My Vacation in Chuuk!

Last Saturday I went to Chuuk for vacation.

Before I went I asked some of my Chuukese students what I should do. One of them suggested "bring a gun."

That seems to be the general reputation of Chuuk: DANGEROUS!

Even Alonso de Arellano, the first European to visit Chuuk, said in 1562 "These people are savages and thieves who covet everything they see and never lay eyes on anything at all without calculating how they might steal it." He made a hasty exit after several of his crew were ambushed and killed.

Chuuk lagoon is huge and has many islands surrounded by a distant coral reef. It is the remains of an old volcano which is slowly sinking so only the mountaintops are showing now. In a few million years it will be an atoll. Global warming might speed that process along.

I snapped some pictures of some of the lagoon islands as the airplane was preparing to land.

A piece of another lagoon island.

Chuuk International Airport was a bit of a surprise. It's the nicest airport I've seen in any of the four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. Clean and modern. But the cleanliness and the moderness of Chuuk ends when you leave the airport.