Redhead goes home

I spent my morning packing my gear, my clothes, and assorted paraphernalia.  Then, I hopped on my bicycle, and toured around the island one more time.  I managed to stop and get the pictures that I could not when we were caught in the downpour on our first full day, even securing a shot of a fairy tern to die for.  I stood under a tree waiting for that one - and was happy when one of the five shots I fired off in a row came out well.

From there, went to Kwajalein Dive Club sale, and picked up a few goodies to bring home as souvenirs.  There was a dearth of sale items, go figure, it’s hard to get supplies to Kwajalein!

Met up with the gang at lunch time, and they regaled me with the wonderful things they had seen.  One word is all I have for that.  Jealous!

I was picked up at about 2:30, and ferried over to the airport.  Most folks were outside, and I didn’t understand why until I saw them lighting up.  So, I opted to check in, and continue working on homework for my class that would be meeting Monday night (as in tonight!).  Got everything done, with time to spare, boarded the plane and headed home.  It was an uneventful flight, blessedly, and I got a little sleep, although not much.  Got home at about 2 am, and crashed out for a few hours before heading in to school. 

Can’t wait to go back!

More Marus!

We started out today pretty much the same as yesterday - up early, bike to Jim’s, and head to the marina.  We had the same lovely boat that we had previous days, and got ready in the same manner.

We headed out for one particular wreck of some significance; however, when we got to the location where there should have been a newly placed marker buoy, there was none (although we did have a few initial GPS challenges, we did confirm we had headed to the right place).  So, we headed off to another wreck, the Tateyama Maru, and proceeded down.  Nice dive, with a fairly intact ship, lots of ammunition, and some bones...human bones, that is.

From there, we headed out the channel up to Shell Island.  As we were speeding along, we saw Marshallese on Ebeye piled up in the backs of pickup trucks, moving along the manmade bridges between islands.  We also passed the Ebeye dump, where they were burning garbage.  Icky yuck.  The dive was in moderately murky water (murky for the Marshalls, not bad for Hawaii), and waited.  Alas, no manta rays, just a white tip reef shark and a spotted eagle ray.

We returned to the harbor, did our quickie lunch, and headed back out again, this time to the Daisan Maru.  The Daisan was fairly deep, and we were pretty close to deco, but it had a very cool gun (on which Jim posed), and lots of life.  Including an Emperor Angelfish.  Nice.  Unfortunately, very short dive. We were headed up the descent line within 20 minutes of start time.  In between dives, as we were changing out gear, a wave hit us, and my butt lifted up in the air and I wound up moving (unintentionally) from port side to starboard side.  I think that’s gonna leave a mark.

We went back to Shell Island, and did our dive again.  Once again, the only pelagics were a white tip reef shark, a spotted eagle ray, and (this time) we saw a stingray.  So, not bad, not mantas, but not bad!

The ride back in was bumpy, ouch!

Dinner again hosted at Malcolm’s place.  What a wonderful crew of people!  Discussion moved towards our return trip in 2011.  :)  What more could a girl ask for???

Kamikaze diving begins

Heck of a diving day -- we were up before the crack of dawn, getting ourselves ready for diving today.  We pedaled down to Jim’s house, where he had hooked up a trailer to his bicyle, and we loaded up our gear and headed to the marina.  The water inside the lagoon was troublesome, as the winter winds were headed our way, so I was in fear that we wouldn’t hit the Eugen. 

Our first dive was quite deep, I think we almost hit 170 feet.  Eek!  The site was called Mad Crack, named after a lady named Madilyn, in addition to the huge crack in the reef.  Wayne and I were pretty much right at the edge of deco, not exactly where you want to be on a little atoll in the middle of the Pacific, but the dive was amazing.  You can check out the pictures!  Our second dive was in the lagoon, we hit the Eugen.  You can see the stern of the Eugen above the water level, and she is on her side for the most part.  The bow is down at about 110 feet, so it was another deep dive.  Quite a lot of life on the wreck, and one chair in it.

We checked back in at the harbor, grabbed a quick Subway lunch, and headed out oceanside again, this time hitting Gea and Golden.  Lori is on high hunt for a golden cowrie, we shall see whether or not she gets one!

Strangely enough, not a heck of a lot of pelagic life, I was expecting to see a little bit more.  I should have thought to bring an empty water bottle with us, and then to rub it in order to attract a couple of sharks, but c’est la vie.

Side note, diving with the Canon G12 and its underwater housing is amazing.  I think I have finally found my very last dive camera ever (knock wood), as the pixel size is more than adequate, the resolution is fantastic, it’s easy to adjust under water and does not require a red lens filter (woo hoo!), and it’s just fun to use.  Definitely time to put the Olympus housing up on eBay, along with all the other old ones.  If anyone out there wants a camera, drop me a line!

Dinner that night was hosted by Malcolm and his wife.  Lovely steak, potatoes, free flowing wine, and great conversation.  It is amazing how quickly this community brings you in under its wing, and befriends you sight unseen!  It’s the kind of place I could live a year or two before heading back home to Hawaii.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We decided (ok, I decided) we should do a bicycle tour this morning of Kwajalein, given the small size of the island.  It was a nice tradition we established when we were in Midway, and I thought that it would be nice to continue it.  Lori and Wayne graciously humored me!

We did the grand tour again (revisiting the paths that Jim took us on in the golf cart after our test dive), going down the airfield, by the marina, past the beaches and the turtle pond, out to the SDI building that is now used to store excess equipment (garbage dump), and back around.  As we were headed back towards the airfield, we encountered some pretty vicious wind and rain.  It was strong enough that the rain felt like it was slicing your skin, and the wind could blow you backwards!

We took a (very) little shelter, and waited for things to die down.  Then we proceeded forward.  There is a small, 9 hole golf course on Kwaj, and folks were playing through despite the wind and rain!  Talk about dedication...

After finishing up the tour, and by the way, we saw some of our bird friends from Midway -- brown curlews, Pacific golden plovers, fairy terns -- we went back to the hootch and decided we were HUNGRY!  After a snack, and an aborted attempt at a nap, Jim came by and told us he had ceded cooking responsibilities to Malcolm, and that we would do a one tank shore dive.  Although torn between homework and salt water, I chose (big surprise - NOT) salt water.  We dove the ski area wreck, which is a lovely shore dive, maxing out at about 60 feet, with lots of coral and fish.  It was truly a beautiful dive, and there were two wrecks.  One, a regular ship, and another, which was a landing craft.  Such beautiful coral, including razor coral, and lots of life.  I can only imagine that I would be in the water as close to every day as possible if I lived here.  Hmmm.

Following that, we headed home, showered, and joined the gang for Thanksgiving dinner.  I have to say, the community in Kwaj welcomed us with open arms.  People who had never met us before had us at their home, enjoying a meal with them, and telling stories.  It was lovely.  And Malcolm did a wonderful job with his beer can chicken, duck, and the bourbon marinated ham.  Plus the turkey, all the sides, I felt so guilty while still feeling very fortunate.  What a fantastic place this is! 

We went home, and I crashed, leaving homework for another day.  I’m already not wanting to head back to Honolulu, but it will be necessary.  :(

Welcome to Kwajalein

So we padded out of bed on Wednesday morning at 3 in order to pick up Lori and be at the airport -- left to get her near 4:30 a.m.  We saw Don for the first time in a while, grabbed the girl, and headed out.

Morning at the United Red Carpet lounge was nice, hope they don’t change membership rules now that they have merged with Continental.

And off to the island hopper.  First stop was Majuro.  They no longer let you go into the main terminal when you get off the plane to go see the vendors, so that was a bummer.  Hopefully we will find a good dive operation there sometime in the not too distant future.  There was XXXX beer (bitter) and VB, so I was hopeful for some Aussie goodness in the future today.  Lori encouraged me to buy some to bring on the plane, but I demurred.  Dumb redhead.  Or perhaps just unenlightened!

We arrived on Kwaj, went through immigration, got our passes (no shopping privileges, gasp!), and met Jim for the first time.  We had to wait around for our bags, but they did finally let us in after they were inspected, and we headed off on the golf cart for our housesitting job.

We unpacked quickly, and got ready for our test dive -- out at Troy’s Coral Head.  Nice site, lots of pelagics, and we cruised by the Prinz Eugen on our way there.  I was a little underweighted yet again (same as in Mexico), but still enjoyed the dive.  Grey reef sharks, barracuda, eels, pipefish, and all sorts of other goodies made for a wonderful dive day.  And then we had dinner over at Jim’s home, meeting his son, his younger daughter, and wife, along with Jan and Malcom and their daughter.  I got to show off pictures of Maiya (long story, ask later), and eat some wonderful Filipino cuisine.  Yum!  We were exhausted before long, and wound up heading home to crash at about 8:30.  Although the day was Thanksgiving Thursday due to crossing the international date line, we were informed that the actual celebration would be on Friday.  But no diving.  Boo hoo. 

The waters were very much a combination of diving in Majuro and Hawaii, most pleasant.  Definitely looking forward to more time wetting the gills.