Guam

Guam is a bit of a culture shock after the remote atolls we have been at in the the recent past. The harbour is busy with naval vessels, commercial shipping and lots of tourist/dive boats out and about. Air traffic overhead is also quite heavy, both commercial and military and ashore there is a 6 lane highway into town and multi-story hotel buildings. We are anchored off the Marianas yachtclub, which has wifi and showers, but is a long way out of town. We will have to hire a car to stock up, but at the moment we are doing very well with lifts and have walked back from town once and caught the bus back once. We are enjoying ready access to such exotic vegetables as lettuce and carrots.Coming up from West Fayu, we had winds of around 20 knots most of the way and manged to rip our (old) headsail so the second half of the passage was done under a tiny bit of jib and our small staysail. Arrived off the Apra harbour entrance at night and spent the night slowly reaching back and forth until we were allowed to enter the harbour after 0800. For some reason we were told we had to go to the commercial wharf, which is unusual as most yachts clear in at the yacht club. We tied up alongside no problems, but unfortunately due to the amount of high speed traffic going past, we have large black fender marks down the side of the yacht (much worse than the ones on the other side from Chuuk). Having said that, customs, immigration and the Harbourmaster were prompt, friendly, courteous, efficient and so far FREE! Although, gun-toting customs officers were a bit disconcerting!We are ordering some spares and bits for a few repairs here and doing some maintenance while we wait. Not sure how long this will take, as several companies have not even bothered to get back to us. This includes West Marine, a large US marine company, specialising in online and international orders! Hoping to explore a bit of Guam and do some diving while we are here as we are not looking to leave to go north until the end of April.