Ant

With less than two months left in Pohnpei, Pete and I have been taking more advantage of the adventures this island (and its outer atolls) has to offer! We've both been buffing up on our spearfishing skills at Palikir Pass (complete with world class surfing waves from November-March) thanks to our friend Tyler's connections. We went out once with the Pohnpei Surf Club, a somewhat pricey but luxurious option with larger boats and coconuts and snacks to share when we were out of the water. We went out another time in a local boat with Tyler's friend Ancher, and it we got soaked by the waves long before we even reached the Pass. The coral was decent at the Pass and we saw a plethora of animal life, including a large family of squid and $5 floating through the water. I have a shot-to-kill ratio of exactly 0% as of yet, but just getting to shoot the spear gun was enough excitement for me. Aiming will have to come later. Pete has shot several fish, including trigger fish, squirrel fish, a spotted red grouper, and parrotfish. Tyler, who spends most of his free time spearfishing around Pohnpei and has a pretty badass speargun, has shot too many fish to count.

This past week, Tyler's mom and sister came to visit from the states and he planned a vacation for them that was chock full of the kind of adventuring we were looking for, so we joined them on some of their outings. The first day we went out with Ancher to Palikir Pass. After snorkeling around for a while, we asked him to take us to a more local spot that tourists don't come to, and therefore will have better coral and bigger fish (the advantage of going out with a local guide). We swung around inside the reef to a shallow spot that was teeming with wildlife. The water was amazingly clear and its depth ranged from just 3 feet to around 30 feet. The boys took their guns out to the deeper waters and hunted fish while I was content paddling around and observing the fish. The shallow areas were particularly cool because I could get up close and personal with the sea stars, crown of thorns, angel fish, clown fish, and giant clams. Upon returning to the mainland, we realized that our SPF 55 sport sunscreen did not protect us very well from the noon sun and that we were in fact extremely burnt. A week later, I'm still nursing the burn on the backs of my legs!

The next morning, we set off with the Pohnpei Surf Club for Ant Atoll, approximately 8 miles off of Pohnpei's shores. There was a storm brewing and large enough swells that by the time we arrived I was feeling a little queasy and was ready to jump into the water. Allois and Jerry, our captains for the day, dropped us off near one end of an island and advised us to drift along with the current and he'd pick us up at the other end. Tyler and Matt were the first to jump in, and the first thing they did was yell, "This is amazing! Get in the water!" Tyler's mom, sister, Pete and I jumped in and found ourselves staring through crystal clear water at a 70 foot wall of coral and exotic fish. The sandy lagoon floor gave way to coral that stretched up to plateau just two feet under the current water line. It was absolutely breathtaking. We drifted along and gaped at the complex coral structures and the dazzlingly colorful and bright fish inhabiting them. We swam up and down the wall for a while, and then the sharks started coming. The ones I saw were just 3-4 ft. white tipped reef sharks, so pretty harmless. But one of them happened to be swimming up the wall perpendicular to my position, and just being able to see her mouth and the jagged edges of her teeth coming up at me were enough to hasten my departure from the beautiful coral wall.

Allois and Jerry then took us to another island that had a beach. A real live beach! A sandy beach! Small though it was, it was the first beach I've stepped on since being in Pohnpei, and it felt great. The water was shallow and sandy and stretched out to a rock "cliff" where the floor dove down into the surrounding ocean. I started out to the rocks with the boys, but the outgoing current was stronger than I would've liked and so I turned back. Along the sandy floor, a few sharks were perusing in search of a snack and a healthy population of fish was avoiding them. The best part were the giant clams, of which I saw so many that I lost count. They are truly beautiful creatures, with colors encapsulating all those of the rainbow, and the ones I saw ranged in size from a few inches to a foot across. Some coral housed up to 8 clams on one surface! They were quite remarkable to watch. On my way back in, suddenly all coral gave way to a completely sandy incline leading up to the beach. Now, I knew there could be stingrays in the sand, so I was careful. For whatever reason my attention wandered and resulted in me almost putting my hand directly on top of a burrowing stingray 2 feet in diameter with angry looking barbs on its long tail! The water was only about 2 feet deep at this point, so the only way I could get a comfortable enough distance was swimming away sideways from it, hoping that my flippers wouldn't accidentally disturb it! I payed much more attention to the sand after that.

After a short break on the beach where we barbequed some of the fish Matt, Pete, Tyler, and Jerry had caught we moved on. A heavy storm opened up right above our boat and it was freezing. The feeling of "cold" is novel in Pohnpei, but it still wasn't all that welcome. We boated over to our last snorkeling destination which was on the oceanside of one of the islands. The water was about 50 feet deep where we were and the visibility was impeccable. Tyler caught a pretty big grouper almost as soon as we got there, and the sharks were very interested to see if he'd share. One glimpse of a 7 ft. long grey reef shark coming up from the depths was enough to send me back to the boat in a fit of swimming that I'm sure would've qualified me for the Olympics, if they had a category for "flailing/desperation." The waves were rocking the boat so much, though, that pretty soon I was feeling sea sick and ready to go home. All of the sudden, Tyler was yelling for Jerry to throw him a buoy and line- there was a school of dogtooth tuna nearby and he wanted to eat one. I new I couldn't miss that, so I jumped back in with the sharks. Tyler ended up spearing one that looked like it could easily be a 75 pounder straight through its gills. It immediately dove straight down, taking all 300 ft. of line with it and plunging the buoy 40 ft. underwater. Then, without any fight, the buoy, gun, and line began floating back up to the surface. The tuna had wrenched the barb off of the spear and gotten away, surely now pursued by the nasty looking sharks that had been eying us earlier. So the big tuna was the fish that got away that day, but it got Tyler's excitement up for his next run-in with a tuna.

We got back in the boat and it took almost 2 hours to get back to the shore, with me feeling sea sick the whole time. I was very grateful to feel my feet back on solid ground, but totally pumped about everything I'd experienced that day. After we showered off we caught some dinner at a asian-fusion buffet, saw Shutter Island at the island's only movie theater (with air conditioning!), and turned in for an early night. The next day we got some pizza and then headed back to Madolenihmw to get back to teaching. I mention each of these things, because FOOD and ENTERTAINMENT are not things we come by easily in Mad-town. There are no building except for houses, churches, and schools, and there's nothing even remotely resembling a restaurant in the whole municipality. So it's nice for us to get into town every now and then and fatten ourselves up.

So here I am now with only 5 weeks of school left! I've opened this last quarter up to learning anything and everything they've wanted to learn but haven't yet, including drama, poetry, dance, human bio, how to bake a cake, and about the Iraq War. It should be much more interesting than grammar and thesis statements! I'm still waiting to hear the results of the COMET, although what I've unofficially heard so far is that 26 students passed, our school ranked 3rd in the FSM (for what, I'm not sure), and one of our students got the 3rd best math score in the FSM. Are any of these true? I highly doubt it, but I'll let y'all know when I get the official word.

Kaselehl,
Taylor