist in an uneasy truce. The locals of Umatac want Discovery Day to remain unchanged. We were there to help with the celebration of the first discoverers.

We were supposed to bring the canoe in from the sea and land bringing plants and tools to start a new life. Then two young Chamorros would greet us with a traditional chant and a dancing group would perform dances and chants. It was a very nice plan and, believe it or not, it all went pretty smoothly.

The winds were blowing in from the sea so we couldn쳌ft sail the canoe out into the harbor. We decided to let them paddle out with a tether line. When the time came to bring them in someone would pull while they paddled against the wind. I had a grand vision of coordinating a crew on a rope singing a chanty. Sigh, that wasn쳌ft to be. The motive power for the canoe turned out to be one person - me. The line was about 3/8th inch, maybe only 5/16th. It was heavy duty fishing twine, tarred and stiff and brand new, just right for cutting into the soft hands of an ex-office worker.

Things went as smoothly as they could go for an event that wasn쳌ft properly planned, had no leader and no rehearsal. I pulled the canoe ashore with the help of the paddlers. The people at the microphone delivered their speeches and chants, the dancers performed their little bits in their little bits of costumes, and then the performance was done. The whole time I was holding that canoe against the push of the wind. My hands and arms were shaking with the strain. I was glad to relinquish it to one of our other members when I got the chance. Actually it was, 쳌gHere, hold this for a minute쳌c쳌h and then I walked off.

By then I had soaked up a lot of sun. I had neglected my sun block so I knew I was burning. I could feel it on my arms. I was wearing a bandanna and a hat so I figured the burn on my arms and legs would be my only discomfort. We headed up for something to eat but I was also feeling unwell by then. The festival gave us free food for our participation. That was a plus. But sitting in the shade and getting down some food didn쳌ft help so I headed home.

I was glad I had been through all that. It made me feel pretty good to watch the Chamorros celebrating the beginning of their culture on Guam. I was where I belonged, on the sidelines, helping invisibly, while they brought some attention to their people. Many people on the island forget that there was a thriving culture here before the Spanish destroyed it. Reviving what they can has been an uphill battle, one they may not win considering their opposition. I don쳌ft mean that anyone is opposed to it but the opposition consists of the other distractions modern society provides to keep their kids from learning their own culture. Video games, TV, and especially beer, babies, and the Catholic Church have done a lot to make sure that people have just enough to get their work done to feed their growing families.

After the event in Umatac the canoe had to go to the University Of Guam for their annual Charter Day event on Tuesday. The Traditional Seafarers Society is ostensibly a college club though we have very few actual college members. It was started at UOG and is still affiliated with the school. It was at last year쳌fs event that Wakana saw the display and decided to come check out the canoe and we all know where that went.

Charter day was fun, lots of high school and middle school kids, food booths, displays from all the different departments, the military had a display set up to persuade young people to become a part of the machine.

Whew! That's a lot of narrative. I'm not sure I got across the frustration of the whole thing. It쳌fs been an interesting week considering that it was the first back in Guam. Oh, and the sunburn. I wore a hat and a bandanna and still managed to burn the top of my head and my face and neck. My arms are burned too. My legs look as if they have never seen the sun! Why can쳌ft the rest of me be like that?

And it is official. I went to the doctor the other day and he weighed me. Since last September I have lost 33 pounds. I think the majority of that came off in Japan.