Homeward Bound

I've just arrived in Saipan. Elan is probably home by now. The Typhoon, Nanmadol, now hitting the Phillipines has now reached Super Typhoon levels if you've been following the news.

I must admit that the excitment of experiencing a typhoon was very quickly overcome by the reality of actually being in one: It was no Universal Studios ride. The Typhoon at the last moment veered to the North and the eye missed Yap by 20 miles. However coming from the north it blew right into our hotel room. The sound was like a thousand banshees screaming and the water coursed off the windows like a firehose. Water came through every seem it could find, and we evacuated across the hall. As the wind was coming from the island side, it actually was blowing the sea off shore. It was like watching the surf in reverse as it blew off the beach. About half an hour into it, the power went out and we retreated to the dining room and waited
for the generator to kick in.

I SURVIVE THE SHARKS, THE "MOYLE EEL," BUT WILL I LIVE THROUGH THE TYPHOON?

A brush with death tends to bring people closer so it was with our merry group of divers here in Yap and there's plenty more mayhem on the way as I write. But let’s start at the beginning:

We arrived on Yap at 2:00am Sunday morning. I spent ten minutes at immigration trying to explain the concept of an e-ticket to Ralph the Immigration Guy. The good news was after I left I got a flower garland from a local native girl who was wearing nothing but a grass skirt. I thought, "Oh boy, everything they say about Yap and the topless girls are true." It’s going to be a combination of Playboy and National Geographic Magazines. I’d better buy more film.

It didn't take long to find out that the grass skirt girl must have been elected the official topless greeter. After looking around I think they may have a big problem replacing her when she retires.

Whereas the other Islands have a lot of Japanese tourists, Yap seems to attract a lot of Germans. Does anyone else see the irony here? Did nobody tell them they lost the war?

With barely 3 hours sleep we were awaken and told to get our gear together because we would be diving that morning. Going downstairs I got my first look at Yap. It's simply incredible the damage that Typhoons do here. There was one five months ago, and they’ve barely begun to fix the damage. Imagine a big freighter in English Bay tossed up on Beach Avenue or the roof blown off the old Sylvia Hotel or the Stanley Park Seawall totally obliterated and you'll just begin to get the idea.

The big thing here is Manta Rays and Sharks. We got to the first dive sight and after two dives
we sort of see one Manta Ray way off in the distance. They're suppose to come up to the reef where there are “Cleaning Stations” These are underwater sites where small fish come and clean the parasites off the Manta Rays. Obviously the stations were closed on Sunday as we didn’t see a single Manta Ray. I manage to stay down for about 35 minutes. The Dive Master wants me to work on my breathing. I tell him I'll be satisfied to just keep doing it.

Monday is our 2nd and last day of diving here on Yap and it's to be a three tank dive -
that means three separate dives during the day. The first dive is to the same spot we went to on Sunday. We're hoping the “Cleaning Stations" are open and we’ll actually see Manta Rays. It's also a chance for me to work on the Dive Master's breathing plan: Basically he says I can make my air last three times as long if only breathe a third of the time. What he wants me to do is inhale count to five, and then exhale. On this dive we actually see three big Manta Rays. It was awesome to watch these large fish "flying” through the water. As they are plankton eaters and don't have a stinger on their tail, I'm not terribly intimidated by them. My air lasts 48 minutes this time -a personal best! Maybe there is something to this method.

The second dive is an hour boat ride away and it's at a place called Yap Caves - a series of caves and canyons connected by short tunnels - almost an underwater amusement park. My air supply lasts nearly an hour this time. I figure if I can stop breathing totally I can stay underwater indefinitely! The problem is the third and final dive. My son Elan wants to go on a shark feeding dive. This is where they make a big shark popsicle out of old fish heads and tails, and chicken backs, etc - properly aged of course, to make it really
smelly, then coat the whole mess in a lot of blood. Then they suspend the whole frozen mess beneath a float, and as it begins to melt in the 80 degree plus water it begins to attract more and more sharks: big ones, little ones, reef sharks, white tip sharks, black tip sharks, all trying to elbow each other out of the way. The divers are supposed to sit or lie on the bottom, close by, and watch the action.

Sitting on the bottom in a swarm of feeding sharks isn't my idea of fun, but they are one short of a quorum for the dive, and unless I go they event will be cancelled. I say okay figuring I can always just stay on the boat when we get there. When I agree to go three other “chickens” say that if Jeff will dive, so will they. Now I’m trapped, I’ll lose a lot a face if I chicken out and stay on the boat. That's when I came up with the cunning plan I call “The Herring Ball Survival Technique”.

It works like this: When Herring are attacked they form themselves into a big ball: the guys in the middle of the ball have a better chance of survival, hoping that the predators will fill themselves up picking off the guys stuck on the outside. I plan to be smack middle in the group of divers. Anyways, that’s my strategy and I'm sticking with it! There’s a lawyer from Florida in our group: a tall guy with all the most expensive equipment that money can buy. He tends to spend most of his time on the boat posing, stretching and trying to make the rest of us feel inadequate. He’s not impressed with my Herring Ball Technique. He plans to be right up front with his expensive camera.

We arrive at the dive site and take up positions. Naturally Elan is in the front row and I'm about 10 feet behind him lying as flat as I can on the bottom.

They lower the bait ball and in a few minutes, the first sharks arrive and then more and more. The first of our divers bolts back for the boat: a lawyer from Florida. I don't know why. The sharks would never attack a lawyer - professional courtesy!

The shark Popsicle is being attacked from all sides now. You can actually hear the sound of bones crunching as the sharks chomp down on pieces of bone. I pushmyself down flat on the coral bottom trying to make my self as small a target as possible. I’ve noticed that the sharks seem to attack from beneath, so if I’m flat on the bottom I should be safe, unless they have a spatula.

I have a horrible premonition that the shark Popsicle will break loose and land right on my head – sort of like the pumpkin in The Headless Horseman. One of the guides motions me forward. I give him the diver sign for “No Way." That’s a violent shaking of my head from side to side and pointing to the surface with a raise middle finger. . He motions down to my groin. To my absolute horror I notice that I am laying RIGHT ON TOP of a Moray Eel. Judging on where the eel is lining up on, I immediatelyreclassify him as a “Moyle Eel:" (A Moyle is someone who performs Jewish Circumcisions.) Now I have real problem: If I move away from the Moyle Eel I move closer to the Sharks. I solve it by doing the crab maneuver: scuttling sideways about five feet closer to Elan

Eventually the shark Popsicle is consumed and we retreat to the boat bonded together by our near encounter with eminent death. The Florida lawyer is sitting at a table by himself, or should I say with himself.

Upon returning to the hotel we are greeted with the good news that a class 3 Typhoon is headed right for Yap! It will arrive Tuesday (today) night. I’ve only been in one Typhoon that being Vancouver’s Typhoon Frieda in 1962 and it was quite exciting – of course I was only 17 then, and now a chance to live through a real Typhoon – not a laid back west coast one.

Tuesday:
The morning looks like Vancouver: foggy, rainy and miserable - except that it's 75 degrees out. A typhoon may be coming but its business as usual at Yap tours. Elan and I are booked for a kayak tour, and typhoon or not we're going.

After three hours of being drenched kayaking our way through an endless maze of Mangrove swamps in the pouring rain, it's time to go back to the boat and home. Once we're in the boat, the rain and win pick up and you can't see twenty feet in front the boat. It’s at that exact moment that I notice the boat doesn't have a compass, radio or life jackets - I guess the Yap Coast Guard's a bit lapse on these small details. We have no idea where we are and it's getting rougher. And, oh yes, did I mention I typhoon was in it’s way? I can honestly say that this is only the second time in my life I've been afraid on a boat.

Eventually the fog lifts for a brief moment and we see home port and head into port as fast
as we can go. As I write this letter we’re hunkering down waiting for the typhoon to arrive. The authorities have told everyone in Yap to go home and find shelters. I guess the best I can hope for is it will blow by here quickly and not interfere with our planned trip home g tomorrow night.

I will email again soon and let you know how things turn out and where my laundry ended up.

In Flander's Field the Snorklers Lie

Well this is our last day on Palau. The time has gone by very quickly. Elan has gone to swim with the Dolphins, and I’m just having a quiet reflecting morning. This afternoon we’ll go see the main town of Koror, which will take all of about - - ten minutes. Then tonight onto Yap for the last few days of the trip.

We’ve spent four days here in Palau and we found that on the first day of checking into Sam’s Tours who provide our diving and Kayak tours that we were assigned to the same group of people for the dive days. That group included myself, Elan, and Josh who is a submariner and the same age as Elan, and a family of five from Utah, we nicknamed the Flanders, after the cloyingly cheerful neighbour of Homer Simpson. The Flanders consist of three teenage boys, dad and a manic mom who herds them around like a mother hen on Crack Cocaine. You could

say that they are infectiously cheerful – infectious like Athlete’s Foot, annoying itchy and irritating. Lots of hoping, hollering, and family high fives. As Josh said, “No Family can be that cheerful all the time!” They seem to operate like the sharks they’re so fond of: If there’s food or drinks to be had, they grab them first, leaving the rest of us the scraps.

The Flanders seem to be on quest: They want to catalogue the entire ocean. They have a list of things they have to see, and they scurry from here to there to check off each thing:
“Wow, a white tip shark!” One shouts.
“Where?” shouts another.
“Over here.” The first responds.
And the remaing Flanders make a bee line over elbowing out of the way anyone in their path.
“That’s the sixth one! Family High Five!!”

The strange thing is that nobody, I mean nobody else sees these things! Now I know I can’t be relied on as a quality observer, because most of my time is spent watching my ever decreasing air supply, the elusive Dive Master, and the Elan’s flippers. I keep Elan in front of me at all times as a buffer should we actually ever come face to face with a shark. After all I do have a spare kid back home, but there’s only one of me. But neither Elan or Josh or the Dive Master sees these mythical fish the Flanders seem to find, which of course, led us to the game.

When we’re snorkeling, Josh, Elan or I would cry out to one of the others:
“Look, Look! Shark!”
And of course all five Flanders would come scurrying for a look see.
“

No, No, it’s over here!” one of us would shout, “And there’s two!”
And of course the Flanders would head off in the other direction. They never seemed to tire of this game. The closest I ever saw them to an argument is whether our sightings should count.
Over the three days we did three dives a day, and some of them were absolutely incredible. I mentioned Jelly Fish lake, and yesterday we dove into three dark caves (with flashlights). The stalagmites look a lot likechandeliers, hence the name “Chandelier” caves. We’ve also dived on two WW2 wrecks and countless coral reefs and rocks. I’m going to let you in on a secret, after one or two coral reefs, they all begin to look the same to me: It’s like someone had a bottle of cheap red wine, a Hawiian Pizza with Green Peppers, and threw up over the rocks. Sorry folks, doesn’t sound romantic, but that’s my thoughs on a bunch of coloured rocks. The Dive Masters say their alive, but I know it’s not true, otherwise the Flanders would have counted them.

Yesterday was our last day with Sam’s Tours and it was to be a Kayak Tour. We showed up at the assigned time, and looked at the board and there was good news and bad news. The bad news was we were once again assigned with the Flanders, the good news was Josh was with us and another couple: An Opthamologist and his valley girl wife. I wanted to do the German LightHouse Tour, but all other tours had been cancelled because they were filming Survivor there, and it would ruin the illusion that they’re stranded away from civilization of a bunch of Kayaks floated through every ten minutes. I can only imagine what would happen if one of those groups happed to contain the Flanders.

So the only option was the “Tarzan Tour”, something that appeared a little more enthusiastic for me, considering I’ve got about 25 years on the next closest person in the tour. I asked if they had a “Jane”

tour. I’d pefer that, but given no alternative I went along. Elan really wanted his own Kayak, but the Flanders had grabbed most of them, even though they would be towing their youngest in one, so Elan had no alternative but to spend the day grumbling and looking at the back of my head in a double Kayak and criticizing my paddling form.
The kayak trip consisted of about four 30 – 40 minute Kayak trips to different Islands and about an hour stop at each place for snorkeling. At the first snorkeling stop I swear I heard a 9 year old girl squealing andshrieking. I asked Elan if we had someone join us I didn’t see. He said the noise was coming from the Valley Girl Wife.

Now I’ve heard “low talkers”, and “fast talkers” but this was a first: a grown woman who sounds exactly like a 9 year old girl! It made me wonder what the doc saw in her, but I don’t think we want to go down that road.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, they were bonding with the Flanders!

At the lunch break, I stayed behind with the Kayaks while the Josh and Elan went snorkeling on one side of the bay, and the Flanders and the Doc and Valley Girl went to the other. It was beautifully ideal, except for the racket coming from one side of the bay. There was something very different about the racket and it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. The Valley Girl and the

Flanders were actually communicating through their snorkels underwater – sort of like mutant dolphins talking in “twin” talk.Even the guides who stayed behind with me and were having their own conversation, fell silent in stunned amazement.

On the last leg of our voyage to “lost lake” we had a monsoon. It just pelted rain, but it was warm and over in 5 minutes. At Lost lake, we put on our snorkeling gear and went in the water. I poked around the reefs by myself for a while, and when I looked around everyone was gone! I had no idea where they went! Eventually the guide showed up and took me through the underwater entrance to a little totally enclosed Lagoon.The evening was spent at Kramers – our restaurant of choice and then home to bed early, as we were both quite tired from the long strenuous day. Josh was very depressed about Leaving and having to go back to Guam – especially when he found he’d be sharing the flight with the Flanders. He was seriously looking at upgrading to business class just to be rid of them.

Tonight off to Yap, then off to yap to be Self Propelled Bait (SPB) –my term for SCUBA to dive with the Manta Rays and Sharks. Hopefully there’ll be Internet there, otherwise you’ll have to wait till I get to Saipan on
Thursday for the final chapters.

Elan's Out of the Will!

Well we’ve been in Palau for a couple of days and we haven’t seen too much above the waterline. Our hotel is the nicest so far. So far on all the Islands the employees have been Filipinos and are both beautiful and
wonderful. It’s a pity they are paid so little (only 3.05US an hour)! Like at home they send a lot of their wages home to the Philippines.

So far we’ve done 6 dives (3 a day). I have found that Scuba diving is hard on my neck. I’m spending a lot of my time just staring at my air gauge as it slowly spirals to zero. I am still the world champion (much to Elan’s chagrin) at using my air up first in our group. (As Elan is always assigned as my “buddy” it means when I’m done – he’s done). I’ve pointed out that if anything happens to me, Elan is out of the will, as he will be the chief suspect in my demise (since they always say in the cop shows the chief suspect is the one with the most to lose). Elan points out I have nothing he wants – which really makes me feel my life has been worthwhile! To get back to my neck. I’m busy trying to keep track of my air, where Elan (my alternate air source) is, and to make sure there are no large predators in my vicinity, hence the constant spinning of my head.

Today we saw several 5 foot white tip sharks. This made all the group, with my exception very happy. I used up more air trying to keep several other divers between me and the sharks, until I nearly backed into a hole that had a rather large moray eel. As I had now used up my air in a super fast time I figured I’d be allowed to return to the safety of the dive boat. No such luck. The dive Master offered me some of his air!

Early today we went to Jelly Fish Lake. This is a salt water lake that has been isolated from the ocean for thousands of years. One has to take a rather rocky hike up a hill, then down a hill to get to the lake (Conny from Gambier would love the hike). Once there you don your mask and flippers and swim to the far end of the lake. It truly is amazing. There are literary millions of jelly fish that you’re swimming with. You can’t even see the bottom of the lake because of the countless jellyfish. It’s like looking at the night sky in a very dark place and seeing the almost countless stars. Elan and I took a lot of pictures but I don’t think any of them will do justice to the experience of swimming in this lake. Because the jellyfish have had no predators for thousands of years they have lost their ability to sting, so there is no problem swimming with them.

On the way back to the boat from the lake I ran into a large tour of Japanese people. I impressed them with my command of the Japanese language saying good afternoon, excuse me and thank you in Japanese. They all
seemed impressed and I was quite pleased with myself until Elan informed me that they were from Taiwan!

According to my certification I am certified to dive to 60 feet. Here in Micronesia they tend to look at that as merely a signpost – pointing to 100 feet!
Elan has made a friend. A navy guy from a submarine the same age as him, so it looks like they are going to do the Tarzan kayak tour on Friday. I think I’ll do the “Jane” tour.

Still three more dives tomorrow until I can stay ABOVE the surface. Tonight I’ve suggested that we go to a seafood restaurant. I’m tired of looking at fish – I want to eat some.

I’ll write more in a day or so.