Asan Beach Picnic

Be sure to click on the photos to see larger.

Wednesday morning, January 30, 2012, we visited AWR, and then headed out to Asan Beach for a little play time and a picnic. Richard went to work with Rob, for the fun of it, and so that left the moms and kids free for outings.

Yes, we are still homeschooling, but we did some of it early, before our visitors came, and are catching the rest up now with a little extra school time every day, so we could have this week off from book learning. The Krum family also joined us for as many activities as possible.

Swimming and snorkelling isn't a good idea at this beach because of strong currents and possible rip tides. So most activity was limited to searching for money cowries, and building castles in the sand.

Towards the north you can see a cement lookout tower at the Governor’s Palace, and beyond that are some of the tourist hotels.

This beach has a rich history. It's been a leper colony, a prison camp, and a Marine Corp camp before WWII. A Japanese defensive position in WWII, and one of the first landing points by the Americans. After that the beach became headquarters for US Navy Seabees, the a hospital during the Vietnam war, and finally a camp for Vietnam refugees for 111,000 refugees that came through Guam. This all stopped in 1976 when Supertyphoon Pamela destroyed all the remaining buildings. The Navy cleaned things up, and the National Park Service aquired the land in 1978.

Learn more about Asan Beach's History here, and here.

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