Kwajalein, RMI

So much weather, so little time! Against expectations, even at the pre-dawn weather briefing, the dominant feature of the day was rain. The favorable conditions at upper and lower levels held together and gave us good-to-excellent conditions for the morning TRMM overpass. Kwaj got two toad-stranglers (another variant of "really heavy rain"), plus lots of little showers. The upper-level system started out in the mid-latitudes south of the Aleutians, and is now to our west, almost reaching the Equator! For Friday we are keeping our eyes on the remanents of Hurricane Eugene, which were holding together quite well and chugging almost due west. On that course it would pass about 200 miles to our north, and might give us some interesting weather. And Hurricane Dora has some chance of hitting Midway Island now that it's passed Johnston Island.

The first heavy rain hit just as the training ship KRI Dewaruci of the Indonesian Naval Academy was putting out to sea. Their visit is part of an extended cruise around the Pacific, which is partly a final exam and partly a good-will event. They apparently were visiting Honolulu, Hawaii when I came through on my way to Kwaj because I recognized the uniforms! Anyway, they had stopped here in May, and stayed three days this time. There was a big island-wide picnic at one of the beaches, and the ship was open for tours. It's a three-masted tall ship, and the contrast to the modern research ship docked on the other side of the pier was pretty interesting.

I had ducked out the back of Buildinng 1009 to see if I could get any pictures of the KRI Dewaruci as it left, so I was a good 50 yards away from the building when the rain started. A corregated metal warehouse was close at hand and had a 30-foot–deep carport at one end, so I spent the storm there, along with a Marshallese man on a mowing machine. The warehouse's skin had felt the effects of the salt air (just like our bikes), providing some pretty significant holes for the rain. In general, the buildings at Kwaj are one of three varieties: cement/cement block, corregated metal, and modular (cousins of "mobile homes"). The corregated metal seem to be limited to storage or open-air facilities, while there's a fair number of modular buildings for both housing and office space. The KWAJEX Operations Center is two office "trailers," while Building 1009 and all the other buildings with which we deal are block and steel truss. The exteriors are finished in a light buff or white color, or left as unpainted metal or cement.

Utilities are all underground on Kwaj, and most of the streets are paved, except for the road right along the lagoon. The recent rains have conspired to create some interesting puddles and soft spots that keep bikers on their toes. The speed limit is 15 miles per hour in developed areas and 25 miles per hour otherwise. The only real traffic congestion on Kwaj occurs at the air terminal coincident with incoming passenger flights. Otherwise, rush hour is five people leaving a building at the same time!