Filed at 12:45 am under Diving by glennstu
Iakwe,
This week on Discovery is shark week, one of my favorite weeks of the year television wise. It sure has brought back lots of memories of my time on Roi and the great diving there. Tonight they had a show on the 10 deadliest sharks. Unfortunately I missed the first half of the show because 2 of the sharks on the list I dove with off Roi. Those were the white tip and the grey reef shark. I saw and swam with a number of those as well as nurse sharks and black tips while on Roi. There are tiger sharks there but I never saw one nor did anyone I can think of. But shortly before I arrived a tiger was caught either on Roi or Enniburr. My friend had its jaw. Watching all these shows is making me crave going diving again. Read more »
Filed at 7:54 pm under Travel by glennstu
Last night I watched the movie Letters from Iwo Jima which I quite enjoyed. By coincidence today my mother sent me some letters I had written to my family when I worked in Riyadh back in 1991. Though far removed from Roi-Namur I thought it might be interesting to see where this Roi Rat had worked in other over seas assignments. It is not unusual for Roi Rats to work in various places over seas. I’d say we were an adventurous lot. So this following letter was written on July 11, 1991. It was a predecessor to letters I would eventually write from Roi.
Dear Family and Friends,
Sorry for writing a group letter but I had intended to write individual letters and have never got around to it. Besides, I’d probably just write the same thing to everyone anyways.
On my way over here I came through Amsterdam, and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I found the Dutch to be a good humored people, though I haven’t figured out why they would laugh every time I spoke Nederlandes (Dutch) to them. My command of the language helped me to make friends. A few times it didn’t help, like when I would get on a Dutch plane I’d greet the flight attendant in Dutch. She would see my obvious Dutch features and see my Dutch name on my boarding past and would make the false assumption I was Dutch and then proceeded to rattle off a bunch of Nederlandes in reply. Although I speak Nederlandes, I barely understand a word of it. I assumed she was telling me where my seat was, though she could have been telling me I looked like a drowned rat[Foreshadowing of my future on Roi where I did look like a drowned rat at times] . When I went to England 4 years ago I felt like I was visiting somebody’s grandmother’s house. You know, old and stuffy with a bunch of antiques. Visiting the Netherlands seemed more like a Studevant reunion. The people looked like Studevants, they acted like Studevants, they drank beer like Studevants. What I enjoyed the most was visiting fishing villages on the Zuider Zee (South Sea), and a boat tour on the canals in Amsterdam. I found a picture of one of our ancestors that I’ll show you if you come to Seattle but I did not find any living Studevants. So much for the Netherlands. Read more »
Filed at 11:56 pm under Fishing by glennstu
Perhaps when I described the huge tuna that I caught off Airok folks may have had their doubts about the size of the fish I caught despite the photo I included. That’s fine. But let me tell you, this week I received some photos from former Roi resident Rob Corbin with actual untouched photos of fish he landed along with our friend Mike shown in the photos. Actually I do not know who caught which fish but let’s give the credit to Rob until I hear differently. If you recall from my post on July 26th of last year, Mike and Rob are dedicated fishermen who have made a science of this great sport. It has paid dividends as you can see from these photos. Read more »
Filed at 7:50 pm under Travel by glennstu
Aloha,
Today I watched the Pro Bowl in Hawaii and sighted a Kwaj. sign in the stands. I can recall guys going there for the Pro Bowl as the closest professional football game to Kwajalein atoll. I enjoy watching any sport called football, while my favorite is what I refer to as “real football” or what my country men usually refer to as soccer (short for association football), I grew up cheering for the Cleveland Browns and have always loved American rules football (where ironically you rarely use your feet and the guys that do are not respected by their teammates). So knowing I am about to enter a dead time in American football viewing I enjoyed the game itself but I also quite enjoy the shots of Hawaiian scenery and some of the unrelated stories about activities to do there. One sport that I was ignorant of before today is the ancient Hawaiian sport of paddle surfing. Read more »
Filed at 11:45 pm under Diving by glennstu
Posted February 1, 2008
“I swim like a fish in the sea all the time, if that’s what it takes to be free I don’t mind” – Toots Hibbert
Sunday mornings on Roi-Namur for me meant it was time to go diving. The local activity center provides Bayliner boats for fishing, diving, and other water activities. The Roi-Namur Dolphins SCUBA club has several buildings on the Lagoon side of the island near the marina where members can store their equipment. So my Sundays would start early, with a hearty breakfast skillfully prepared in the cafeteria. Next, I would load any equipment I had in my apartment onto the trailer on the back of my bike and ride down to the SCUBA shack as we termed it. There I would gather the rest of my equipment to be loaded onto the boat. You could comfortably fit 4 divers onto a boat and 5 if you needed to in a pinch. Four was optimum as you had 4 ways to split the rental cost but you weren’t too packed. So while the other guys got ready the day’s captain would head over to the marina and sign out the boat then steer it over to the SCUBA dock where the crew could load the boat. Today we would be heading towards Speedball, a favorite site due to the large school of sharks that frequent it. I think the site got its name because it is close to where in ancient times they would launch Speedball missiles from or something like that if my memory serves me well for a change. Read more »
Filed at 12:22 am under Island Life and Cultural by glennstu
Yokwe. Tonight I was sitting in the bar at Buffalo Wild Wings playing buzztime trivia with my friends. I was having a decent night having won one game and finished second or third in all the others and had a perfect game going into the last question when I heard a voice behind me talking to his buddy and mentioning that a basketball player had played at Kwaj. The average person would have minded his own business but then the average person does not go and live on a small tropical island for 3 years, so instead I turned around and asked the dude if he’d been to Kwaj. That might sound cheeky to you but there is a certain camaraderie amongst Kwaj and Roi survivors. As it turned out he had lived there approximately the same time as I did but perhaps a little before me but with some overlap. Naturally we discussed life there and common acquaintances etc. Turns out there is a reunion group here in Tucson and if you’re a part of it please contact me because I’d like to participate. I registered on some kind of Kwaj roll at some point or you can get a hold of me through this highly entertaining and informative blog site. But our mutual reminiscences brought to mind a story that a good friend of mine from Kwaj once told me. To protect his identity I’ll refer to him as Sam. Read more »
Filed at 5:18 pm under Island Life by glennstu
Posted 1/1/2008
The title is kind of a tease because I only know one Roi-Namur ghost story. There was a huge battle fought on Roi back during WWII. There were quite a few Japanese soldiers and a few American soldiers who lost their lives during the battle. Some of the more notable sites are signposted. You would think that with that many guys giving up the ghost some of the ghosts that got gave up would still be hanging around. So if you know of any good ghost stories or even some bad stories about ghosts on Roi or Enniburr please send them to me and I will add them to this blog.
OK here is my Roi ghost story. Read more »
Filed at 12:04 am under Island Life by glennstu
Well Christmas is almost upon us so I would like to thank all of my readers and wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Most likely your next question is, what is Christmas like on Roi-Namur. That is a very good question but it is one I cannot answer. I spent almost 3 years on Roi but never a Christmas on Roi. My first year there, 2002, I skipped off to the Philippines to visit a friend there. It was my first Christmas in a different culture but the Philippines is a Christian nation so they celebrate on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas Eve with my friend’s family and it was quite fun and there was a lot of celebrating going on around town. In sharp contrast, nothing at all was happening on Christmas day. Evidently they do not celebrate the actual day of Christmas in the Philippines. Read more »
Filed at 2:06 pm under Blogroll by glennstu
Posted 12/20/2007
The average Joe on Roi-Namur is not allowed to have a weapon. Nor is the average Eric, Matt, or Glenn. I mention those names because just about every man and maybe one or two women on Roi have one of those names. It makes it a little easier to remember names. There was one Glenn on Roi who was allowed a weapon, a Marshallese police officer known at the station as the “Real Glenn” as opposed to me who was generally known as 2NGlenn because of my neurotic insistence that my name be spelled correctly though I was also called “Off-road Glenn” by at least one guy for an incident on Pohnpei involving a chicken and a rent a car. But I digress, and for a good reason, the story I am about to tell you has virtually nothing to do with Roi-Namur other than the guy who told it to me once had a friend who lived on Roi (me).
My friend whom I will refer to as Russell told me over lunch today that his nephew recently passed the red neck test. Naturally, being a city born Yankee, I asked him how one passes a red neck test and Russell who is from east Texas related the following story. First he noted that one should always be concerned when a red neck asks you to hold his beer and you should be down right afraid, apprehensive, beside oneself, bothered, clutched, distracted, distraught, distressed, disturbed, fearful, fretful, frightened, hung up*, ill-at-ease, nervous, on edge*, overwrought, perturbed, solicitous, tense, tormented, troubled, uneasy, upset, uptight, worried stiff* if he follows that up with “watch this.” In his nephew’s case it turns out that at a recent routine doctor’s visit the doctor found a bee-bee lodged in his groin. This explained the very visible pain he was in but not how he entered that state. If I got the story right, the nephew had told his mother that he fell while out in the woods and a piece of metal had somehow broke off and stuck there. But it is difficult to explain the presence of a bee-bee. So he finally admitted the truth. His friends were using his belt buckle for target practice. I know cowboys wear large buckles but I can’t believe I could ever be comfortable with the idea of letting someone take pot shots at a belt I was wearing no matter how large the buckle. But I’m a Yankee and a bit of a coward and perfectly sober at the moment so perhaps all those factors make me look at it a bit differently. I am certain that if I did consent to allowing my belt to be used for target practice I would take it off first. Russell did not mention if his nephew had been drinking with Dick Cheney at the time.
Technorati Tags: target practice, red neck, Texas, Texan, gun, beer, belt, worried, Marshall Islands, Kwajalein, Roi, Roi-Namur, Micronesia, travel
Thanks to Thesaurus.com for the synonyms
Filed at 9:02 pm under Blogroll by glennstu
Posted 12/12/2007
Ask Mr. Rat
Most of my original stories of my life and adventures on Roi-Namur have already been published on this site so I decided to start a new feature. You the reader can ask me questions, preferably about life on Roi or there abouts, and I will answer them. I have already opened up my mail bag and here are some of my first questions.
Q: Mr. Rat, I am planning on retiring next year and am considering moving to Tucson. How can I find in-depth information on a variety of topics having to do with Tucson? - George W B of Washington, DC
A: I’m glad you asked me that George, if I want to know anything about Tucson, whether it would be golf courses, parks where I can walk my dog (if I had one), great restaurants, hiking or a variety of other subjects I go to www.tucsoncomplete.com.
Read more »
