The American immigration process started promptly at 7:30AM. We were in line shortly after 7am and near the front. Once immigration started (there was a line for US passport holders and another line for all others), the process went fast and smooth with very friendly immigration agents. I was then able to eat a quick salmon and tomato breakfast before leading the interdenominational service. We then went to the Showroom to meet up with our HAL snorkel trip. When our group was called we got our #4 sticker and headed off of the ship and boarded several 12 passenger vans. Our driver had no speaker system so the trip was pretty much in silence until the stops.
We visited Suicide Cliff, Bird Island, the Japanese Peace Memorial, the Grotto, Suicide Cliff, and snorkeling just south of Marianas Beach. The snorkeling was in very shallow water with lots of sea cucumbers, a few small fish, and Angela found a brilliant blue starfish.
After the trip was over I realized that we didn't really do the itinerary having missed the forest walk and a visit to the highest point on the island. While the substitutions were good, the guide should have been straight up telling us why the deviation. I shared my observations with shore excursions and am waiting to hear back from them.
Back at the ship we ate a quick LIDO lunch and then took the shuttle bus back to town, where we walked around, bought some souvenirs, visited the American Memorial. Park, and noted a huge Chinese Casino which is being built and actually open for business while construction continues.
We caught one of the last shuttles back to the ship, watched the sail away (no shoreside singers or dancers), and the Captain announced that he struck a deal with the pilot. In exchange for being able to sail past Tinian. Island (launching point for the B-29's that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan), the pilot would get a free overnight cruise as he's the pilot for Guam. While we were about a mile off shore, we couldn't see the 4 runways, but I can visualize them as the wind was blowing right towards the runway. It was a moving time.
Terry Greenberg gave a short presentation on Saipan and Guam before WWII and Pingxin Xu presented his last hammer dulcimer concert to a standing ovation. We wrapped up our evening watching the movie Flags of our Fathers which is the companion movie to Letters from Iwo Jima which we watched earlier. And all too soon it was midnight and the day was done.
Guam is tomorrow and since we visited the war related sites there in 2015, we just planning to take the shuttle to town. We'll see how that works out. Stay tuned.
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