Back again 24 hours later, so be.. We have now passed over the International Dateline where we have gained a day in time plus lost another couple of hours on the time adjustments. We have a long flight ahead to Majuro, Marshall Islands. Catching up on my sleep, I cat napped most of the way. For lunch we had a salad, small steak with rice and green beans and cheesecake for desert. Austin was watching a movie on the laptop, Sharon was dozing off and on. We started our descend into Majuro, the island at the widest spot is less than 3/8 of a mile wide, but very long, over 32 miles. There are a lot of small islands that have been interconnected by a small bridges, but there are still several islands that have not been connected. Since the plane didn't have room for our carry on's, they checked our luggage and would have to claim it once we arrived. But our pass ports were in there. Now what. On the approach to Majuro, the lagoon side and the beach side were so different. The lagoon side, calm as a sheet of glass, the sea side, pounding waves washing a shore. We flew right over a Japanese destroyer that had either beached or been destroyed back inWorld War 2, it was cut in half in about 3 feet of water. The rusty hull and the pieces all around it has been a landmark of the airport since 1945. The airport was not your typical airport, the control tower was probably the same one that was there during the war, old, wooded walk ways around it, a antenna on the roof and an a/c in the window. The runways was very long, about 2 miles. I'm sure it is the original runway that the army built back here in the 40's during the war. It was very wide since this was an active base during the war where fighter planes were stored here during the battles of Midway. Walking off the plane down the stairs, we had a short walk to the terminal. Again, I bet it was the original building used during the war. Once inside the terminal, you could tell this this airport was in need of a major renovations. There were no modern amenities here, just the open air. Even the Custom officals looked weathered. There was this old gruffy guy, looked like a street bumb who was in charge of the luggage carts, collecting $1.00 for each cart. They unloaded the luggage off the plane in the back of a pickup truck to bring it to the terminal. This was not going to be a speedy process by any means with 2 men and 1 pick up, what made it worst was that it wasn't even a full size truck. The weather was sunny and warm with a strong trade wind blowing in off the ocean. It took about 35 minutes for all the luggege to be unloaded. They actually drive the pick up into the terminal and back up and opened these wooded doors and there's the truck and men unloading. Security at this airport was not there at all. The RRE van was waiting for us when we went out side.

To Johnston Island

Johnston Island Atoll