We made it to the Marshall Islands...Where?

Hello from Majuro, Marshall Islands. After four sea days with little solid internet connection we have reached land.  This last section of sea thankfully was much calmer than getting to Hawaii. 

I have spent a good amount of time reading; I’ve already gone through three books and just checked out another from the large onboard library.  I also started playing in the onboard Texas hold-em’ tournaments.   They are fun.  My first time playing against humans and not just a computer. I guess I’m a quick learner as I’ve placed both 1^st and 2^nd in two of the four I have played in. The winnings give me some extra casino spending money (yay!).  I have also taken in several lectures on the South Pacific Islands’ geology, history and culture.

Ty has been spending time doing homework as well as hiding out in “The Loft” which is the ship’s teen area.  Since he is the only teen onboard he gets the entire teen lounge area equipped with two large screen TV’s, xbox, and club quality sound system.  He’s not lacking much.

Today we sailed into Majuro, Marshall Islands.  This island is an atoll basically a sunken volcano which coral grew on the outskirts as it sank.  It is now a ring of coral with a lagoon in the middle, total height above sea level is 10ft.  Many of the islands in the south pacific are atolls.  Though small width wise, some are quite large around.  We were able to dock here as there is a working shipping port.

The island is a territory of the United States, and located south east of probably the most famous of the Marshall Islands, Bikini atoll.  This is where the US used as an area to test nuclear weapons and was annihilated and uninhabitable still today.

This was the first time Holland America has visited Majuro.  The island is not used to getting many visitors and never a ship of this size. Many local people were at the dock to greet us.  As we pulled into port small children were running along the beach toward the pier waving and yelling.  Walking the street (there is only 1 street as the atoll is so narrow) to town children were yelling, waving and looking to get their pictures taken.  Very cute.

The island is run down. Many shanty style houses with a few concrete formed ones dotting around.  I thinks because there really isn’t much to do here and with the hot humid temperatures (pushing 90) many locals were just sitting on the side of the road outside houses and business people watching their visitors.

We were supplied a shuttle bus (school bus) to take us to the center of town where they had a band playing and local craft market table set up.

Though there wasn’t much here, the scenery is beautiful, and people very friendly.  It was a once in a lifetime place to visit.  We now have two more sea days before we reach Micronesia.