Fishing Trip

Matt, Dave, Ben and I chartered a sportfishing boat yesterday. It was so much fun!!

The day started out early. We met Capt Eads at the dock at 545Am. His boat "Lucky Strike" was full of fuel, drinks and hope. We were going fishing for the big Marlin. It was going to be a long day.

By about 615, Ben and Dave were on there second MillerLite. That's way to early for me to start, unless I've been up all night already. A school of dolphin came out to play in the boat wake for awhile as we motored out. They were jumping the wake and flipping upside down. I think they were having a good time. Better than us at this early point in the day. Around 715, I decided it was late enough in the day to join the fun. I grabbed a MillerLite and one for Matt, too. We dropped the lines in the water as we trolled behind the boat, wondering who'd hit the fish first. The Captain gave us some instruction about the reels and the "fighting chair" in case we hit a large one.

Around 9 we had our first Marlin strike. It hit the rig and knocked it about 40feet forward and tangled the lines a little bit. It didn't appear as though it wanted the rig. It wanted the rig out of there. Some pilot whales and more dolphins came out to play. At least we were getting a whale watching tour.

At this point, the betting began and we broke off into 2 teams. Matt and I vs Ben and Dave. Bets were laid for first fish and total weight. Ben and Dave's side of the boat had a strong hit around 10Am, and the fish took the hook for a couple seconds, taking extra line out from the reel, but ultimately, spit the hook out and left us empty. I wasn't too upset at this point. At least Matt and I hadn't lost the bet yet.

Around 11Am, after 5 hrs of practically no excitement (except for shotgunning MillerLites and trying to push Ben overboard), Matt and I had our first strike. About 100 yards off the back of the boat, I saw the fish hit the bait and jump clear out of the water. I screamed "Marlin!!" as the line spun backwards out to sea. The fish jumped 5 or 6 times clear out of the water. We all jumped up to clear the other 4 lines out of the water to prevent tangling as the captain went into reverse prevent the fish from taking out more line that we'd have to get back. I jumped into the chair and Matt fought to get the rod over to me and anchored into the chair with me. I reeled hard for 10 mins or so and the fish was still taking line OUT. It is very disheartening to be working your butt off and look down at the reel to see line still going out. It is more disheartening to know that we were in 2000 feet of deep water as the fish went down.

Matt and I switched out and he popped into the chair to fight awhile. He started making some forward progress as the fish eventually began to grow tired. We swapped again and I reeled hard the last 5 minutes or so to get the fish to the side of the boat. We were all cheering and yelling as the fish gave a huge last ditch effort as the fight came to an end. The capt gaffed the fish as he, Ben and Dave hoisted the fish up into the boat. Dave and the capt humanely silenced the fish with a couple quick strikes. We dropped the lines back in the water to troll on our way back to shore to get the fish weighed and filleted. Covering the fish in ice and a wet blanket, we hooted and hollared all the way back. Matt and I had landed the biggest fish any of us had ever caught, and won all the day's bets in the process.

The excitement was huge and as we pulled into the dock, the Japanese tourists' cameras started flashing as the hoist pulled the fish off the boat. Matt and I worked great as a team and landed the fish in about 25 minutes (60 minutes is what it usually takes 1 person). We sold 92.5 lbs of meat to the store, and kept around 25 lbs for ourselves and cooked up some Marlin Steaks, invited over some friends for a fish grill, cut some for Sashimi (holy smokes....best sashimi I've ever had), and froze a dozen pounds or so. The pics on flickr are every bit as much fun as they look! More pics will be up shortly. There's 10 or so now. This was one of my best days out here in Guam. The feeling of fighting with a fish like that and feeling how powerful they are, watching him jump clear of the water from 100 yards out as he struck and hearing the reel back-spin out with such ferocity, was something I will never forget.

Saipan and Tinian Islands, CNMI

This past week, KW and I enjoyed our first getaway since her return. We kept the schedule light and flexible as usual and didn't plan a single thing. No hotel nor car reservations and certainly no itinerary.

KW flew out by herself to meet me in Saipan. My work trip ended in Saipan, and rather than return to Guam as scheduled, I got permission to stay behind to start a vacation. Saipan is smaller than Guam, so getting around is pretty easy. We got a car, drove to the Hyatt Resort (I was told our company has a corporate rate) and had a message to meet a couple friends for dinner. We had told them we might be doing this and that we'd try to catch up with them if we did. Matt works with me in Guam, and Vicky-his lovely wife, and KW get along well.

We had Thai dinner the first night. Nothing spectacular. I guess we've been spoiled with all the different Thai/Balinesian/Indian foods we've been able to try out here. Some of them are absolutely spectacular.....but not this place.

The next morning, Matt and I dove The Grotto. It's one of the famous pacific dives out here and I could see why. There's a few pics of it on our flickr. It is a sinkhole inland that connects through caves to the ocean. It is formed by dissolved limestone collapsing and eroding. The water is dark and the dive guide had a flashlight to help a little. Divers have gotten lost and died down there in the caves or gotten to the ocean and not been able to get back in the cave. The coast line there is very tall cliff with pounding, violent surf. You don't want to get stuck outside not able to get back in the correct entrance. The guide was a good investment in our longevity.

The dive was stellar. There were some fish. Some pretty big fish, sea turtle etc...but the star of this dive is the rock formation and caves and the electric/neon/explosive blue colors from the sun shadowing the underwater limestone caves. I've never seen the color before, so I don't kow what to say about it. You need to Google "saipan grotto picture" and see some underwater pics, but even that probably wouldn't be fair.

Later that day we drove around and did our tour of Saipan. Overall, the island is prettier than Guam. Smaller, and somewhat less touristy, with wayyyy better roads and overall maintenance of public parks (even security in the parks!!) and such ...it provided a picture of what Guam could've been like if GovGuam weren't corrupt.

Our tour took us to the Suicide cliff and Banzai cliff. Sad stories relating to WWII and these cliffs. Apparently, Japanese generals told their soldiers that the US forces would torture and canabalize them. rather than face such a horrific doom, they threw themselves off Banzai cliff to their demise as the US forces approached. As the word spread of the US force's alleged treatment to Japanese families, they gathered at Suicide Cliff and one by one...youngest child first father last, pushed each other off the cliff.

The rest of our tour was pretty, but nothing remarkable to post about. We finished the day at the resort with some pool B-Ball and dinner at Bobby Cadillac's.

The next day, we flew over to Tinian Island for a day trip. The short flight took us to an even smaller island, with few inhabitants. Tinian was famous for being the largest airport in the world at one point. It was infamous for being the airport where the Enola Gay loaded and launched from. The 2 nuclear bomb loading bays are still there and preserved under glass structures as National Historic Landmarks, with photos from the period. (pics on Flickr). The area is heavily overgrown and not maintained well. There are bomb shelters nearby, old building structures and of course, all the runways the military built up during the war. It was somber to think that I was standing where the Enola Gay loaded an atomic bomb that would shape the world we live in. How much different would our world be if the events that took place here never happened? For better or worse, things would be remarkably different.

Our Tinian tour also took us to a couple neat spots....the Blowhole (pic on flickr) and the Tinian Dynasty casino...no pics, sorry.
We finished the day flying back to Saipan and going to watch the sunset at Wing Beach (a WWII airplane crashed there giving the name) and met some people who started a beach bonfire.

Last day...world's most pointless snorkeling tour to Managaha Island. It sucked and I don't want to talk about it. Those 3 hrs of my life are gone.
Fortunately the boat driver stopped at a Jap Zero plane that crashed upside down in about 25 feet of water. We snorkeled down to it to get a closer look. That was the only part that was worthwhile from that day.

We checked out and left back to Guam.

Mango Fest

We spent part of Sunday afternoon with Matt and Vicki at the Second Annual Agat Mango Fest. Agat is a village at the south end of the island and Stephen had heard of the event some where so we just drove down to see if we could find it. Holy Moly! I've not seen so many cars on Guam all together except at the Kmart.

It was your typical street/park carnival - with a mango theme for all the kids games, a huge bouncy thing and a stage with local groups showing off their talents in music, dance and martial arts. There were tons of vendors encircling this beach-side park, selling anything from locally crafted wood, to plastic things from china (there's always a few), to plants, to food. Yeah, the food was why we were there. We all started out with some sno cone/slushies in mango, strawberry or tropical blue. Then Stephen and I tried some banana/mango donuts (hole style). They were a bit greasy and all banana flavored. Later we waited forever in line for the other lady's mango donuts, and they were worth it. Just mango, a few chunks here and there, and not greasy. We also picked up some homemade mango jam - I've now been assigned the duty of making this for us at home because it was so good. I doubt the jar will last the week once we open it.

Strangest thing though - no one was selling actual mangoes. We thought we'd be able to pick up a bag of them from a local and eat them all week, but not the case - just things made with mangoes available. They did have a 4-H type booth, with prize mangoes for different types, nicest looking mango, weirdest looking mango and best mango plants. As well as having demonstrations on pickling mangoes, the mango donut making, and grafting/care of mango plants.

All in all a cute local event that I'd probably attend every year if I could. Especially if Vicki opens her booth for fresh lime squeezed over chilled mangoes.