Adieu Saipan

I’m terrible at goodbyes.

Amy, what would I have done without you?!

So I’ll keep this short and tell you how you guys were the BEST part of my every day. Thank you for your friendship and the memories. I’ll never forget the laughter and happiness you brought to my life. Here are a couple pictures of my last week in Saipan.

My Saipan Family

My scuba buddy, Harry! Thanks for coming to the airport to see me off.

The SDA Dental Clinic had a farewell party for me. A favorite patient baked me a yummy Apple Coffee Crumb cake!


My daily sunshine at work! I'll miss Mark and Tammy James. Thank you for throwing me a farewell party at your house! I will also miss Aunt Judy and Uncle Dennis for teaching me how to scuba dive. You introduced a whole new world to me and now I'm ADDICTED!

Ken and Crystal gave me a beautiful lei from Chuk! I have had the time of my life and I'm so glad I got to spend it with them. They were my spiritual mentors in Saipan and have encouraged me to follow my passion and dreams. I'll miss you guys!

My good friends, John Dax and Mai. Always there to listen to me Rant about everything! There's Noah squeezing his cute face in the pic.

Lunch at 360 with Angelo. Thanks for the laughs!

If you have ever read the book Eat Pray Love you’ll understand me when I say that living and working in Saipan was my “India” experience. I came to Saipan on a quest for personal and spiritual growth and left with so much more. This journey changed my life. My heart has awakened and my soul is at ease.

This picture pretty much describes my experience in Saipan: A blast!

My beautiful friends.

And now I’m ready to grab life by its two horns. I hope you will continue to enjoy the ride with me. I’ll keep the same blog address but there will be some changes in the next couple of weeks. I’m still trying to come up with a new title. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Scott and Atsuko Eck baked me this yummy choco brownie cake! Thank you!

What’s Bubbles’ next adventure? Scuba diving and searching for Whale Sharks in Belize this June! Greg found this one just recently in Belize. I hope they come out when I get there. Stay tuned Neh !!!=)

Whale Sharkey! Picture taken by Greg Moretti.

Dive Snapshots from President's Day Weekend

So I kicked off my 4 day weekend with an afternoon dive with Harry at the Grotto. Funny how it doesn't take much convincing for Harry to get wet. He got a new camera and has been dying to test it out.





The grotto is probably my most favorite dive spot in Saipan. Its just so unique and I feel like I'm in heaven going through the exit holes.






The visibility was unbelievable! Probably about 50 meters across the way. We spotted a huge Napolean Wrasse much like the one that was recently caught. He didn't wait too long for us to catch up with him because he just took off! Here's a picture of Harry below me taking pictures of this turtle. Check out his blog for beautiful close up pictures.







Here's a creature that I am definitely intrigued by but too scared to get too close. The Spotted Morey Eel has really sharp teeth and I just don't want get in its face.







I was actually really surprised to see this Parrotfish. It's either a Bumphead Parrotfish or a Steephead Parrotfish. If someone knows . . . let me know!







I'm so happy that I get to share my love for scuba diving with so many people in Saipan. There is always someone to go diving with on the weekends. This afternoon Sean, Mai, Jessica, Rikki, Mark and Tammy James, Dr. Hunt, Atsuko, and I rode the Aqua Jet out to two dive sites.


This was the SDA Teacher's first dive boat experience in Saipan and they did really well! Of course they had great instructor, Judy and Dennis. Here's a picture of Sean, Riki, and Jessica Crusin' into the deep blue.






I'm going to be dreaming of Pyramid Butterfly fish tonight! Plenty in the water. Mai is surrounded by them!















You know what we were all hoping to see-Eagle Rays! And we did! Five of them! We sat perched ontop of the Ice Cream Dive site and watched the Eagle Rays come swoop into the cleaning station. They were soo close to me! It was amazing! I think one of them winked at me!





















This Hawksbill Turtle dropped right in front of us and I didn't even notice him at first until Atsuko pointed him out. I was looking for Nudibranchs and realized he was dropping right in front of me!




I found Nemo! Here's a Duske Anemone Fish.











Here's a picture of an Orange Fin Anemone Fish

Lau Lau Beach Dive with Missy

Grrrr. My dive buddy, Missy, has left Saipan and won't be coming back. We spent the weekend doing all the things she wanted to do before her flight home to Michigan.




Sunday we had time for one last dive. Grotto looked rough so we ended up diving at Lau Lau Beach. We ended up dropping in the swim through on the left and headed towards the coral garden. Check out this brilliant blue Saipan water. How could you live here and not dive!



It's been a tough week and diving is exactly what we needed. I almost instantly forget about everything once I drop in the ocean. We came across a Hawksbill Turtle that was perched on top of some coral. We were so close to it!





I'll miss Missy but I know that we will see each other again when I move back to the states. We're planning on going on a dive trip at least once a year. See you soon Missy.

Wreck and Muck Diving in Tulamben, Bali

My favorite part about my Bali trip was being able to dive a couple of days in a hot spot called Tulamben.

I split from the group and went on a grueling 3 hour drive up and around the central mountains just north of where I was staying in Ubud. I got car sick but at least we avoided all the mudslide areas since it had been hammering rain earlier that week. I arrived in the evening and checked into a place located right in front of the USS Liberty wreckage called Puri Madha Bungalows for about 225,000 R ($25) a night. I could have spent way less somewhere else but I really needed a place with hot water.



Access to the wreckage from my cottage was so easy. All I had to do the next couple of mornings was wake up at 6 am for a sunrise dive, put my gear on, and do a shore entry or get in a boat. Brrr, the water was cold and the visibility was about 15 meters. I'm in love with muck diving! The best months to dive Tulamben though are July, August, and September.

I have to be honest and tell you that I was nervous going on a dive without any of my favorite dive buddies =( But my scuba instructors, Judy and Dennis, taught me well. I felt so prepared to dive solo. At first glance my dive master, Angel, looks like he is in his early teens!! He was my size, sported sun bleached dreadlocks, and was in his early 20's. I felt bad because I asked him how old he was in an uncertain voice. I hate it when my patients ask me how old I am and how long I have been in my profession because it makes me feel like they think I'm incompetent. Anyway, Angel turned out to be a great dive master. It was just the two of us. I told him that I'm on a quest to see Nudibranchs like this one called Thecacera pacifica ! I just love him cause he's bright orange and blue like my bike =)





The other dive hot spots to hit are Drop off, Seraya's Secret, and Coral Garden. I saw plenty brilliant colored soft corals, Thorny oysters, huge Bumphead Parrotfish, Anemone Fish, Racoon Butterfly Fish, shrimps, Nudibranchs, Blue spotted Rays and so much more. Too bad not all my pictures turned out. I know, I know . . . big surprise eh? So my new years resolution is to work on my underwater photography skills!







Here is a picture of a Thorny Oyster. These were in the shaded areas of the wreckage. Careful not to get to close they do bite! But aren't they beautiful?




What blew my mind was seeing these huge Bumphead Parrotfish! They were fantastic! They come out before sunrise and after sunset. I was making my way inside the wreckage and ran into one of these. It kind of scared me especially after that one Trigger fish attack I had a while back. I didn't go to close to him and cruised right by him. He seemed really friendly though. I stole this picture from a website to show you how huge these fish are!



More Nudibranchs! Overall I had a great time diving in Bali. I didn't make it to the Gili Islands in Lombok though. I'll have to save that trip for another time.

Titan Trigger Fish Attack

I had an interesting dive experience on Columbus Day! I realize that whenever you dive with a bunch of Bloggers you are in for an adventure and there will definitely be different online tales told . . . so here is mine!

Jeff invited me to go on the Aqua Jet for an afternoon boat dive with Bruce and Rose.
Our boat ride out to Naftan Point and Boy Scout was rough. The waves were huge but we were still lucky enough to end up with sunny skies. We were the only four customers and we had the entire boat to ourselves.

I went diving at Naftan Point with Greg a couple of months ago and I have to say that I wasn’t really thrilled about this dive site. Perhaps I'm alittle spoiled from the wall diving I did in Palau. Since I was the only one that did Naftan Point before they made me navigate this dive. So we dropped in about 80 feet and I led them along the wall. I was disappointed because there wasn’t a lot of coral to look at so I was just searching for Nudibranchs the entire dive. We reached about half tank and started heading back to our boat. On the way back to the boat we stumbled across this Fish that I thought was a baby Napoleon Wrasse. I was just looking at his lips and didn't realize he didn't have a hump on his head. I need to seriously work on my fish i.d. because this was actually a Titan Trigger Fish but of course I didn’t know that at the time. I thought it would be as friendly as the Napoleon Wrasse that we were petting in Palau so I didn’t think anything of it. Looks so innocent right? Not! This picture doesn't do it justice because it was huge! It must of been a 30 pounder atleast 3 feet long and 2 feet wide.



Would you get a look at this Titan Trigger fish giving me the old evil eye? I should have known something was up. Here’s some advice. When you come across a Titan Trigger fish swim the other way as fast as you can!! I had never heard about how aggressive these fish can be. I was about 10 ft away from this fish using my zoom lens to take pictures. What I didn’t know was while I was taking pictures of this fish Jeff and Rose were being attacked by another Titan Trigger Fish behind me! They both have bites on their legs. Jeff’s bite broke through the skin and was bleeding.
Luckily Rose was wearing her skin suit and only obtained a 3 x 2 bruise on her leg. Unaware of what is going on behind me I still continue to take pictures of this fish from a distance. Next thing I know the fish looks right at me and I kid you not darts quickly towards me like a little torpedo. It was that fast! All I could remember thinking was “Lanya!” and screamed underwater so loud that Rose heard me! We must have been about 40-50 feet. My quick gut reaction was to block my stomach by quickly swinging my camera downward. The Titan Trigger fish ended up running into my camera and left some teeth marks on my filter lens. Nice I know! Worst was I wasn’t wearing my wet suit because Jeff and Bruce were teasing me that I looked like at “tourist” and it was so hot that day. So that fish could of really torn my skin up. Rose was a great dive buddy and was hitting the fish with her slate board to back him away. We quickly exited that area. My heart was racing! Grrrrr. I’m never going back to Naftan again.

I did a little research on this fish and realized that this fish can do some real damage to you and can even kill you if your not careful. Usually they easily feel threatened and territorial if you are near their nest. That is probably what happened. Anyway, now I’m more afraid of the Titan Trigger Fish than sharks. Phew, we made it safely to the boat. Still can’t believe that happened. Despite the attacks I still had a great day of diving.Here's a picture of a Nudibranch we found. Too bad too sad its blurry! Deal=P

What Lurkes Beneath the Ocean

Now I can officially say that I have experienced diving on all three islands in the Marianas. I went on a dive trip to Rota Island this past March and this past Sunday we took the Aqua Jet Dive Boat to Tinian Island. Rain or shine we still go diving unless of course the water conditions are too crazy. Cancelling a trip is rare. Gray skies and rain doesn't necesarily mean crummy dive conditions. By the time we get to the dive spots the rain has ceased and the water is like glass. What I have learned is to not let rain and gray skies predict what type of dive you will have because you never know! We had a great run on Sunday. Here's a picture of Crystal and our dive buddies from Guam: Eric and Dixie Fly. I love diving with them.

















Its a one eyed winking creature lurking underneath the waters of Tinian! Oh wait, thats Harry Blalock! Thank goodness Harry didn't get seasick thanks to Crystal's sea sick pills. I would have never heard the end of it if he got sick! I had to remind Harry that he couldn't stay underwater for two hours like he was use to otherwise we would leave him. J/k Harry!






Our first dive site was the Tinian Grotto. Definitely not as grand as the Grotto here in Saipan but it truly has its unique features. It was nice to dive something different other than what we are use to. We found it pretty easy to navigate despite that we had never been there before. Of course my divemaster friend, Atsuko, was a great underwater tour guide. We swam through the underwater caves and crevices of the Tinian Grotto and discovered alot of macro life. You know what we were all searching for! Or atleast I was searching for Nudibranchs duriing the entire dive.



When we first dropped into the ocean the first thing we saw was about a six foot Sting Ray just resting on the bottom of the surface! What a cool sight and how lucky were we to see it! It was beautiful but all I kept thinking of was how this doesn't really compare to the huge Manta Rays we saw in Palau! Words cannot describe the feeling when a fifeteen foot wing span creature is cruisin above you! Its true that if you dive Palau you are spoiled maybe forever . . . and nothing else may compare. The scuba life in the Marianas is still really great.



Right in front of the entrance to the Tinian Grotto were Clown Fish. I think these are clown fish! My pictures of their eggs didn't turn out that great (big surprise) but you could see their beaded little black eyes.

Here's a picture of a a Halgerda Guahan Nudibranch. This is one that I see most of the time when I am diving the Grotto in Saipan.
This is a Halgerda Malesso Nudibranch. So far one of my favorites that I have seen! I love its intricate design. Can you believe there are over 100 types of Nudibranchs?! I have so much more to see!


Our second dive site was called Dump site. This second dive is unique because it has alot of plane wreckage and bullets from WWII. We were told that we could handle the bullets underwater but we couldn't bring it above the water with us. Apparently something about phosphurus and igniting a fire on the boat may occur. I didn't quite hear the entire explanation. We made sure Harry didn't put any in his pockets.
Atsuko found this Nudibranch and I have no idea what its name is! The ones that I have seen in the Saipan Grotto was more purple. This one was more on the bluish side.
I saw alot of deadly Scorpian Fish at this dive site. Love the colors and how sometimes it blends into the coral. You gotta watch out where you place your hands.
Hmmm, its a Moretti diving below me.

Phew, I'm tired. I may just relax and snorkel this upcoming weekend=)