Virginia and Joanna
Joanna and her husband live in the middle apartment on the first floor below us. They have been married about 7months.

Virginia and Joanne did some sightseeing on their own today and went to Two Lover’s Point.

Two Lovers Point

The Legend — from http://twoloverspoint.com  (if this link does not work, try this one — http://puntandosamantes.com/)

Long ago, in the time when Spain ruled Guam, there was a proud family living in Hagåtña, the capital city. The father was a wealthy Spanish aristocrat and the mother was the daughter of a great Chamorro chief. The family owned land and were held in high esteem by all, Chamorro and Spanish alike.

Their daughter was a beautiful girl, admired by all for her honesty, modesty, and perfectly natural charm. Her beauty bestowed the greatest pride and dignity unto her family.

One day, the girl’s father arranged for her to take a powerful Spanish captain as her husband. When the girl discovered this, she was so distraught that she ran from Hagåtña all the way to the north of Guam until she found a secluded and peaceful shore.

There, on the moonlit shore, she met and fell in love with a young warrior from a very modest Chamorro family. He was gentle, with a strong build, and had eyes that searched for meaning in the stars.

When the girl’s father learned of the two lovers, he grew angry and demanded that she marry the Spanish captain at once. That day at sundown, she stole away to the same high point along the shore and once again met her Chamorro lover.

Her father, along with the captain, and all the Spanish soldiers pursued the lovers up to the high cliff above Tumon Bay. The lovers found themselves trapped between the edge of the cliff and the approaching soldiers. All the young warrior could do was warn them to stay back, and the father ordered the soldiers to halt.

The lovers tied their long black hair into a single knot. Acting as if they were entirely alone, they looked deeply into each other’s eyes and kissed for the final time. Then, they leaped over the long, deep cliff into the roaring waters below.

The girl’s father and all who remained rushed to the edge to stare in great anguish.

Since that day, Chamorros have looked to the jutting peak above Tumon Bay with reverence. The two lovers remain a symbol of true love–a love in which two souls are entwined forever in life and in death. Thereafter, the high point on the cliff was known as Puntan Dos Amantes, or Two Lovers Point.

A list of a few of the wedding that have taken place at Two Lovers Point. It looks like most were from Japan.

Thousands of heart and padlocks symbolically locked to the fence and other places. Two Lovers Point is supposedly visited by more people than any other attraction in Guam and is quite commercialized.

Elkhart has its painted fiberglass elk, but Guam has painted carabao (pronounced care-a-bow [like bow tie])

Our bedroom has started to smell a little musty.  Since our Chinese air conditioner has a dehumidifier mode, we decided to try that mode to see what will happen.  There is no instruction manual in the apartment, and one could not be found on-line.

This morning I rode to work with Paul, instead of Joel. Joel, Jim and Mike went to town to purchase copper pipe and other supplies to allow continued work on the antenna switches

I received an email from Steve in TWR Benin (temporarily there for a year from TWR Swaziland) requesting information for automatic (remote controlled) gate openers. He would like to have one included in a container going to Benin from the U.S.  I spent some time this morning sorting through various options to meet their need in Benin, then answering his request.

When I cut my apple for lunch today, I found that some of the seeds were beginning to sprout! Would I be right in assuming this apple had been in storage for a while? It tasted good — the apple, not the seeds.

The copper pipe and other supplies arrived about noon, so we continued where we left off yesterday afternoon.

Virginia went with Joanna on a tour of the north end of Guam.  They also did some shopping on their way through downtown.  We’ll try to do a separate blog entry for their adventure.

The rainy season seems to have begun.  Until today, most of the rain has been coming at night.

Some of the next antenna switch connections will require that interconnecting ‘lines’ cross-over some of the straight connections.  These parallel lines must be exactly the same length and maintain the same spacing.  The design was finalized for accomplishing this.

During a lull in the rain, I took a photo looking from antenna switches toward the transmitter building. The Matson container (foreground) contains one of the transmitters that we packed up just over a week ago. The end of the second container with the other transmitter can be seen on the other side of the ‘lean-to’ shelter on the left end of the building.

The office section of the transmitter building is on the right. The center section is the transmitter hall and the left section is the workshop. The transmission lines come out of the center section and will eventually terminate overhead on the cross bars, pass through the switches, then connect to various antennas terminated on overhead crossbars on the other side of the antenna switches pad.  The heat exchanger (‘radiator’) on the left end of the roof of the transmitter hall belongs to the 100-000-watt shortwave transmitter.  This modification to the original design keeps excess heat outside the building.

With the rain still coming down, we began to assemble as many pieces as possible for the cross-over lines in the shop.  By the end of the day, we had used up much of the material in stock, so arrangements were made to obtain more pipe, fittings and silver solder first thing tomorrow morning.

Virginia went to the transmitter site today and finished the work that she began on Friday, then sorted through some old files.  She even found some transmitter logs that were signed Carolyn West who had worked night shifts many years ago!

I helped Joel and Jim continue making antenna switch connections.

We began to make some of the longer direct connections today.

Now that some of the switches were their final locations, Paul began to bolt them to the concrete pad to prevent them from moving during typhoons.

First thing this morning we talked to Larry’s mother and then to Allan and his family — thanks to Skype.

We left early for church so we could retake a couple of photos with better lighting than we had yesterday.  We also read that there was a way to get to the Korean Airlines crash memorial and decided to check it out.  This is when we found that the gate is locked because the memorial is on restricted federal property.  We followed the road further up a ridge and discovered the view was breathtaking.  We could see the oceans on both sides of the island.  Later, we discovered that we had driven near the top of Mount Chachao (1,014 ft) the highest point in the north half of Guam.

The view part way up Mount Chachao of Apra Harbor. The peninsula on the left is the US Navy base and the peninsula in the center is the commercial port. We wanted to get an even better photo further up the peak, but the sword grass and small trees obstructed what would have otherwise been an amazing view. Someone told us that the next typhoon would take care of that problem!

Asan Bay from the overlook. The morning sun resulted in a clearer photo.

We attended Harvest Baptist Church again this week.  Pastor Marty Herron continued his series of messages on the life of Joseph.  Afterward the service, one of the church members gave us an office chair to take to the transmitter site.

This photo of Harvest Baptist Church was taken in the afternoon. In the morning the parking lot was full.

Harvest Christian Academy, the largest of several Christian school on Guam, is right next to the church.

We went from the church to K-Mart, which is nearby.  There we had our lunch — part of a Little Caesar pepperoni pizza — normally $5 in Elkhart, but $10 here.  We had gone to  K-Mart to check out some good prices on some souvenirs and to buy a replacement brake light bulb for ‘our’ Highlander.

After K-Mart, we decided to explore a little further north on the island.  We saw some extremely high poles with netting in the distance and wondered what it might be.  In the process of trying locate the high poles, we ‘discovered’ Micronesia Mall and went inside to do some window shopping.

Micronesia Mall is huge inside and similar to malls on the mainland. Interspersed between shops, with which we are familiar such as Footlooker, Macy’s, etc., are shops with a more Asian ‘flavor’.

Larry doesn’t usually like window shipping, but Micronesia Mall has a mechanical contraption called MIMO that can keep an engineer entertained for hours!!

Here is more info on MIMO in Micronesia mall —

http://www.micronesiamall.com/attractions/mimo

There are also You Tube videos —

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8udboKENl4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouf_XGfSJzE

Unfortunately, only about four out of seven of MIMO’s separate mechanical ‘runs’ were working, but the ones that worked were sufficient to keep Larry ‘entertained’ for a long time!

At church this morning, we were invited by Jack and Kathy to attend their watch-care group meeting for a potluck, devotional and games at 5pm.  Since it was approaching that time and we were not far from the church, we stopped at the Payless Supermarket at the Micronesia Mall to pick up a couple items for the potluck.

The fellow that bagged our groceries at Payless was a ‘hoot’. The employes were having some type of celebration, which included many of them dressing up and performing dances near the checkouts.

On the way back to the church, we discovered what the tall poles and netting were — a golf driving range, with two levels for teeing off.

Two small groups met together for fellowship at the Family Life Center, which also serves as the gym for the school. We arrived right at starting time and were the first ones there. The next person there was also a visitor, the wife of a deceased Navy veteran that was revisiting Guam after many years away!

When we walked in the Life Center, we met a young lady, Hannah, who was also visiting this evening.  When we told her we were with Trans World Radio, she asked us if we knew Ruth Ann Arthurs on Pohnpei, an island a little over 1,000 miles from Guam.  She had just been visiting there.  We were amazed, since we knew Dave and Ruth Ann when they served with TWR on Bonaire while we were there from 1967 to 1971 and have not seen Ruth Ann since then.  The Arthurs started a radio station on Pohnpei over 25 years ago.  Dave passed away a little less than a year ago.

After a delicious potluck, we sang some songs accompanied by a ukelele!

After some singing, the leader of one of the watch-care groups gave a testimony/devotional.  During his testimony and not knowing about our talk with Hannah, he mentioned that he was led to Christ by Dave Arthurs on Pohnpei.  We had a great time of fellowship with Rodal Romes and his wife, Core, after the service.

The speaker from Pohnpei, on the left, and his wife, on the right.

We left the meeting before the games to try to avoid driving in the dark. On the way home tonight, I put some gas in the Highlander and put some air in a tire (noticed that there is a screw in it, so will have to get it repaired).  We got home after dark (about 7pm).  The Highlander has dark tint film on all its windows (except the front) which makes it hard to drive at night, because you can not see anything in the rear view mirrors.  To make some turns, I have had to ask Virginia to roll down her window!  Thankfully, we do not plan to do much night driving.

Just before going to bed, I saw the first cockroach in our apartment — thankfully, before Virginia saw it!  It seemed like it might have been dazed by something, probably residual pesticide(?) and was easy to dispatch.  [Haven’t seen any more in the week following]