stubsadventures

The travel to Jamaica was pretty smooth flying. Poncho and I were like two giddy school girls and could barely contain ourselves, which I’m sure is what anyone who knows us pictured.

Landing in Montego Bay, even the smell was amazing. I know I say it about everywhere that I go but Jamaica has some amazing people. People here are excited to see you and always saying to things “No Worries” and “Ya Mon”. The bus driver to the resort let Poncho sit up front because it was her birthday and was nice enough to stop along the way for us to take pictures of some views and even get a traditional Jamaican drink, rum punch. Two of those for the road and Poncho and I were the life of the bus.

The hotel is right on the ocean and the water is green and blue – which was what Poncho wanted. After having a nice dinner, we found ourselves feeling old and not so wanting to party – we would go to sleep that night, have a great refreshing sleep and then wake up the next day and party that night, there was always tomorrow.

The next morning, we woke up and had a massage at the spa. Poncho had a deep tissue and was making the most hilarious sounds I have ever heard coming out of her. She later confessed that she had felt beat up but in a good way.

The rest of the day was spent on the beach and in the pools (oh yea, and another nap). We did venture into town to see a bit of local life. This walk of ours, was to say the least, overwhelming. If you have ever travelled to Mexico and had vendors try to get you to come into your shops here, Jamaicans are the next level to that. Yelling at you, following you, doing anything they can do get you to purchase something from them. After a little more than an hour of walking, we had both had quite enough and headed back to the hotel.

That night Poncho and I agreed we had the best sleeps we had had in a while. Another day of adventuring in Jamaica…

Stubs.

My guided hike was awesome. Although I was extremely hung over and wanted to throw up for the first half hour. What didn’t help the nausea, was the giant spiders that were all through the jungle. GIANT. There were some that were the same yellow butted ones that terrified me in Hawaii but they also have this other bigger scarier one with red on it too. My nausea climaxed when I watched my guide, Jason, walk directly into a web. I managed to hold it together but not by much.

Although the day before I had rented a car and drove all around the island, it was amazing how much you miss as a tourist if you don’t know what you’re looking for. The signage in Guam isn’t fantastic and I was really surprised at how much I had driven right by and thankful that I got a second chance to see it! As I said, the war history in Guam is everywhere and is a part of everything. Most of the parks were dedicated to war history. Guns still mounted on the coast, bunkers where the Japanese held their lasts stands, cliffs where thousands of people’s bodies were hurled off, to places where the locals hid out trying to avoid the violence. Guam and it’s stories will humble you.

Two of my favourite moments from my day with Jason (who by the way is from Guam Guided Adventures and would highly recommend him if you are in the area!): stopped by this road side stand that had been closed the day before. The woman, who looked to be around 100, had no teeth and the biggest smile you can imagine. She had pure coconut oil that she made by hand. I bought as much as I could with my remaining cash. She also gave me a starfruit because she said everyone had to try one (even though I’ve had about 10 in my travels, haha). From there, we stopped at a tiny village that is a recreation of a native village. They have several huts set up to demonstrate the ways of life and people inside them to tell you a little story and then demonstrate and let you try their traditional ways. I was the only tourist in the entire place and treated to one of the most amazing hours in my life. There is no way to describe the people there, they are always smiling, very educated but most importantly educated on their traditions, history and stories of their ancestors. Very, very proud people, and rightfully so. I had an awesome conversation with a 24 year old woman who showed me how to scrape and then cook coconut to make coconut candy. For anyone who likes coconut, there is nothing like this. Heaven. Her and I had a long discussion about her life and what it was like, she was very open. Her husband is a marine and just got deployed for a year. You could tell when she talked that this deeply saddened her but she was determined to make the best of it and always tried to finish her thoughts with a positive statement. In the end, she wasn’t 100% happy with the first batch of candy, so told me to go to the next hut and she would perfect a batch that I could take with me.

My other favourite hut was the place where they showed you how to make rope. The guide (which by the way was $6 for the hour) was showing me how they peel trees to make their rope when his family member Frank walked up behind me and handed me a gift. It was a little bird woven from a palm leaf. Frank was also toothless and was in his 90’s and couldn’t have been happier if he tried. He clearly took a lot of joy teaching people his traditions because he was full of smiles the whole time he showed us how to make thick rope used for boats. The pictures speak for themselves.

Stubs.

Guam caught me off guard. I intended to use the few days to unwind and relax after all the diving. I hadn’t really looked into what there was to do there but I had arranged for a guide to take me around for a day to show me some stuff off the beaten paths.

The history that surrounds you in Guam is almost overwhelming. This tiny island has a very violent history but some of the nicest people you will ever meet. The signs and reminders of WWII are everywhere. You can’t ignore what happened on this island because it’s all around you, all the time.

I stayed at Hotel Santa Fe and loved it. It was a big older but much smaller than most of the other hotels in the area. In the morning, I went down and had breakfast next to the ocean. When I was all done and just drinking some coffee, the lady at the table next to me asked me if I was also a solo traveller. When I told her I was, she joined me immediately. She was 90, and never told me her name. We had the most amazing conversations over the span of about an hour. She ordered fruit and insisted that I share it with her. She was at the end of a four month travelling stint and right before Guam, she had been in Cambodia for three weeks. Remember, she is 90. She had me in stitches laughing more than once and we both talked about how we need things like Facebook when we’re travelling so our families wouldn’t worry about us so much. That was a cool moment. When I asked her if she ever got nervous travelling alone, she simple said, “Dear, people don’t want to rape me. They want to rape you but not me.” I almost spit coffee everywhere. When I told her about this blog, she said that she could never have a blog because she would have to censor it too much. Of course I had to ask her what could be so awesome in her life that she wouldn’t want the world to know about, which was when she let me in on the secret of her “much younger” 75-year-old boyfriend. She actually blushed when she talked about him. Then, she had to rush off to Facebook message him.

My first afternoon was spent at Bali Spa. That place is a little slice of heaven. I spent 5 hours in the spa getting everything from a massage, to a scrub to a scalp treatment and everything in between. I literally felt melty when I left.

Part Two to follow..

Stubs.

Bitter sweet. 21 dives is a lot in a week but I will admit, I was sad that part of the adventure came to an end. I felt like I could have kept diving for at least a few more days. Here are my last three dives.

19th Dive
147ft
39 min
2 min deco @15ft, 3 min safety stop

Loved this wreck. Tank with no gun on it, tons of bullets in the cargo holds and gas masks and a truck frame. Very cool wheel house in great shape.

20th Dive
106ft
57 min

Saw four eagle rays, bow gun and loved the masts on this ship.. Another nice wheel house and hung out at “clown fish town” on one of the masts for a while. They are funny fish.

21st Dive
114ft
53 min
5min safety stop

Last dive was fittingly an engine room tour. Great way to end the trip, great engine room. Saw lots more clown fish on this dive.

I will miss this place.

Stubs

Today was the day I had been waiting for. We were going to dive the San Francisco and hit my deepest yet. Before I this trip, I had hit 148ft in Belize and I was looking to go a little further. Doing a deep dive can be hit or miss through because if you’re ears won’t equalize or if you don’t feel good for some reason, you have to abort the dive, which sucks. There was a little more structure to this dive than any of the others. Each team had to dive with a dive master and you had to have a predetermined dive plan that you did not vary from.

The mood on the boat was a little more serious before this dive, one of the ladies kept muttering that she was probably going to die. I was very much in my own head by this point. You check and recheck and just stay focused on getting into the water.

To free fall 140ft into the ocean is an amazing feeling. There are still things that you are doing with your gear on the way down but for the most part, you’re just taking in the view. It feels like you go for a while with nothing around you but green water when all of a sudden, the outline of a ship appears. The whole thing can be really surreal sometimes.

When you dive to 160ft, you are riddled with narcosis, I don’t care who you are. For every diver, this can be a very different experience. For me, I get a serious body buzz and I almost become tunnel visioned in a sense. I still have a some what clear thought process though and have never hallucinated thankfully.

On the deck of the San Fran are tanks, one partly leaning on the other, in amazing conditions. One even had the hatch open and you could look inside. The inside of those things was absurd.

I have no pictures from this dive. It was 35 ft past the manufactures recommendations on my camera, and based on past experience and camera bills, they are usually pretty accurate. It was one amazing dive and I will always remember touching down on that deck, smiling and looking at my dive computer and being pretty darn impressed with myself. 163ft. New record.

Second dive of that day, I actually forgot my camera! No pictures from day five.

17th Dive
163ft
51 min
2min deco@20ft, 11min deco@10ft, 3min safety stop

San Francisco

18th dive
96ft
41 min
5min stop

Cold! Forgot camera! Cool torpedos with props – 21ft long, medicine cabinet intact with liquids still in bottles, syringes. Name of ship was very visible in English and Japanese. Saw an octopus and telephones. Small tour through inside of ship. Saw a bunch of periscopes stacked up.

The dives just keep getting better. I was kind of worried by this point of the trip that I would have had enough of diving and been ready for a change of scenery and it is in fact quite the opposite. I get more excited to dive as the days go on!

My right ear is starting to hurt after every dive. It’s not equalizing that’s the problem (which I somewhat expected to a certain degree) but more just the constant water in my ear. Walking around the ship head banging your head one way only goes so far…

13th Dive
133ft
50 min
5min deco stop/6min safety stop

Back half of this wreck was blown off in a fuel fire, the sides are peeled over like a sardine can from the impact. Inside the intact part of this wreck are tractors, trucks and a bull dozer. Lots of bottles again and another great engine room tour. Saw a cute turtle at the beginning of this dive.

14th Dive
122ft
50 min
5 min deco stop/8 min safety stop

Trucks inside the wreck on their noses, would have been lined up inside the cargo hold when the ship listed to the side. Huge ammo and nice masts on this dive.

15th Dive
112ft
56 min

Cool telegraph and bow gun. Lots of schooling fish. Inside the wreck, several planes and lots of ammo. Liked the prop on this wreck. Saw cool worm at the end of the dive which was about 2ft long

16th Dive
89ft
51 min

Twilight dive, some as previous wreck, nothing new to report.

Stubs

The dives are steadily getting more comfortable and also jam packed full of adventure. Each and every dive is just amazing in some way and often, when I get back on the boat and am sitting for a minute, I can hardly believe was has just happened.

The other thing that started to happen was the setting in of the reality of where we were diving and what historical significance it held. There were many places I saw bones. Some situations based on where the bones were found, you could tell how the person perished, one in particular that I will never forget. Although there is this huge amount of awe, wonder and lot of adrenaline in the dives themselves it was not just all adventure. There was a part me that felt privileged to witness such a big part of world war two history but to also be conscious and respectful of those who lost their lives here. There are constant reminders on the wrecks this is in fact, a war grave.

Diving four dives a day makes me exhausted. I am in bed sleeping every night by 830 and sleeping soundly though the night. I’m used to the constant rocking of the boat now and for the most part can pee in the middle of the night without hurting myself in some way on the way to the bathroom.

9th Dive
120ft
40min

Saw some boots in one of the holds. Was a weird feeling. Beautiful masts on this boat.

10th Dive
104ft
47 min

Crazy engine room tour again, gauges in there with glass still covering then, clock on the wall of the engine room. Loved the prop on this boat, that was the deepest part of the dive. Bottles on the wall in one of the holes totally still stacked because there were packed so tightly. Some of the wooden crates still intact.

11th Dive
105ft
52 min

The most unbelievable dive that can ever be done. This was the ride of a life time and the biggest test of my courage to date. Sam had me so far inside the ship, I had no idea which way was up. Through the dark hallways, doors, different floors of the superstructure. Literally so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face. The flashlight was my friend. It was a crazy maze of steel that we negotiated for about a half an hour. More than once I got stuck and had to wriggle out. And also more than once, I would be pulling myself or having to try two or three different ways before finding the right way to fit through some of the openings with your tank on. For the guys at work who know what I mean: this is the ultimate confined space. My heart was racing after this dive. Adrenaline was pumping through my whole body. What I wrote in my journal was; “this is what dreams are made of”.

12th Dive
82ft
49 min

Cool wreck, this one was blown in half. Was a cool gun on the bow and some amo had been brought up around it for display. Lots of bullets. Three trucks on this wreck with most the body work on them rotted away. Lots of tiny fish on this dive. Very awesome masts to decompress on.

Stubs.

In some of these pictures you will start to see in the inside of the ships. These were the dives that we really started weaving through the wreckage inside hallways and through door ways without any natural light to be found. And for as amazing and scary it was at the time, they were just warm up dives for the ones to come.

Some of the pictures inside the ship aren’t that great but with some imagination you can figure out what most of the objects are. It’s important to remember that every single picture is part of a ship, there is nothing else in the lagoon but sand. Hard to believe in some spots because the coral is so thick.

I forgot to add the 3/4th dive of day one, so those two from the day before will be listed first

Day one – 3rd dive
97ft
44min

Went deep inside my first engine room. Craziest rush ever. Pitch black, couldn’t see anything without light. Got scratches on legs and dinged my head. Multi levels through the engine room. Lots of focus required. At times, visibility would be nil inside the ship. Cool sea cucumbers and eels on port side of ship.

Day one – 4th dive
61ft
31 min

My first solo dive! There were other divers in other areas of the wreck but for a while, I had no one in sight and it was an incredible feeling. Also slightly terrifying. Of course it was easy because the Odyssey was right over top of me the whole time. Saw sea cucumbers spanning. They go up on their butts and shoot baby making stuff out of their mouths. It’s one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Day two – 5th dive
95ft
55min

This was the destroyer, didn’t go inside this ship. Saw big wrench from engine room in the sand and guns on deck.

Day two – 6th dive
117ft
47 min

Amazing wreck. Saw hospital room that had a surgeons table on some tools on it. Also human remains were on the table. I won’t be posting pictures of remains, as Truk is considered a war grave, so I don’t post them out of respect. Also in this superstructure there was a bathroom with bath tub still very intact with beautiful tiles. Tons of coral on this ship. Lots of wires hanging inside some of these spaces, multilayers to the superstructure. THe masts were huge and amazing in because of coral growth. Saw a big barracuda at the end of the dive.

Day two- 7th dive
110ft
41 min

Awesome tour of the engine room. At first when we dropped into the hold, I lost the group and after searching for a few minutes decide to go back the way I had come, just to be safe. I swam over top of the group on the deck and just followed their bubbles. At one point there was another entry, so I ducked in and got a private tour of the space. This was a bit more complicated than the last one. Lots of tight spaces. Got my regular cord stuck exiting the wreck. Took a few minutes to free myself, I thought I was going to tear it on the metal when I pulled it out but it was all good. On this dive, I was hovering and taking a picture of something and an anemone stung my leg! I could kind of feel it under the water but it really started burning when I got out! Saw and filmed a shark on this dive. Action packed from beginning to end.

Day two – 8th dive NIGHT DIVE!

Little bit of a current on this dive. Although the dive was cool, there were too many divers in a small area, which was the first and only time that happened on the whole trip, so it wasn’t as cool as it could have been. We did have a big fish follow us around and when he would use our lights to hunt for smaller fish.

Stubs.

We boarded the boat the night before we started diving. 15 divers, from Canada, Australia and the US were my ship mates for the next seven nights. The ship was beautiful. Everything was done right. The cabins were mostly double but they did have two single cabins, one of which I snagged (for a heavfty but well worth it price).

Immediately, I began to feel intimidated. Everyone else had way more dives than I did, and for a couple of people, this was a return trip to the lagoon for them. It was kind of funny actually, I seldom find myself in that situation but it was a good thing to feel like I was the under dog again. I seriously wondered on that first night what I had really gotten myself into. I settled into my cabin resolved at the fact that all I could do was take it one dive at a time and trust myself and my instincts to keep me out of trouble. I loved my little single cabin, the bed was cozy and it was nice to have my own space to escape to when I wanted to get lost in my thoughts or needed to get out of the sun.

Dive #1 – Fiyosumi Maru
Depth: 88ft
Time: 50 minutes

Unbelieveable. I can’t believe I was ever scared! On this dive I saw human remains, gas masks, bicycles, bottles, guns. I cut my leg on the inside of the ship. Sometimes skin diving has it’s downfalls.

Dive #2 – Fiyosumi Maru
Depth: 94ft
Time:40 minutes

Went inside the pitch black engine room, was crazy. Saw a skull that was imbeded into the ceiling after an explosion, saw a snappy eel. I went deep inside the ship on this dive and felt very comfortable, all fear has kind of turned into focus at this point.

Stubs.