WWII Battleships

I am very fortunate to be a federal dive instructor and a National Park Service diver. I was recently tasked with the enviable job of flying up to Hawai’i to conduct a refresher training and recertification for NPS divers from the Pacific West region. Class was unremarkable as we reviewed dive physics, physiology, table use, and so on. What was remarkable was that of the 6 planned dives, the first two were going to be made on some of the most inaccessible wrecks in the world, the USS Arizona and the USS Utah, two battle ships sunk during WWII.

The USS Arizona is one of the most historic shipwrecks within US waters. This 608’ WWII battleship was sunk by the Japanese during their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was hit by a 1,760 pound armor-piercing bomb that ripped through and ignited the forward ammunition magazine. This direct hit sank the Arizona in 30’ of water in under 9 minutes, entombing 1,177 sailors and marines. The Arizona was extensively salvaged during WWII. Most of the superstructure and 2 of the 4 gun turrets were removed. The remainder of the wreck is basically intact and sits upright in the water. The #2 gun turret is still in place though the barrels of the guns have been salvaged. The #1 gun turret is completely intact. This triple barrel 14” gun is huge.

I knew I was only going to get to make one dive on the AZ so before going diving; I looked over the archeology drawings made 20 years ago by park service divers. I decided to pick one obscure artifact to look for on the wreck to determine how accurate the drawings were over time. So I picked a wine bottle which was supposed to be resting atop the #1 gun turret. Sure enough, as we made our way around the entire ship I found the #1 turret and was happy to find that the wine bottle, a tiny object on a 600’ long ship, was still there.
Visibility was around 10-15’. Much murkier than my tropical Pacific visibility I have become accustomed to. Actually, it reminded me a lot of diving on many of the big wrecks in the Great lakes. The murk is a combination of shallow water, and its accompanying algae blooms giving the water a greenish cast, and pollution. The Arizona itself is contributing to this as it is still slowly leaking oil into the harbor, an environmental issue which is still to be resolved.
After the Arizona, we went to dive the USS Utah. Also sunk on the Pearl Harbor attack, the Utah was a WWI battleship that had been outfitted as a target practice training ship. The Utah sits on her starboard side around the corner from the Arizona. It has several guns still in place and really specks of a time when US workers really took pride in their work. Most of the stainless steel on the ship is still stainless after 60 years!

All-in-all the training went quite well. I only had one pair of divers really screw up (which is a long story for another day). All photos I got from Dave Stoltz, who got them from Brett Seymour, I think. As I was in charge of dive safety I didn’t get to bring my camera with me.

Farewell, Mormon Mark!

Our good friend, Mark, left the island this past weekend. It was especially sad for us, as he was our first friend here in American Samoa. In fact, we all moved here on the exact same day and met in the Honolulu Airport while en route to Samoa. Mark became like family to us and Emma loved playing card games with him after our many dinners we ate together. On Saturday night, there was a party thrown in honor of Mark, and as usual, he was a kid magnet. Mark joined in his farewell dancing and it was pretty impressive to see him shaking his hips. We saw him off at the airport and after saying she wouldn't cry, Emma broke down and cried for a long time. She has such a wonderful, caring heart and I know it is hard for her with all the goodbyes she's had to endure during the past few years. I will truly miss Mark, but I was also feeling a bit sorry for myself. After all, we arrived on the same day so shouldn't we be leaving on the same day? I guess our time will come, too.

Humpback Whales

For exactly one year now, I have had bouts of extreme jealousy directed towards Paul. All of this jealousy boiled down to the fact that he got to go out with a visiting whale researcher and see several humpback whales within just a few feet of the boat! My envy subsided a bit last October as Emma and I were fortunate to witness a whale spouting and even breaching (jumping partly out of the water) just off shore. It was a marvelous moment and I had tears in my eyes as I have always dreamed of seeing humpback whales. I also got to hear the eerie songs of the whales several times underwater while diving. These moments sustained me for awhile, but over the past year I have pestered and reminded Paul that if at all possible, it was his duty to get me on that research boat this year!

September and October are the peak months when humpback whales visit our island. We have a group of whales that return each year, migrating from Antartica to enjoy our warm waters for mating and giving birth. This September I saw two whales spout way off shore, but this event only brought back my longing to play whale researcher for a day. Now it was October and both the scientists and the whales would soon be leaving the island, but I had not gotten the opportunity to go out on the boat. With only two days left of the scientists' visit, Paul called me and gave me the news that I on the list for Friday's boat trip. I was so excited that I had trouble sleeping the night before.

Friday morning finally arrived and we headed out in the somewhat choppy waters. Before the first hour was even up, the first whales were spotted. The boat sped over to the vicinity of the spout that was seen and suddenly one of the whales surfaced. As humpback whales are endangered, people should never get closer than 100 meters to them, but given that we were aboard a research vessel with all of the proper permits, we were able to witness the whales swimming literally a few feet from the boat.
We followed a group of three whales for awhile. They gave us quite a show and at one point one of the whales even swam underneath the boat. Each of the whales did a number of tail slaps and I couldn't believe how big their tails are! The whales were so close to the boat that we could have reached out and touched them. It was intriguing to be close enough to hear their breathing. After six hours of bobbing on the boat and lots of puking on my part, we saw a total of 8 whales. Despite my green color, I was so happy to get this opportunity. This definitely ranks up there on my list of amazing things I've done!Here is a site from the local newspaper that has photos of and by Dave Matilla, the lead scientist. http://www.samoanews.com/Whales2007/index.htm

Veggie Feast

After nearly two months of not writing on the blog, I have finally been inspired to write again. I suppose there were many events from the last couple months of living on a tropical island that could have provided inspiration, but snorkeling with sea turtles and hiking in the jungle have become a bit mundane. My inspiration is something that I can truly say I used to take for granted.... fresh produce. Yes, that's right. Produce.

During our pre-Samoa fantasies, Paul and I imagined all the locally grown tropical fruit that we would be feasting upon. It turns out that our little lava rock in the middle of the South Pacific is not the tasteful paradise that we imagined. We have very little land that is not on a sheer mountainous cliff, and the land that is available has very poor soil. That said, there are a couple of things that are grown continually and in large quantities here, mainly taro and breadfruit. If one is looking for something more than a diet high in starch, though, you have to rely on the produce shipments from the U.S. or New Zealand. Unfortunately, by the time we purchase these fruits and vegetables they are moldy, mushy, and otherwise tasteless. Not to mention that the price is typically 3 times what we would pay back home. The situation can be so bleak at times that when lettuce arrives on the island, word travels like wildfire among the palagis (white people) and we all rush to the store to buy our mostly wilted heads of lettuce.

This past week, however, I felt like it was Christmas. My first find was a bag of fresh green beans grown in Western Samoa. Emma and I enjoyed snapping off the ends and eating them fresh. In true feast-or-famine style, we ate them all, fresh and cooked. Unfortunately, it was a 2 pound bag, and I am now officially sick of them.

The next big produce find was fresh corn on the cob. Emma spotted a sign on the side of the road that read, "Got corn?". I had noticed the corn field at one time off one of our many dirt side roads, but this was the first time I ever saw any corn for sale. We purchased our dozen ears without any inspection and headed home to shuck them. We were so happy with corn on the cob that we weren't too concerned about the condition of it. After all, we once bought a pint of half moldy strawberries for $8 and ate most of them. It turned out the corn was great! Parts of it were missing kernels, but most of it was covered with yummy, sweet corn. After these great finds, it's going to be hard to walk back into our regular grocery store and face the shelves of moldy vegetables again.