Travel Log – Kosrae — Almost
Eric Keibler Apr 24, 2012
WWe’ve crossed the date line and a day disappears! Not to worry, we’ll get it back later. As we near Kosrae, the ride gets a little rougher, and we start experiencing turbulance caused by rain showers and a building tropical something (wave, storm, depression). The pilot begins his descent, then the final approach a steady glide towards the runway and then… jet engines full throttle and a steep climb. It appears the visibility at the runway somewhere has dropped to zero; we have an aborted landing and are heading back up into the clouds. Our next stop Ponpei, capital of the Federated States of Micronesia and a short 45 minute hop from Kosrae.
We now have a decision to make, where do we go from here? On the ground the United staff tells us not to worry, on Friday they can get us back to Kosrae. In the mean time, they will cover accomodations for the Elite passangers for the few days we have to stay in Ponpei. Never mind that we are scheduled to depart, from Kosrae for Chuuk on Saturday. And if you are a non-elite flyer, well the delay was an act of nature and this is only a service offered to Elite passangers.
Ponpei has some nice diving and the Village hotel sits atop a mountain and has a really incredible view. There is lots to see here with Nan Madol and waterfalls getting my votes as truely spectacular sites. However, our group is all rebreather divers and trying to deal with getting gas and other services with no pre-arrangements is a difficult task. So, the group votes to continue on to Chuuk.
An hour and a half later, with our bags sorted and retagged we are once again airborn for the one hour flight to Chuuk The United ground personnel in Ponpei, called ahead to the ground staff in Chuuk and arranged for them to call the Blue Lagoon Resort to pick us up at the airport. A great service because there are no cabs in Chuuk.
Upon arriving in Chuuk, we were met by the ground staff who told us they had contacted the resort and they were out front waiting for us. He also said that United had reserved 4 rooms and would pay for the lodging through Friday, the day they could return us to Kosrae (we have elected not to return to Kosrae for the day).
After clearing Immigration, which was a little bit of a problem since we had cleared immigration in Ponpei and never showed leaving (we never left customs in Ponpei) we were met by Sam who took one look at all of our luggage and shook his head and started filling up the van. 6 divers, 20 pieced of luggage including 4 rebreathers, 2 kegs of sorb and enough air delivery systems to outfit a platoon made for a tight fit in the van. There was barely enough room for the people.
After checking in, which went smoothly despite our being here 4 days early we had time to start unpacking, have dinner and then get some sleep. Thank you Winifee for making the check-in so smooth. Glamorious travel at its best.
Sleep – it never felt so good.
