Harmon Loop Hotel Dededo

Weekend of October 24th/25th<br><br>This weekend couldn't have been a nicer weekend for wet season Guam.... After a long and crazy week the weather was perfect and the waves were almost glass making an awesome couple of days of diving. With only a few more weekends before I head home I don't have too much time left to see everything on my list for Guam. So I signed up for 4 boat dives.. two of which were free and the other two cost only 35 dollars ...

Ok, so there's been a lot going on lately and I haven't had much time to update this blog so ill recap last weekend and put in pictures from the dives of the weekend before. <br> The new Bomb squadron from Louisiana arrived in early October and just started getting in the groove of flying a packed mission schedule. So I took full advantage of the time off knowing the pace probably will not change until after I leave. This is a good thing though for sure meaning I get more ...

ok... so after 2 months of being P_O ed about not finding Lower Sigua Falls the last time (should have brought a map blog), Joe and I headed out again with a different approach this time... using a map! We bought a guam hiking guidebook and map to navigate through the trails. I can't say that either helped much because the entire hike is Guam's mother nature idea of an ultimate CF but we did get there eventually so thats the ...

I took the advanced open water SCUBA course this weekend. It consisted of reading a useless book, knocking out some quizzes, and completing 5 specialty dives. The dive we chose were the Night diving, wreck diving, drift diving, navigation, and deep water specialty dives. The navigation and deep werent too much more interesting but the other dives were Really Cool<br> We went out Friday night to explore Gun Beach, a beach with ...

So... this saturday had to have been one of the most eventful days Ive had since ive been on this island! Saturday here was Guam's clean the coast day and hundreds of peoples lined the roads and coastal areas piking up trash and other debris that take away from the natural beauty of this place. Joe and I left base around 530am to head down to Merizo on the south side of the island. Merizo is right next to Umatac Bay and Magellan's landing. Magellans ...

This weekend, due to the ceremonies and flights for Sept 11 and an upcoming typhoon was cut a little short on the adventures. However, I did get to go on a dive that I've been wanting to do for a long time now. There is a spot in Apra Harbor with 2 shipwrecks that lie only 5 feet from each other. 2 ships from 2 different world wars, 2 different countries, and 2 different stories, right next to each other! It is the only place in the world ...

... important skills that we would need for our later open water dives. This goes from pulling out your regulator underwater, exhaling and then clearing it from clearing a flooded mask to towing tired divers and cramp removal. we took breaks inbetween each confined water dive and got ready for our first open water. This was probably the coolest thing I have donw since Ive been here. We swam out past the swimming area and came to the edge of the reef at gab gab where it drops off ...

... We had some beers, were kicked out of the hotel beach bathing area and ventured on to a pub, Stanley's pub that is. Stanley was an interesting australian guy and had the beer coolers accessible to the public. If you wanted a beer or drink, go grab it out of the 'store like' fridge-styler coolers (obviously unsure of the name). But just like at the store. On the front of the menu was Stanley himself beer in one hand and ...

... time.... then there are some devices called tensiometers that measure the cable tension and tells us when the dredge reaches the bottom and takes the first "bite." Anyways, once the dredge collects the samples it is brought back to the surface (another 2 hours). Once on the deck, we wash the samples and try to separate them based on the type of rock (lithology). We take the samples to the lab where we cut them in half and describe them in great detail ...

... if you get caught in it. I chose not to risk it. The History: Okay, I'm not a whiz and I'm not going to lecture here- but Guam was taken over by the Spanish back in the day. They "converted" the native people (in a not so nice way) and settled. The language of Guam has some spanish thrown in for good measure apparently. Someone spoke it to me once and I couldn't make out anything he was saying. There are a lot of leftover remnants of the Spanish ...