Day: August 22, 2006

Just before we left on our China trip, I had the opportunity to take an aerial tour of our island, courtesy of the Navy.
The purpose of the trip was three fold, to do a re-enlistment, announce an Airman’s promotion and as a going away trip for the office (since I am moving next week). I think we were pretty successful in all three areas. 🙂
Here we are ready to go…

First order of business was to re-enlist Raven. Here is Col Westa administering the Oath of Office (in front of Tanguisson Beach, for your reference).

The is Raven reciting the Oath.


Here is JR (Raven’s husband) is inspecting the flag to make sure it’s ok still.

Just South of Tanguisson is Tumon Bay, with it’s tourist packed beaches and scenic hotels. This is the Hilton Resort.

Here is one of the wedding chapels that cater to tourists who come to Guam to get married (mostly from Japan).


After only a moment, we rounded the point and came to our Agana Bay (if you look close you can see our condo in this picture, directly behind Alupat Island).

Here’s a better view of our place.

This is a good perspective to see the way jet skis are used here. It’s all about follow the leader with one jet ski wrangler out there to corral everyone and make sure there’s no passing… (he’s armed with a whistle and not afraid to use it!)

Follow the leader, round and round in circles…

The hard coral here can be very pretty.

Since Guam is a bit isolated from pretty much everywhere, just about everything comes in containers like these.

Here we are rounding the corner on Orote Point.

This is looking down on Spanish Steps (as you may recall, this is one of our favorite snorkeling spots).

The water is such a nice shade of blue since the water is quite deep here.

This is the Navy housing that could have a great view, if it were flat ground out to the sea…

Marine Corps drive goes right by the ocean in many places.

A view from down south looking north into Hagåtña and the surrounding villages.

I’ll let you guess who this is.

As we circled the south, we went inland to get a better view of a few of the numerous waterfalls in the area. Here are a few that we found.



The mountains look very pretty from high above them. Of course, down in the jungles, the perspective is a little different.

As headed down to the extreme southern end of the island, we went out past Cocos Island (as you can see in these next 2 pictures).


It was surprising to me that we could see animals so clearly in the water. We found a black tip reef shark and a sea turtle as they went about their day. Unfortunately, the were on the other side of the aircraft from me, so I didn’t get any good pictures, but it was cool to watch, nonetheless.
Now, this is up on the east side of the island (by Pagat Cliff). You can see Mangilao Golf Course in the background.


Another picture of Raven enjoying her flight.

After about an hour and a half, we arrived back to the base. This is everyone as they got out.

I know you can’t really tell, but this is me in the foreground.

Here is Raven and Tammy. On the flight, we surprised Tammy with an embroidered number. The significance of that number is that it is her line number for promotion. It took a few moments for the importance of the number to sink in, but when it did, she was SO excited. We were all happy for her, as she richly deserves the recognition.

Col Westa with the 2 other women. It was my first flight with the Navy and it was a great one. I really enjoyed seeing the island from the air. A fitting way to bring our experience on Guam to a close.
Until the next adventure…
–Jim