SAIPAN – FEBRUARY 2008 – by LARRY GORDON

On February 4, 2008, four Patowmack Divers arrived in Saipan, in the Northern Marianas, for three days of diving.  We expected a gentle let-down from the exciting previous week, which we had spent in Chuuk aboard the Truk Odyssey diving WWII Japanese wrecks.  However, this short add-on trip turned out to be a great adventure in itself.  We seemed to be the only visitors from the American mainland, let alone the only American scuba divers.  Tourism is Saipan’s biggest industry by far.  The islanders themselves are American citizens, but 95 percent of the tourists are Japanese or Korean.

Things got off to a problematic start when we were met at the airport by a driver from the wrong hotel.  We were told that the Fiesta Hotel and Spa, the hotel we thought we had booked, was full, and that we were actually booked at a place in Chalan Kanoa, ten miles from the action in the main city of Garapan.  We sent this driver on his way and instead made our way to the Fiesta, where we camped in the lobby for a couple of hours with our entire luggage until they finally found rooms for us.  This wait wasn’t so bad, since the Super Bowl was being televised in the bar, even though the Pats lost.

Our dive package was with Global Ocean Divers, Inc., a relatively new operation located on the beach in front of the Fiesta.  We were met in the lobby by Hiro, the owner, and his dive instructor Tanya, a drop-dead beauty from Byelorussia.  They were able to straighten out the problem with the hotel rooms.  After Tanya made our day, the remainder of the trip was smooth sailing!

The next morning they took us by boat to a place called “Dimples,” part of the reef that obstructed the landing of 20,000 U.S. Marines on June 15, 1944.  At first we thought we had dropped into the area that had been blasted away by U.S. Navy frogmen so long ago, as the reef was unremarkable.  However, we all agreed that the second dive, at nearby “Ice Cream,” was one of our best dives ever.  This reef presented a mountain of coral with colorful Pacific fish that most of us had never before seen.  They included many kinds of anemone clownfish, surgeon fish, butterfly fish, angelfish, tiny blackfin dartfish, pufferfish, spotted morays, and brilliant red file clams.  Three large eagle rays arrived and circled above us as though posing for pictures, and we happily obliged them.

That afternoon, some of us went across the island to Lau Lau Beach, where the main challenge was picking our way over a hundred yards of rocky shoal in full equipment before reaching deep water.  This wasn’t the place to forget your weight belt, but one diver did and got to make the perilous trip twice.  Once underwater, we were met by thousands of baitfish that had been driven into the shallows by offshore pelagics.  We then followed an old pipeline to the deeps, where the variety of fish and coral increased.  There was not much soft coral in Saipan, but there was a great diversity of fish.

The next morning’s boat dive took us to Naftan Point, at the southern tip of the island.  After braving big swells in transit, we found a relatively calm area, swam up current, and began a fabulous drift dive beneath the cliffs that included more new varieties of fish and coral – so much life that it was hard to focus on a single area.  Among the more unusual attractions were a latticed sand perch with two false eyes and a devil scorpion fish.  We then returned to the bay in front of our hotel, where we dived the Shoan Maru, a sunken Japanese freighter.  This was a little tame compared to our previous week in Truk Lagoon, but it was still great wreck dive, with large schools of yellowfin goatfish weaving in and out of the ship.

That afternoon we made Saipan’s most famous dive, the Blue Grotto, on the northern end of the island.  We went there by van, donned our equipment, and made our way straight down 111 treacherous steps into a gigantic sinkhole.  (Well, two of us elected to hire a porter.)  At the bottom, we slipped and slid onto a big boulder, donned our fins, and did a giant stride off the end of a cliff into the crystal clear water below.  At about 50 feet, we were greeted with the awe-inspiring sight of three caverns leading to open water.

We made our way through one of the caves, emerging into the light of the ocean beyond.  The current was slow, and the sights were many.  Skimming over the top of the coral head, we met a large green sea turtle.  Above us, we could see the waves crashing hard against the cliffs, not far from the heights where Japanese soldiers and Saipan civilians had willingly (and unwillingly) jumped to their deaths more than 60 years before.  We made our way back through the caverns, posed for a spectacular photo, and then began the hardest part – getting ashore!  After slithering over the rocks on our bellies against the surge, there were still those 111 steps.

Our dive masters in Saipan were outstanding.  Quinton, who was from Palau, was missing an eye and several teeth, but he was a veteran diver who knew all the dive sites like the palm of his hand.  Sidney, who hailed from Truk, spoke English like a college professor and knew the name of every creature in the water.  With these two leading us, we lost no time finding all the “good stuff.”

On our final day of diving, we went by boat to the nearby island of Tinian.  (In 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay took off from Tinian to drop the first atomic bomb.)  Here we encountered more magnificent caverns, but this time we entered them from the sea.  In addition to what had become the “usual” breathtaking fauna, we came upon lionfish, peacock grouper, sea slugs, turtles, and a titan triggerfish whose huge front teeth resembled those of an enormous gopher.  He (yes, he)  turned out to be nesting, which one of us discovered after approaching within a few feet to snap a photo.  The giant fish suddenly turned and charged the diver, bumping him hard on the chest, but with no injury to man or fish.  Remaining photos were taken from a more respectable distance.

Our last dive was no disappointment.  At Obyan Beach we again negotiated a somewhat difficult shore entry and egress, but the dive itself was easy.  Rapidly scrawling names on a slate, dive master Sidney found and identified a vast array of small reef fish and other creatures:  anemone fish, pipe fish, garden eels, cleaner shrimp – the list went on and on.

Our last day on Saipan was a non-dive day as we de-gassed before flying, but it was nonetheless eventful.  We hired a local guide and toured the hallowed ground where some 3,500 Americans and 30,000 Japanese troops had lost their lives (not counting more than 20,000 civilians who committed suicide or were murdered by the Japanese soldiers).  The names spoke for themselves: Landing Beaches, Hill 500, Hell’s Pocket, Death Valley, Purple Heart Ridge, Suicide Cliff, Banzai Cliff, and The Last Command Post.

If you like stirring history, natural beauty, fine oriental food, posh hotels, and want to have a dive adventure that is truly different, put Saipan on your list.