Well, Friday was a much overdue update, and I promised to upload pictures when I wrote that. I had to resize, crop, fix, and adjust these, and weed out some of the real stinkers. I accomplished all this sitting at my new favorite coffee place, Farley's Coffee Shop up in Potrero district on 18th street in San Francisco. Good coffee, good magazine selection, and free WiFi! Anyway, I decided to spend the early part of my Sunday morning working on this. Later I intend to roam down to Best Buy and buy a new digital camera. Due to the wear and tear of roaming on the world on a few patrols, my camera has decided to stop working properly. Which explains why a handful of the photos in this update aren't the highest of quality because they were taken with my cell phone. The battery bay on my camera is busted and won't close properly, so it keeps reporting that the batteries are drained. I made futile efforts to repair it for about an hour last night with my leatherman, but to no avail. So, it's time to upgrade to a nicer camera. After reading several reviews, taking the advice from a few camera geeks, and hours of web browsing, I've narrowed it down to the Canon Powershot SD780. A very nice, very compact, little digital camera. So hopefully future updates will have better quality pics.
I guess I'll start with the pictures from my last patrol through District 14. I should have updated on this earlier as I would've had more things to say about it as it was fresh in my mind. This was a very fast paced, or “high op tempo” patrol. Everyone was very busy most of the time, but I usually don't talk about the patrol part of my job, I like to talk about the port calls. We only had two port calls, but I really enjoyed both of them. We stopped at American Samoa, and Western Samoa. Stifling hot, to the point I had to wear gym clothes the entire time to feel somewhat normal. Stunningly beautiful scenery. But the best part of these two port calls were the people. Samoans are probably the kindest, friendliest, most hospitable people I've met on any port call or travel. Everyone we met was very friendly and greeted us with open arms. They would bend over backwards to make you feel welcome and to help you out if you were in need. I would walk down the street and get waves and smiles and greetings.
I think it may have been something to do with my tattoos though. About every other person I walked by, they would come up to me and have to touch a tattoo on my arm and tell me how much they liked my tattoos. I'm not sure what meaning tattoos have in their culture, and I can't say that I saw many people with tattoos there, but they drew a lot of stares and comments. With the amount of attention they got, I would've expected to see more tattoo parlors there, but I only saw one between the two islands.
Aside from the friendly people, their like of tattoos, the wonderful local beer I fell in love with (Vailima), both islands had stunning scenery. I tried to capture a decent amount of photos of it, and I spent many several hours on foot. While on Western Samoa I actually walked for about 12 hours straight and walked to the other side of the island. It was Sunday so everything was closed except for the McDonalds. Western Samoa is very religious (Latter Day Saints seems to be the religion of choice there), and I would see a church about every 2 blocks packed to the doors with people. When I walked by one of them when church was letting out, about 50 people had to walk by and touch my arm and tell me they liked my tattoo (the celtic cross in particular). I was invited into homes, to BBQs, to sermons, and to church potlucks, but I politely declined as I wanted to continue on my journey and see as much of the island as possible.
There's much more I could write on these two islands, but I don't want to get too long winded and bore the readers. I've actually earned a bit of a reputation onboard as a walking “Trip Advisor”. I'll spend about two days in a place and have all the roads memorized, the best shops and restaraunts memorized, and can usually give a pretty good tour of the town. Here are a mixture of pictures from my journeys there.
Next up is my current “home”, San Francisco. I've been here since March and will be here for a while longer as they're affecting repairs on the ship. I've always enjoyed this town, but have only had a day or two to adventure around. This stop has afforded me months to venture around and really enjoy the city and its sites. I've become a regular Trip Advisor for this place too during my stay. I've walked up and down, left and right, almost every street in the downtown area. Including Oakland and Alameda. I'm really glad we're moving nearby up in Petaluma. Close proximity to such an interesting area will give us plenty to do during the weekends if we just feel like taking a 30 minute drive down for some food, shopping, and tourism.
I've had fun here, but I'm ready for my transfer to take place so we can get settled in up in Petaluma and I can start my new job. I always stress out during the move, and when I start my new job, but after the transition is over, I'm sure I'll be happy. And then we can start planning the wedding.
Here are some of the photos from my solo adventures around San Fran. I've had the weekends off and a few hours every afternoon to go roaming around. I still have to make it down to M5 Industries to try and catch a peek of the Mythbusters. Maybe if the rain breaks today I'll make it down there with my new camera.
The best part of my time here was when Maria and I took a little bit of a vacation. I flew over to Hawaii for a week to relax, and then Maria and I both flew over to spend some time in San Francisco, visit Monterey for a bit, and check out Petaluma for some house hunting. There were some bumps in the road on the trip between a horrible overnight flight, difficulties checking into the room, my IDs expiring, problems renting a car, and just plain fatigue. But once we got past those, we had a good time. I'll remember to make sure my IDs don't expire next time and that I never schedule another red eye flight. This is the first time I've “planned” a vacation. It's usually me pulling in on a boat, finding a cheap motel with a bar downstairs, and just playing everything by ear. Live and learn.
Here are a few of the photos from our touring San Francisco, and a few shots of us goofing around in Monterey. We didn't really take any photos in Petaluma as we didn't really do anything touristy there. It was more of a fact finding trip and house hunting.
That's it for now! I'm sure I'll have more pictures once I start to play with my new camera.
