You have decided to come to Kwajalein, now you need to know what to bring. This is purely a subjective ideal. The short answer is, if you can't live without it, bring it. The long answer is more detailed. It is difficult to get some items here. You will find once you move to Kwaj, as we all call it here, there are limited locations to shop. We do have a grocery store, a convenience store, a very small post exchange, a couple specialty stores for shopping for trinkets and items from the Marshall Islands and some other outlying islands, a dive shop, Burger King, Subway, soon to have a Domino's Pizza (rumored), a local dinner and a post office.
The grocery store, Surfway, has many of the items you usually buy from the grocery store in one option. Meaning if you want re-fried beans there is one type to select from. We receive fresh fruits and vegetables once a week from Honolulu via air plane and all other items come in frozen, canned or dry packed via barge.
The post exchange is not like going to Walmart or Sears to buy items you need or want. They usually stock some items like bikes (your main mode of transportation here), tires, tubes, some TV's, dishes (again not much selection), cookware, occasionally it'll have laptops and cameras. These are items that come in once in while, but because of limited space isn't often and certainly not top of the line. This is not something to truly fret about as most of us on island have become professional online shoppers. Amazon and Walmart.com are your best friends here. Packages below 70 lbs. usually take two weeks to get here. Sometimes shorter and sometimes much longer. It all depends on the flight schedules.
The post office receives mail twice a week, usually. They are fairly reliable but there are some reasons why the planes can't fly in and out, like weather, plane condition and sometimes just not enough reason to fly out of Hawaii.
The United flights have many of the same reasons for not making their flights out to the island too. United is the only airline that regularly flies in and out of Kwaj. The flights are expensive, inconvenient and your only means of leaving when you need to make an exit for a short trip home. That being said if you are a military retiree you can fly the military transports or contractor flights on a Space Available basis.
If you are a drinker, that is one thing this island has aplenty. There are two fully stocked bars on island and a class 6 that never runs dry.
However, if you are soda drinker and have a certain type of soda you like, get used to Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Sprite, Mt. Dew and Dr. Pepper. That is about the extent of it. A lot of times you can go a couple months without any diet soda at all. I'm an avid Diet Mt. Dew drinker and they will do special orders to get it here, but because it comes in by barge it usually takes about three months.
Because everything comes by barge, except fresh produce and mail (anything under 70 lbs.) it usually takes about three months to receive it. So as I stated before, if you can't live without it, bring it with you.
The moral to this story is living on a tropical paradise is a wonderful opportunity. You just have to learn to live on "Island Time". That means you cannot be impatient about getting what you want when you want it. All in good time.
Friday, September 4, 2015
First day of school 2015
Well everyone is back in school and the youngest are now in preschool. I guess it's bitter sweet. You want to have some time to yourself, but the babies are growing up too fast.
Why can't they be like this all the time. Loving and fun.
Why can't they be like this all the time. Loving and fun.
Been a long time...
Well it has been a long time since I have written in this blog. We have been here for a little over two years now and we have had an amazing time living on this tropical paradise. There have been some growing pains with living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (I will get into those later.)
Since we have been here, we have gone swimming more times than I can count. My oldest daughter has become scuba certified, Hillary and I are already certified, and I have accumulated almost 100 dives. I will try to post some pictures of the adventures we have had so far.
The diving on this island is unreal. I leave work at 4:30 and I'm in the water by 5:00 - 5:15. We have a number of amazing coral heads and wrecks to explore. If you are a diver, surfer, snorkeler, fisherman, boater, or even just a sit on the beach kind of person, then this is the place for you.
I'm still in awe of the beauty that I get to see on a daily basis.
Even on days like today, just as I'm getting ready to walk out the door to take my kids to school, the rain start pouring down (when I say pouring, I mean raining so hard I can't see the other side of the road 20 ft. away). The best way to handle that situation is to put on my Frogg Toggs rain suit and head out the door. The rain suit is an essential part of living on a tropical island. It's tropical for a reason. What a beautiful experience. Can't get that in Arizona!
Since we have been here, we have gone swimming more times than I can count. My oldest daughter has become scuba certified, Hillary and I are already certified, and I have accumulated almost 100 dives. I will try to post some pictures of the adventures we have had so far.
The diving on this island is unreal. I leave work at 4:30 and I'm in the water by 5:00 - 5:15. We have a number of amazing coral heads and wrecks to explore. If you are a diver, surfer, snorkeler, fisherman, boater, or even just a sit on the beach kind of person, then this is the place for you.
I'm still in awe of the beauty that I get to see on a daily basis.
Even on days like today, just as I'm getting ready to walk out the door to take my kids to school, the rain start pouring down (when I say pouring, I mean raining so hard I can't see the other side of the road 20 ft. away). The best way to handle that situation is to put on my Frogg Toggs rain suit and head out the door. The rain suit is an essential part of living on a tropical island. It's tropical for a reason. What a beautiful experience. Can't get that in Arizona!
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Day 2 / 3
19 Jun 2013 0100 HST (What the ...)
We barely got to sleep when that damn phone rang to wake us up so we could make it to Hickham, AFB for our second leg of the trip. So we lug our 30 pieces of luggage back down stairs to the lobby and our five kids. Yeah that's right, 10 trips back and forth. Then arrives two taxis, or should I say, douche mobiles. The taxi driver starts complaining to me about me being two minutes late after I just lugged my family and 30 pieces of luggage down 100 yards of hallway and elevator in his broken Japanese-English. His customer service of course made me really happy. To top it all off I had to pay each of the drivers an extra $10 for the extra baggage we had. Needless to say, I will not be using a douche mobile service in Hawaii ever again.
We arrive at Hickham. Now begins the fun process of checking our 30 pieces of luggage to Kwajalein. I had to load each of the pieces on the X-Ray scanner, which of course broke after the first bag (go military equipment). Then after it broke they had to search each piece of luggage individually. That ended up being the best part of the trip. The Airmen, were freaking hilarious. We had a good time joking with them about the military and how much they pay for junk.
Loading time... At 0530, we were supposed to leave at 0520, we began loading the C17 cargo plane. That's right, we travel in style! Nothing like sitting in jump seats in the same area with all your luggage, mail for the entire island and "fresh" fruits and vegetables from Hawaii. To top it off the one of the airmen start handing out ear plugs for everyone to wear. This was a real eye opener to my wife, who has never been on a military fight.
Take off... 0630, we finally take off. The plane begins it's taxi down the runway. After the plane takes off and reaches altitude a guy in the incredibly full plane (14 people, not including the crew) pulls out his sleeping mat and lays down on the ground. I think to myself, this might actually be a pretty great flight.
After about an hour on the plane we decide to let the babies out of their seats to walk around on the plane. This fight was about the greatest part of our travels. The babies cried and screamed and no one could hear them. I recommend all flights with children be done on a C17.
(running out of nickels for the internet... will finish story in the morning.)
We barely got to sleep when that damn phone rang to wake us up so we could make it to Hickham, AFB for our second leg of the trip. So we lug our 30 pieces of luggage back down stairs to the lobby and our five kids. Yeah that's right, 10 trips back and forth. Then arrives two taxis, or should I say, douche mobiles. The taxi driver starts complaining to me about me being two minutes late after I just lugged my family and 30 pieces of luggage down 100 yards of hallway and elevator in his broken Japanese-English. His customer service of course made me really happy. To top it all off I had to pay each of the drivers an extra $10 for the extra baggage we had. Needless to say, I will not be using a douche mobile service in Hawaii ever again.
We arrive at Hickham. Now begins the fun process of checking our 30 pieces of luggage to Kwajalein. I had to load each of the pieces on the X-Ray scanner, which of course broke after the first bag (go military equipment). Then after it broke they had to search each piece of luggage individually. That ended up being the best part of the trip. The Airmen, were freaking hilarious. We had a good time joking with them about the military and how much they pay for junk.
Loading time... At 0530, we were supposed to leave at 0520, we began loading the C17 cargo plane. That's right, we travel in style! Nothing like sitting in jump seats in the same area with all your luggage, mail for the entire island and "fresh" fruits and vegetables from Hawaii. To top it off the one of the airmen start handing out ear plugs for everyone to wear. This was a real eye opener to my wife, who has never been on a military fight.
Take off... 0630, we finally take off. The plane begins it's taxi down the runway. After the plane takes off and reaches altitude a guy in the incredibly full plane (14 people, not including the crew) pulls out his sleeping mat and lays down on the ground. I think to myself, this might actually be a pretty great flight.
After about an hour on the plane we decide to let the babies out of their seats to walk around on the plane. This fight was about the greatest part of our travels. The babies cried and screamed and no one could hear them. I recommend all flights with children be done on a C17.
(running out of nickels for the internet... will finish story in the morning.)
Day 1
18 Jun 2013 0800 MST
We boarded the plane from Salt Lake City, Utah to Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. Of course it wasn't that easy. We had to make a couple stop overs in route to Kwaj (as the locals refer to it). We flew from SLC to Phoenix, AZ for a change of plane and a couple hours of waiting with 5 kids. 12 (useless), 10 (useless), 5 (less than useless) and two, almost, 2 year old's (the two we needed the most help with). I wish that was our only stop, but of course, it wasn't. The government thought it would be great for us to get to stop over in Hawaii. I thought so too, but it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. We arrived in Hawaii at 1500 pm HST after getting up in SLC at 0400 in the morning. For those of you who have no idea that's 15 hours of traveling with a 5 year old and two 2 year old's. Awesome!
I honestly thought I would have the energy to go over to see Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial, boy was I wrong. By the time we got to Hawaii and got all 30 pieces of luggage and 7 people to the hotel I had no energy left to even go swimming in the pool at the hotel. We decided to eat dinner and the girls swim while Hill and I ate and attempted feeding the babies the incredibly over priced food from the hotel.
Thus ends the first day of our adventure.
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