Our time at Wake Island ended on Sunday March 27, Wake Island time. I signed up for the tour of the island to go back and see it again. I took the small boat ashore and waited for others to arrive before the tour started. The guide was an Air Force Master Sergeant who is stationed on Wake and been there for three months.
The sightseeing on Wake Island lasted about an hour. We stopped first at POW Rock in which an unknown American civilian POW carved the words POW and a date (05-10-43) on a rock by the beach. I wonder what went through this person’s head when it was carved and it appears this person wanted to leave something behind that was to last. After POW Rock we saw park slots along the runway built by civilian POWs to park Japanese aircraft stationed on Wake on our way to our next destination. We stopped at the air terminal which was a familiar site for me. I got my passport stamped with a huge Wake Island “visa” and bought T-shirts and a hat for the kids and grandkids. Time was short so I did not get to see the memorials behind the abandoned chapel (which is to be the future home of the famous Wake Island WWII museum) that were dedicated to Americans, Guamanians and Japanese.
After the stop at the air terminal the Master Sergeant took us to “downtown” Wake Island where the workers and active duty military personnel lived. It looked similar to what I saw on Midway but to a smaller extent. Many of the older buildings from the times I stopped at Wake Island years ago either were damaged by a typhoon and never repaired or just collapsed due to age and allowed nature to reclaim the land. When the tour was over we boarded the small boats and returned to the ship. It was nice to set foot on solid land for a few hours before making the six day transit to Saipan from Wake Island.
We left Wake Island Sunday evening and as I did many times in my sailings with NOAA, looked back at the island as we left. For places like Wake, Saipan, Guam, Palmyra and American Samoa it is every two years we return to these places. We should arrive in Saipan Saturday afternoon. We will be there for about four days. I will take it easy and catch up on some projects that took a little more time than I thought and off time, well I think I will go out a bit and enjoy the island, say a prayer at the cliffs and return to the comfort of my stateroom and read the books I brought.
There are three types of islands in the tropics. There are atolls which are coral reefs that look like a desert scene in the Great Basin surrounded by water such as Midway, Wake and Kwajalein. Others include actual desert islands such as the Galapagos that looks like a desert scene in Arizona surrounded by water and then your lush tropical forests with waterfalls and olive skinned women with long colorful lava lavas and flowers in their black hair.
Goodnight from Central Pacific almost halfway between Wake Island and Saipan.
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