Kari Mueller - Saipan Diving

I'm still trying to get caught up with this blog but I don't think it'll ever happen. Kari Mueller first emailed me back in July or August from Denver, asking about diving in Saipan. She wasn't even a diver yet but had a work trip planned for here for September so she was planning on getting herself into a class soon, in Denver. Before long, she'd finished her entire class except the Open Water dives, which she planned to knock out in Hawaii before coming to Saipan. A lot of people talk about taking a class, kick the idea around for awhile, but never actually do it. Kari got it all done in a very short time. When she got here she had some work to do for the National Park Service, then we took a trip out for a couple of dives.

Here she is getting ready to make a giant-stride entry into Lau Lau Bay.

A Yellow -tailed Coralis, one of my favorite fish.
Kari also seemed to like the bright colors of these.Kari looked quite at ease for this being just her 5th dive in Open Water.It wasn't long before we found a Green Sea turtle.Crown of Thorns.

For one of the dives we went over to take a look at one of the large ship anchors,
presumably a leftover from the WWII invasion.We also came across a Spotted Eagle Ray.
It didn't seem in any hurry to go anywhere and
didn't seem like it was bothered by our presence at all.

A Moorish Idol.A large Dusky Anemonefish colony.And then we came upon an octopus hiding in a small hole.
It was pretty shy and refused to come out and play.I'm not sure of the name of this little guy.
Maybe Doc Robertson can help out with the Fish ID, otherwise I'm going to have to actually get one of my books out and look for it. It's always in the same spot in shallow water (~25 ft).

All in all, I think Kari's seen a lot of different sea life for a new diver. And she's now been diving in both Hawaii and Saipan, two great locations a lot of divers dream of visiting "someday".

Greg Gutman and Michael Stone in Saipan Part 3

For Greg and Stoney's last dives on
Saipan, they wanted to go back to
Lau Lau Bay. That's where we'd seen turtles and eagle rays the first day they were here and we finished out their trip here with 3 dives that day.

It didn't take long at all until we found Fiona. She was feeding in her
regular place. We spent about
15 minutes on that first dive just
watching her and following her around.
She went up to the surface for air and came back to continue her feast.















It was clear Stoney was enjoying himself and clearly relaxed. He'd been a pretty new diver when he
arrived on island and had gotten
in 9? 10? dives over just a few days.


He told me several times during the dives that he liked this triggerfish, to the right, with it's funky teeth. We also saw a few Crown of Thorns (left) from time to time. They eat coral and are widely disparaged for it, but Butterfly fish also eat coral and
they're not vilified. Butterfly fish are
'pretty' so they can get away with it and not be hated.

There were a few Red Snapper that kept circling Greg and Stoney. They're pretty big and they seem pretty curious but they rarely ever do anything. I've been bitten by one only one time...it startled me more that hurt. We also got to see an Eagle Ray on the last dive. There
were two that spent the summer hanging out in Lau Lau Bay...
one with a short tail and one with a long. They used to always be together when they were younger, smaller, but now they seem to have separated and I rarely see them together anymore. One of the last things we saw was this eel hiding among the coral. After a bit it decided to find a new hiding place.

It was great not only diving with them but hanging out with them for several days. I hope they make it back this way sometime in the future.

Greg Gutman and Michael Stone - Scuba Diving in Saipan Part 2

I'm getting farther behind in my blog posts all the time. One reason is because I've started a new full time job and my diving is pretty much limited to the weekends now. But I've still got a lot of pictures to post. Greg and Stoney visited back in June and I'm just getting around to posting the pictures. So, here are photos of their second day diving here while here on Saipan. These are from Obyan and the Grotto.

There was a small octopus under this rock and we spent some time hanging out while it kept creeping out to take a look at us...then dart back under the rock when it decided we seemed a bit too sketchy. Can't say that I blame the thing...we probably did make a pretty shady looking bunch.

Obyan usually has great visibility and some of the more colorful coral around Saipan. The purple colors are amazing but you have to be careful not to touch the mustard colored stuff. It burns like crazy when you touch it. Someone told me it' fire coral but from pictures I've seen on the internet it seems like something different. Perhaps Doc Robertson, or someone else can clue me in to the specifics.

Near the rope, just before finishing the Obyan dive, we found this Turkey Lionfish hiding in a small hole. There were several back there but this one was the largest.

After several dives at Lau Lau and Obyan,
we finally headed to the Grotto. We headed down to about 90 feet where the first sea-fan swim-thru starts...coming out around 110 feet. Then we peeled back up and around and hit the second sea-fan swim-thru.

I've always liked the Regal Angelfish and you can usually find some at the Grotto.
Finally, with a bit of clowning around during the safety stop, Greg and Stoney were ready to head back up.





Finally, Greg had to climb a Flame Tree up at the last command post and we stopped to see some of the Japanese shrines that are located there.

Greg Gutman and Michael Stone - Scuba Diving in Saipan, Part 1

I recently had several days of back to back diving with Greg Gutman and Michael Stone, Americans currently living in Korea, showing them the sights of Saipan...both above water and below. Greg is a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver and Stoney had just completed his OW course in the cold, dark waters of Sokcho, Korea. Brrrr.....

Don't get me wrong...I love Sokcho....Sorak-san, etc....but I have no desire to experience those cold waters again. Considering Stoney hadn't really had any other dives yet, they were eager for a nice, easy set the first day so they could get used to their gear and the conditions here. Good plan.

We headed to Lau Lau Bay, and entered at Standing Pipe for the first dive. Standing Pipe is a pretty cool entrance but one most Japanese and Korean tourists never see. Why? You have to walk about 75 meters further down the shore than if you just walk straight out from the parking lot. But once there, you jump into what seems to be an circular cut in the coral that gives you the feeling of being in your own enclosed coral pool rather than out in the complete open. After getting everything set, we headed out the small hole in the corner and started a very relaxed dive. We hadn't gone very far when we came across one of the two adolescent Eagle Rays that has been hanging out in Lau Lau Bay for the past few months. There are two (siblings, I believe) that are often together. One has a short barb, or tail, and the other has a long tail. This was the short-tailed one. They used to travel around together but more and more I seem to catch them off on their own. It was the first time either Greg or Stoney had seen one. We weren't able to get very close but even at a distance these things are amazing to watch. The just glide through the water so gracefully.We slowly made our way west, stopping and checking out different things as we went.

On our second dive we headed out the pipe and played around in some of the cave-like 'swim throughs'. Then it was over to one of the larger Dusky anemone fish colonies.

We've got several different species of anemone fish here in Saipan that are never shy about coming up and seeing what you're up to.


















Finally, on the 3rd dive of the day we came upon these Scorpion fish trying not to be noticed. See Doc Robertson's earlier posting on this blog about how to tell the difference between a Scorpionfish and a Stonefish. After his tutorial, I know enough to say these are Scorpionfish but I'll have to leave it up to him to pin an exact species name on them.

And of course, I had pretty much promised to find these guys a Green Sea Turtle so we headed out to their usual feeding area to see who might be around. and we found Thor hanging out with some Japanese divers. The Japanese soon took off and we followed Thor further out (to a depth of about 55-60 feet) where we then came upon a second turtle - one I happen to call Storm. Not a bad dive.

Diving with Teddy and Leslie in Saipan

With all the diving I've been doing lately it's hard to find time to update the blog....but I need to because the dives have all had something noteworthy of late. I've got to share some photos and stories of two very new divers here on Saipan. Teddy (Cho Won-hee) and Leslie (Lee Young-soo) are Korean interns at World Resort. They recently got certified as Open Water divers and we decided to go out and get a few more dives in before Leslie leaves the island to go live (and dive) in Guam.

We went out that morning for two dives. Anyone who reads my blog will already know Green Sea Turtles are my favorite thing to see in the water and I think most people really enjoy getting to swim with these beautiful creatures. There are a few turtles in particular that I've become familiar with over the course of several hundred dives at Lau Lau. I've already posted pictures of Fiona because she's probably the turtle most often seen when diving Lau Lau. Right behind Fiona is a turtle I call Storm, because she has a small while mark on her shell that reminds me of a lightning bolt...and Storm, from the X-Men, can hurl lightning bolts. Don't try to figure out my twisted mind...entire case studies haven't been able to make sense of my thought trains.

Anyway, Teddy and Leslie got to spend a lot of time hanging out with Storm on their first dive. After that, we headed over to one of the Dusky Anemonefish colonies we have here. Lau Lau actually has two very large Anemonefish colonies with dozens of anemonefish to watch in action.


The second dive was a bit more unusual. As we were just stepping into the water I looked down and realized I was directly over a Thornback Ray. I backed everyone up to give it room and we made our way out along the rope where we happened to come across a second one. This was all within the first 2 minutes of the dive. Not bad. You just don't see these everyday, let alone 2 in the first few minutes of the dive. I think Teddy and Leslie had fun on their dives, I know I had fun showing them the underwater sights at Lau Lau Bay.

Saipan Scuba Diving Update - Fiona, an earthquake, Navy Divers and Aviators

Okay, I've had some incredible diving lately with some great people. I've got a lot of stuff to catch up on so I'm going to kinda give you the short version of what's been going...with lots of pictures.
1) Fiona is back. She was gone about 4 1/2 months. I first saw her back again on World Turtle Day. How fitting is that?

2)Just before seeing her there was an earthquake off Rota that we felt. That's right, we felt an earthquake while diving. It was verified by a USGS earthquake website. I'll provide the link soon. All three of us on the dive clearly heard it, felt it, and checked the time. Then when the dive was over we asked several others in the parking lot if they'd felt it and everyone said no. It wasn't until later in the day when John Frazer (one of the divers along) emailed me the link the to the report of the earthquake off Rota.

3) The other diver along that day was Nicole 'Doc' Shounder. She just went from an Open Water student all the way to a Master Scuba Diver with 5 Specialties, and 50+ dives, all in 5 months (at age 50, no less). And she didn't do it all here. She did part of her training in Guam and Palau, so she's seen quite a lot in a short amount of time. Boat dives, shore dives, cavern dives, drift dives, etc. Congratulations to Nicole!

4) I've been lucky enough to get to dive with U.S. Navy divers and aviators that have been visiting the island. It's been a lot of fun and I think everyone enjoyed the scuba diving here on Saipan.

When I have military guys like these, it's always a lot of fun because I know they're highly trained and won't ever lose their wits. So, I can relax a bit and and just show them special points of interest at our individual dive sites. I've had groups from a Naval base in San Diego, another one in Florida, and several from Guam.

I've been taking these groups to the Saipan Grotto, Lau Lau, Obyan, and the occasional boat dive like Ice Cream or Naftan. Everyone wants to dive the Grotto while here but the turtles and eagle rays are also popular. To the left is Amanda Casciaro escaping gravity at a depth of about 40 feet.

4) I've updated my website (www.saipanscuba.com) with newer photos (some of which you see here) and a simplified main page (I think).