Cockroaches, Car Rentals and Late Cargo - by Ron

Dec 19

We had great intentions for our trip to the town of Laura at the north end
of the atoll. We had a nice breakfast and although the skies looked rather
grey, we had a rental car waiting and cargo/luggage to pick up from the
airport.

I got a first hand experience with island time twice today. First was our
experience at the rental place. It took us well over an hour to get the
rental car, only to find it had a nice little colony of cockroaches and
ants. John had a small freak out, which led to us getting another rental
car. It too was full of cockroaches. John sucked it up though, but he sat in
the front seat.

It reminded me of a time when John, Mom and I had gone to the local fair
that came to town every year in Campbell River. John was about 8 and I was
6. It was on this day that I realized my brother was afraid of things. He
freaked out at the top of the Ferris wheel, and the attendant had to bring
us down.

Regardless of the cockroaches, we decided to carry on. We had planned lunch
and an afternoon at the beach. Unfortunately, a lot of rain got in the way!
We had fun driving around checking the north end of the island. We stopped
for boiled eggs, cupcakes, fanta and ice cream for lunch at a side road
store.

The main reason we had rented the car was to retrieve the cargo/luggage that
was coming in from Guam. This was my second experience with "island time".
We were told to come back at 8pm by the cargo guy. Nothing arrived and we
were told to come back at 11:15pm.we got back to the boat at 1:30am (the
airport is only 25 minutes from the boats). It was a very long evening
getting the cargo. Needless to say it was enjoyable hanging out just John
and me and talking about our thoughts and plans for the future. We went
through the bags when we got back to the boat and headed off to bed. I went
to sleep knowing I would have clean underwear in the morning. Yahoo!