{"id":2994,"date":"2014-02-24T05:02:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T13:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2994"},"modified":"2014-02-24T05:02:42","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T13:02:42","slug":"truce-yap-island-micronesia-02242014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2994","title":{"rendered":"Truce \u2013 Yap Island, Micronesia \u2013 [02\/24\/2014]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"016pinup\"<\/a>You would not think from looking at Yap Island that it had ever been anything other than what it is \u2013 a quiet, tropical place in the middle of pretty much nowhere. A little speck on the map that is so easily missed that this is the first time the line has called here in years. We were supposed to stop here during the Asian voyage, but the recent typhoon prevented it as it was directly in our path.<\/p>\n

Or at least it was in the path of the flagship, I keep forgetting I wasn\u2019t here that season.<\/p>\n

Despite its benign appearance though, the island has well known historical significance, most documented for its part in WWII. But there is little of that left now, or \u2013 if there is \u2013 I wasn\u2019t quite in the right headspace to go looking for it. There are only some times when I can handle military sites, and with my balance only just coming back into normal, this didn\u2019t seem to be the time to test my resolve.<\/p>\n

Instead, I fell in step with one of the officer\u2019s I\u2019ve known for all four of my seasons on the flagship, and ambled down the sweating, rain-puddled and sun-dried dirt road to the nearest restaurant & bar and just\u2026existed\u2026for a while. I\u2019ve known this guy for long enough that I know that when he offers to buy me a drink he really is<\/i> just being friendly, so I accepted the pint of locally made beer gratefully and listened to the crackling radio playing the Beach Boy\u2019s California Girls<\/i> on a semi-regular loop while we decompressed about passengers, crew members, ports of call and everything else in between. Inevitably, the same comment came up that always does when I find myself socializing with anyone on this ship<\/p>\n

How come we never see you at the officer\u2019s bar?<\/i><\/p>\n

And I just kind of shrug, and grin into my pint glass and explain that I really don\u2019t go out during the world cruise, that if you want to see the social butterfly side of me, you need to work with me on a 7-day run, when the routine allows me to relax a bit more. And with an answering nod of acceptance, the conversation moves onto other things.<\/p>\n

And shortly after that the deep fried bananas and vanilla ice cream arrived, and the tropical breeze kicked up, and for just that moment it seems that the world is actually apologizing for giving us such a hard time lately\u2026<\/p>\n

To which I say: all right then, apology accepted\u2026let\u2019s call it truce shall we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You would not think from looking at Yap Island that it had ever been anything other than what it is \u2013 a quiet, tropical place in the middle of pretty much nowhere. A little speck on the map that is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-world-voyage-2014","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Mi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2994"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2998,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions\/2998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}