May 20, 2025
MANZANILLO, MEXICO

We heard about a baby turtle release party and made arrangements with our tour agent from the Boat charter to pick us back up at 6:40 pm and take us to the turtle shelter. When we got there, we found about 30 babies were going to be released, they had all grown to 45 days old, in the shelter and sadly only 1/3 of them will make it once they hit water. Most of them seemed to be struggling directionally in making it to the waters edge, before the waves came in and washed them around. The volunteer would turn them over and set them up on the right path to the ocean. Very cute and we pray some of them make it to adulthood!
After the turtle release we went back to the Port where the locals were putting on a welcome show for us!


Got to love a place that sells shirts saying " Where the heck is Yap? " Colonia ( population 3,100 ) is the Capital and Harbor town of Yap State ( population 11,600 ) one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. We are in the Pacific Ocean or Philippine Sea just north of the equator, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.