August 30, 2024
Sea Trials Scheduled for Monday 9/2/24!
Also, the Mayor of Belfast, Mickey Murray has asked a bunch resident to come to his office at City Hall on Monday at 11 a.m.! Several of the Founder's club members are going to represent us. Good News all around.
The following article has also been getting a lot of attention worldwide.
After Mass on Sunday, I traveled across the island with friends to enjoy the Return to Paradise Resort. The ride took about an hour and unfortunately, it was pouring rain the whole time. So our day pass vision of relaxing pool and beach side got replaced with day drinking yummy cocktails and playing phase 10 cards in a beach side palapa. They filmed a movie here in 1953 and this remains one of the nicest resorts on the islands of Samoa.
Apia is the relaxed low rise capital of Samoa , spread along a sheltered harbor on the north coast of Upolu . This island is the 2nd largest, behind Savai'i , of the 8 islands which make up the Independent State of Samoa (note: 4 of the remaining 6 islands are uninhabited.) Upolu has an international airport and port, unlike Savai'i, and it's population is roughly 39,000 of the total 220,000 in all of Samoa. The Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is the most striking architecture in the harbor. I was excited we were finally in a port on a Sunday, to be able to part take in a Mass and it was so special. It's a gorgeous church inside and it was open air with a nice breeze. The mass was in English and the choir was really talented, with guitar instrumentals and the words projected onto a screen, so we could sing along! They did a lot of my favorite hymns and the people were super friendly. We really felt welcome and it did wonders for my soul!
LEVUKA was our last port in FIJI and it is a town that seems frozen in time back to its whaling history of 1900's. Beach Street is the main drag with boardwalks connecting wooden one & two story structures, that even have the old horse tie post out front,(nowadays - park your car) but still, the place feels very old and stuck. The merchandise in the shops is very basic and limited. We all had Fiji dollars to use up - they are changing their printed money in January - so we can't keep to use next time around. So most of us hit the liquor and grocery stores, but even there, it was challenging to find items. Christmas merchandise is pretty non existence. Candy is from Easter and Halloween!