Monday – another day at sea relaxing and playing cards, computer, reading etc. Tuesday 5th April – We had a late arrival into the port of Saipan in the Mariana Islands. Not much here unless you are interested in the activities of the US during the 2nd WW. We chose not to do a tour but if it wasn’t so hot it would have been nice to go to one of the little beaches – no part of the tours. Instead we just took the shuttle into the town and were dropped off at an expensive shopping complex. No bargains to be found. Electrical/electronics outlets seem to be non-existent in this part of the world. We were interested in buying a small digital clock running on 60 megahertz (American) rather than 50megahertz (Australian) to use in our cabin when we go cruising. Maybe we’ll find one in Guam tomorrow. We like to know what time it is in the middle of the night when we need to take a little walk or if we are restless without putting a light on. We haven’t any tours planned for tomorrow either but I hope our docking port is more interesting than most of them have been on this cruise. We have booked a tour for Rabaul in New Guinea which should be interesting. Well we are about to go off for Sundowners and then dinner. Tuesday 5th – We had an interesting send of when we left Saipan. The Police vehicle was on the wharf sounding every siren available to him and driving up and down and playing loud music as well. The local customs were shouting Ozi Ozi Ozi to the usual response from the people on ship of Oi Oi Oi, over and over again till the ship was just about out of hearing range. One of the most tumultuous send offs we’ve experienced in all of our cruising. Wednesday 6th April – We docked in Guam about 7.30 then it was go slow till the US had checked us through thoroughly – getting sick of filling out forms for the paranoid US authorities. We weren’t able to do a tour in Guam as they were all booked out before we came ashore. They would only let 4 shuttle busses on the dock at any one time and no cabs. So you can imagine how long it took to process about 2000 passengers and get them to where they were going. We finally took the shuttle into town. Seems that it’s expected that passengers have plenty of money to burn because the shuttles always take us to the “Galleria” which only seems to sell upmarket clothes, handbags and jewellery. Well after we have been through our umpteenth “Galleria” (no bargains) we then took the shuttle to Kmart – yes you read right – to Kmart. We found the clock we have been looking for and had a tasty junk food lunch and the GD bought a couple of pairs of shorts and I bought some pants. We are finding that all of our clothes have shrunk – Ha Ha – must be the water we’ve been washing them in. We then made our way back they way we came. It appears from the bus window that Guam has a number of pretty beaches but nothing has been set up with the shuttles that allows for us to enjoy them at all. Seems this tour is geared to spending upmarket and war memorials.