Traveling to Palau

I was in Palau recently at the request of the Governor to attend the 9th Micronesian Chief Executives Summit. It was a last minute trip that wasn't included in my work travel plans. As always, Palau is a great place to be even for just 4 days. In my short time there, I managed to squeeze in a couple of dives, get my work done and party with some VIPs.

L-R President Tommy Remengesau Jr., Minister Tony Debrum, Governor Fitial, Governor Sebastian Anefal from Yap

L-R Governor of Kosrae, Governor's Representative from Pohnpei, Governor Felix Camacho, Guam, President of FSM Emmanuel Mori and President Remengesau.

On my second day, I went out for my dives with Sam's Tours. The first dive was at Siaes Tunnel which was a deep dive down to 120 feet, then I ended up at Siaes Corner. The dive guide said I made him tired because we did 2 dives sites in one dive.

During the surface interval, we went to Ulong Island to eat our lunch. While we were there the Park Rangers came by to check if we all had our dive permits. I was yanked out from my snorkeling to show my permit. I didn't take a picture of the rangers, but apparently they knew who I was because they asked if I was a Castro. It's such a great feeling when people from other islands know who you are.

We then proceeded to dive #2, the Teshio Maru wreck. The wreck was an awesome macro dive, but I didn't like how I was being rushed everywhere. So I ended up just swimming around by myself to look for cool stuff... this is what I found:

Later on that evening, I partied with some folks from MVA, Judy Torres and PTI's Velma and her husband Paul Camacho, John and Tom Valderama who were there to promote regional communications to the Chief Executives. They were so excited to see President Remengesau, they asked me to get the President to take a picture with them. I asked President Remengesau for a snapshot and he asked his friend Emmanuel Mori, the President of FSM to be in the picture too.

The next day we had the Chief Executives meeting at the Cultural Center. We sat there all day listening to presentations from the various committees on Regional Energy to Recycling to Tourism and Health, and I participated in the presentation of the Micronesia Challenge update.

Later on that evening, we had a reception followed by the signing of the Communique' and some socializing.

The Chief Executives

Governor of Guam, Felix Camacho.

My classmate since kindergarten Judy Chong-Torres, she's the Deputy Managing Director for the Marianas Visitors Authority.

After the reception, I went back to my hotel, packed my clothes and got on the 2:30 a.m. flight to Guam and then onto Saipan. I was exhausted but was so happy to be heading home.

My Guam Trip

I was invited to attend the 10th Micronesians in Island Conservation (MIC) retreat in Guam last week. It was great to meet and network with conservation leaders from all over Micronesia.

I stayed at the Marriott and right in front of it is the Tumon Bay Reserve. I started my first two days at 6:30 a.m. having a field day in the Reserve. I was tasked by my boyfriend Peter to find the acropora staghorn corals to see how well they are doing.

I found the staghorn beds and they were doing very well.

I went back the second day because someone told me that if I swam towards the Hilton, I might see big fish. I saw two big fish, a big snapper and a skipjack chasing each other. I saw some baby parrots, baby red snappers, lots of convict tangs and goatfish.

On my third day in Guam, we went on a field trip to Cocos Island in Guam. It was my first time on Cocos. The was no shortage of birds on that island, they were everywhere.

I jumped into the water for a snorkel, but there was nothing but algae and triggerfishes..not worth the post.

We found MINA's pet gecko crawling all over the Saipan Blogger.

I also found time to go to Underwater World thanks to Elaina Todd, Guam's NOAA Coral Reef Fellow who gave Angelo, Kathleen and I free passes. We saw alot of cool creatures. Here are some nurse sharks and a guitar fish:

Elaina gave us a tour of the back room.

And I also found time to party a little bit, eat Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream, shopped till I dropped and watched Nim's Island, all in 4 days.

Old Family Pictures

Just posting some old family pictures. I have 4 siblings, 3 sisters and 1 brother. I need to find some old pictures of my brother and youngest sister to post later.

In this picture is my Mom, me in the red dress, my Dad, Uncle Bert from Guam and my oldest sister Jovie. Jovie is the owner of Kagman Mobil in Saipan.

In this picture are my sisters Vicky (she is the Governor's CIP Administrator) and Jovie, me and our Japanese neighbor who is a tenant in one of our houses. She invited us over for some rice cracker and soda pops. I was 5.

My parents Frank and Julie Castro are both retired from the CNMI Government in the mid 80s. My dad was the Chief of Immigration and my Mom worked at Finance handling federal grants for DEQ. Our EPA-CNMI Program Manager Pat Young and her husband Carl Goldstein who started DEQ both worked with my Mom then, and now I'm working with Pat and Carl.

This is my Dad, Frank C. Castro outside his office at the Immigration.

My mom Julie A. Castro outside her office at the Finance and Accounting. My mom was born in Yap and is one-quarter Yapese which makes me one-eighth, I guess. I have yet to visit Yap and I have some family there too.

Vacationing in Bali

Peter and I and a bunch of our friends on the Saipan Ultimate Frisbee Team flew to Bali, Indonesia for a tournament during Spring Break.

Peter Lokan brought Connect Four, so we were all playing that as well during the breaks in between games.

The tournament was only two days and the rest of the days were just for partying, bungee jumping, spas, surfing and diving for Peter and I.

At the Double 6-6... bungee jumpers, Faheem, Kristy, Melissa and Adam.

Ater the tournament and a day after some great parties, we hired a driver and went on a 2.5 hour drive to Tulamben in the northeast of Bali. A couple of our friends Nick and another Peter joined us on our trip. On our way, we saw alot of rice paddy terraces.

My Peter and Nick wanted to chew betelnut so badly, we went on a betelnut hunt. Our driver Nengah got involved which slowed our trip down and I wasn't too happy about because it was taking time away from my dives. Nengah saw some nut trees so we stopped and the 3 of them hiked down in between rice paddies. Nengah ended up climbing the tree while Peter and Nick waited at the bottom of the tree to catch the nuts. I post a picture of that later.

After the nuts, I expressed to everyone on the van that I didn't want anymore stops, I wanted to get to Tulamben already. Nengah drove straight to the Bali Wreck Divers shop because I was so anxious to get in the water in Tulamben, and didn't want to waste another minute of daylight on land. When we arrived, I asked the dive master to get in the water right away and we'll figure out the hotel room later. We suited up immediately and took a 3 minute walk from the dive shop to the beach. Soon, I was in heaven.

The blue ribbon eel.

The ghost pipe fish.

The frog fish.

The bumphead parrot fish or "atuhong" in Chamorro.

Yes, it was so rich with biodiversity, I wanted to stay there. Peter and I stayed in for about an hour at each dive site. The dive guide had to leave us each time to escort Nick and the other Peter back to shore. On our one night in Tulamben, we met this girl Holly who worked for a nonprofit which she didn't disclose the name of the organization. She was helping residents in Mt. Agung get proper health care. She told us that the Indonesian government had written off the people in Mt. Agung and are considered non-existence. She said it was a very gruesome scene on this mountain. It got us really curious. So when we left Tulamben, we stopped by to take a picture of Mt. Agung, a volcano that last erupted in 1963 and supposedly still active.

After that, we headed out to Ubud. We had no plans of where to stay because Peter says its cool to just find one randomly. Well, Nick knew of a place which is actually called Nick's Hidden Cottages, so we went straight there after the first hotel we went to had no rooms. It was actually pretty nice, I think I'll stay there whenever I go to Ubud.

After we got settled into our lovely hotel, we went for a walk around town.

We went by the soccer field to watch some Balinese kids playing soccer.... they were really good.

We also went for a bite to eat. We found this hidden restaurant, everything seems to be hidden in Ubud. We walked into an art gallery looking for this restaurant. When we found it, we thought it was kinda sketchy since it seem like it was in someone's home. We did sit down and ate a very traditional nasi goreng (see picture), and had some Bintang beer to go with it. The food was definitely amazing.

We met up with Eric and Brian in Ubud. They ended up staying at Nick's Hidden with us, we had dinner, shopped and drove back to together.

After Ubud we went back to the Kuta-Legian-Seminyak area to meet up with our friends for the last day of partying in Bali.