April 2, 2006
Hafa Adai is pronounced “half a day”, which expats joke is the amount of work you get from a full day’s pay from Chamorro workers. (Or in our experience, the amount of time it takes to check in while paying overtime charges.)
We had a pleasant 6 day passage from Pohnpei with pretty ideal weather. Landfall was pretty uneventful until we got into port. The marine police boat requested we follow them into the uncharted inner harbor to check in. One quarter of the way down the channel, we wacked the keel on a rock in the center of the channel while following the police boat as instructed. Garth crashed against something sharp on the dodger and blood gushed from a slice on his ear. We’d been going dead slow, or so we thought. We turned around pronto. The police boat came back out and asked why we had stopped following. When we told them we’d hit a rock in the center of the channel, they said that we should have hugged the left side of the channel. Thanks for the helpful info! (The keel damage was only surface scratches, and Garth’s bloody ear healed in a couple days. Later we found a crack in a bulkhead where the life raft had smashed against it on impact, but we were able to epoxy it without any further problem.)
But we still had to check in. The Marine Police suggested we tie up to a really gnarly dock to check in. We decided to anchor and back in to avoid scratching up the boat against this rusty ship’s pier. As we dropped the anchor, the engine died, making for a stressful situation until the anchor grabbed and we got lines to shore. Adding to the pressure was an immigration guy requesting our passports before we even finished tying up. (“Can’t you see we’re not even stopped yet?”) We waited for hours, holding the boat off shredded black tires and rusty broken supports, while each of the officials came to check us in. They were very officious with a volume of paperwork to keep government workers busy filing for a long time. We just about died when they told us the fees amounted to more than $200. The overtime charges were a tiny fraction of the fees since wages are so low here in this American outpost. (We’ve never paid fees this high anywhere in the many countries we’ve visited by boat.) We later learned that the best jobs are working for the government and nearly everyone on Saipan does.
Once we got over the trauma of our unpleasant arrival we have really loved Saipan. We have found everyone we’ve met to be extremely friendly and welcoming. The “Seattle, WA” painted on the side of our boat has garnered lots of attention and curiosity. We have had numerous visitors to our boat and offers of tools, rides, showers, laundry, social invitations, etc. We’ve been docked in an ideal situation, on a new dock with power and potable water, right next to a beautiful park with pine trees and turquoise water. Fees are $4 per day. Town is a block away across the park, and we have several Japanese World War II bunkers within a few hundred yards of the boat. The marina staff is extremely friendly, efficient and helpful. They’ve gone out of their way to make our stay a pleasant one, offering to arrange for transportation, dive equipment, free email access on their computers plus wifi hookup for using our own, as well as inviting us to join them for meals and parties. We joined them for a picnic where we got to check out some neat Chamorro foods and a fermented coconut drink called Tuba, which was tasty when cold, but a little less smooth when it warmed up.
As we wandered about town, we’ve marveled at the multitude of ethnic restaurants (Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chamorro, Indian), massage parlors and poker rooms serving far fewer tourists than such an infrastructure is designed to support. And the buildings’ veneers are starting to show signs of decline. The dramatic drop in tourism started by the Asian economic bust has never really recovered, particularly after the Chamorro government tried greedily to price gauge when things began to pick up again. Tourism, once made up of mostly big spending Japanese, has changed. As more Chinese and Koreans visit, the flavor of tourism is more budget and chases the Japanese luxury traveler away. But there are still some fine hotels where we can relish the luxurious life.
The streets are nearly empty during the day but become busier at night when the tourists leave the beach to explore town and dine. If we thought the shopping and restaurants were a treat in Pohnpei after Kwaj, you can imagine how excited we were in Saipan, where there’s 20 times the variety! The town is spread out mostly along a single long road along the water, and we have really appreciated being able to borrow bikes, as they have expanded our horizons significantly. A great bike path runs along most of the western waterfront, and we have made extensive use of it. Along the beach we see an amusing array of outrigger canoes formulated from the oddest assortment of raw materials: old sailboats and rowing boats with PVC piping forming the outriggers, old jet ski hulls cut out, and an assortment of Hobie cat hulls. Not sure whether anyone gains anything from these odd outriggers, but they seem to be essential.
One of the treats of Saipan is that we have been able to meet up with friends here. Brian Smith, a fellow cruiser that visited us in Kwaj a year ago is here working as a Mechanical Engineer for the government’s public works department. He has shown us so much more that we’d have seen on our own. Together we have gone boonie stomping every weekend through remote trails, around numerous caves and old war ruins far off the beaten path. We have seen old bones, zillions of sake bottles, Japanese pottery, and war relics. We’ve collected quite a bit of red dirt on our shoes as we’ve tromped through narrow paths in the jungle that a machete cleared only recently.
We’ve also been fortunate to coordinate visits with a few teacher friends on spring break from Kwaj and my (Wendy’s) father. An impressive World War II museum is situated directly between the boat and Dad’s hotel room, which we’ve visited repeatedly to better understand the battles of the Pacific, fought in many of the places we’ve voyaged and some we have yet to see. With its exhibits, great films on display and a gift store full of books, the museum was a continual source of information and entertainment (plus bathrooms, drinking water and A/C!) throughout our visit.
With our friends during their short visit, besides shopping, eating well, and catching up, we did some exploring. We rented two cars and convoyed to see the last command post the Japanese soldiers held here on Saipan, as well as the heartbreaking sites of Bonzai and Suicide Cliffs where Japanese families jumped and pushed their children to their deaths, to avoid capture and torture by the Americans as they had been taught to fear. (Following the First World War, Saipan had become a large sugar cane farming settlement of more than 10,000 Japanese and many stayed on through the World War II.) By rental car, we also visited some beautiful scenic overlooks, such as bird rocks and an incredible grotto that we later investigated with scuba gear. And we explored several of the thousands of natural and enhanced caves where soldiers and families hid during the fighting. With Brian and my dad we revisited these areas a number of times.
Brian treated us to an afternoon/evening with the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers (a running club with a drinking problem or a drinking club with a running problem, depending on the local flavor). The club has groups all over the world, especially in places where the British have been. Fortunately hiking instead of running is allowed, particularly as this was some serious boonie stomping, a course cut through the jungle not easily run by a newbie. The courses are set in advance by 2 hares, who then mark the trail at the last minute with flour clues and sometimes false trail leads. They get a 10 minute head start, after which they are pursued by the rest of the group. If they are caught, they lose their shorts, literally! We all set off to find our way to the end, where the beer truck will be waiting. Gotta hike/run the trail to get to the beer truck.
The Hash was a hot, sweaty, but fun business. As everyone gathers at the ending point, beers are passed around and the antics really begin. Like a fraternity, there are songs and jokes, nicknames, an initiation ceremony and, of course, lots of beer drinking. As FNG’s (F’ing New Guy),we were prime candidates for initiation which involves drinking (or wearing – our choice) cheap beer from a stainless urinal. Another big part of the tradition is coming up with nicknames, something we were pretty excited about since they were all so flattering. With names like: “Drool Bag”, “Donkey Dick”, “Hand Job”, “Dog Leg”, “Happy Pockets”, “Short Time”, “Second Coming”, “Vertical Lay”, “Oly” and “Max Cheesmo”, we could hardly wait to see what gem they might come up with for each of us. Briefly they toyed with “Heini Kicker” or “Kick your Heini” since I’d kicked over a can of Heiniken (I was set up!), but it didn’t stick. After much beer drinking, jokes and a bonfire, the group relocated to a favorite bar. And the Harriers do this every week!
We returned to the Grotto for a more in depth exploration with dive gear. One hundred and twenty steep steps down and then back up again with full dive gear is not for the faint of heart, but we were well rewarded for our efforts. At the base of the steps we timed our venture across the gap to a rock island from which we could jump off into deep water. (And getting back out of the water, it was a challenge to avoid getting swept in the gushing water through that same gap.) The water clarity was impressive. Sunlight shines through the blue water from tunnels in the rock between the huge cave and the sea outside. We explored several inlets inside the grotto cave, then swam through one of these openings to the sea outside, explored outside for a bit, then returned to the grotto through another opening. Upon our return, this local swimming hole was filled with Chamorros enjoying a Sunday outing with snorkel gear. And as we were exiting the water with our rubber legs, a group of 12 tourists arrived in full dive gear. Nearly deserted in all our previous visits, the grotto is a popular place on a Sunday afternoon! As I climbed the steps in my full dive gear, I was asked to pose with each of 3 Chinese gals.
My father and I took a ferry to the nearby island of Tinian, where the atomic bombs were loaded for their secret missions of destruction that brought about the end of the War in the Pacific. We saw bomb pit one, where “Little Boy” was loaded into the Enola Gay before it made its historic impact on Hiroshima. And we saw bomb pit two, where “Fat Man” was loaded and exploded over Nagasaki after weather forced a change of destination cities. We also saw the huge airfield used by both Japanese and American forces and an incredible number of Japanese buildings, facilities and bunkers, many still in excellent shape, including an underground fuel depot, a power plant, a radio communication building, and the air administration building where three Japanese soldiers were found after committing ritual Hara Kiri. We saw another Suicide Cliff where some of the 19,000 Japanese sugar cane farmers on Tinian jumped to their deaths. A number of monuments commemorate those who died. Three Chinese were recently caught in the act of defacing one of the Japanese monuments and other monuments have also suffered from vandalism in recent months. Whereas photos of Tinian prior to the war show Japanese towns and thousands of plots of land under cultivation, now only about 3000 Chamorros live in open countryside. A couple of casinos lure tourists to Tinian to gamble, but otherwise it is a sleepy place, famous only for its role in history.
A regular Thursday street fair offers countless delectable meals and snacks from the many ethnicities that populate Saipan. After a week and a half in Saipan, we began to recognize people from around town who would convene for this popular event. Each week features entertainment and we got to see dances from Palauan, Thai and Chuukese women and then an incredible performance of a Japanese drumming dance troupe that gave it everything they had. Much of the charm of Saipan is its interesting mixture of cultures, with Chinese, Filipino, American, Thai, Japanese and Korean coming together.
While we are very tempted to stay much longer in this delightful place, typhoon season is approaching and we need to make tracks to a safer haven with enough time to see some places along the way.
We have set up a blog where we can post updates without necessarily having to send out mailers. We plan to spice it up with images and updates and fix the formatting problem, but it’s a start. We will try to update it by email directly from the boat, so you can hear what we are up to more frequently than we can find land based email. Check http://yachtvelella.blogspot.com/ to see whether we've posted an update since our last email.
View our more recent photos at
http://photos.yahoo.com/yachtvelella
and our older
photos of our voyage at
http://photos.yahoo.com/atomicsalsa
Cheers,
Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox
S/V Velella (Wylie 31)