Operation: Guam: caves

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Sea Caves

Carlton and I had one more boat dive left on our dive membership, so we took advantage of that last weekend. This time we headed to the south end of the island to explore Toguan Bay, which had some caves, and Hap's Reef.

Leaving the marina

Some views of the island as we make our way to the first dive site.

Toguan Bay has a few caves that you can swim through which was really cool. Some tight spots though - Carlton got a few scrapes getting too close to some of the reef as we were making our way through. The water was a bit murky but we did see two lion fish.

Anemone right under the buoy for the boat.

Small starfish

Carlton entering the cave

Looks like a bunch of lips with orange lipstick

Small clam wedged into the reef

Large lion fish about 1 foot long

Carlton got a great video of the first lion fish we saw. The second one we saw was a bit harder to photograph because the water in the cave was so murky.

Heading towards the cave opening

Carlton following the light

Interesting reef formations

More reef life

Very vibrant clam!

Our next dive site was Hap's Reef which was only about 60 feet around the perimeter. Somehow, we got turned around once we got underwater. We followed some other divers from the boat for a bit but they didn't seem to know where they were going either (it's a bit difficult to communicate underwater), so we headed out on our own. We explored the reef we found but once we came back up to the surface we realized that we had not explored Hap's reef. We had missed it completely and explored another area. We still found some interesting reef formations and once we got back on the boat, we actually had a dolphin sighting when we were heading back. I did not get a picture but it is the first time we have seen dolphins since we moved here last year.

Random outcropping

Green sea star shoved into the reef

Friday, April 8, 2016

U-Turns

Soon after arriving on Guam last year, we decided it would be wise to purchase the local hiking guide. Obviously we were not going to know how to get to these hikes or what the trail would be like, so a guide seemed like the best way to go. So far I would say we have had about a 60ish% success rate using the guide. Either the directions to the trail-head are incorrect OR we have lost our way during the hike. Many of these hikes are not well marked and the description in the guide is not always helpful or accurate.

Our adventure last weekend started with us heading to a new hike that we hadn't heard much about and we knew there was a chance that the guide book would be incorrect. This hike was supposed to start on the communications Navy base in the northern area of Guam and lead to Tweed's cave http://www.guampedia.com/george-tweed/ and then on to Double Reef Beach (which sounded lovely in the book). Obstacle 1: The guide states that the trail head is right next to the sign for the Haputo Ecological Reserve...there are two of those signs about a quarter of a mile apart and no trail head near either one! We drove around the area for several minutes looking for a trail head, looking for the dirt road that was supposed to be near the sign, etc...no luck. Obstacle 2: There is a phone number to call for the Navy base to make sure that the trail is open. We called. The trail is NOT open because they are shooting live ammo at the gun range. Yay. We already knew we weren't going to do the hike that day but we asked the person on the phone for the location of the trail head for future reference. No dice. She had no idea. The other people in the office with her gave us directions that were vague and entirely unhelpful.

We were determined to do some type of hiking though, so we made our way to Ritidian Point which is further north from where we were. I had been once and knew that there was a beautiful beach there and a nature preserve. Once we arrived at Ritidian Point, we discovered a map of various trails in the jungle area near the beach. We decided to start with the first one and see how it went.

We had been hiking for about ten minutes when we came across caution tape strung across the nature trail. So we used a parallel trail and tried to continue along. After another 5 minutes or so, we ran into more caution tape. We were supposed to be heading towards a cave area but apparently they were doing a jungle restorative project, so each of the trails to the caves were blocked off within about 50 feet of the cave area.

We headed to the beach and went in search of another set of trails that had nothing to do with the caves. We were finally able to follow a trail from one point to the other and then enjoy the views from the beach but it was an anti-climactic hike!

To add insult to injury, we had similar difficulties finding a place to eat lunch after our "hike". The first place we went to was busier than our patience would allow at that point. There were fifteen people waiting to place their order at the window and we did not want to wait. The next place we went to ended up being closed for lunch...on a Saturday. Only on Guam. Finally the third place we chose was open and NOT busy!! We didn't eat lunch until about 2:30 that day but we were definitely happy to have found food!

Just another Guam adventure! Enjoy the pictures I took on our "hike":