CDC Trip 3: Skuba diving

The first weekend most of my team had not arrived. They were in a conference in Guam and since there are not many flights to/from the more remote islands, they weren't able to make it until Monday night. So I basically had free time that first weekend. I decided to scuba dive.

I had never been scuba diving before in my life. The hotel lobby suggested a scuba shop. Once I arrived, I realized that everyone who worked there was Japanese. They spoke English, but it became apparent that we could communicate better in Japanese than English. My Japanese finally became useful outside my home.

The price of the day included rental of equipment and a meal. We passed all these completely beautiful secluded islands on the way out. I took a few pics with me in them all decked out in the wetsuit.

This is the whole island. Beyond those trees is the ocean

We started out in the lagoon. There is little to no current, it's shallow, and has a nice sandy beach. We did my first scuba lesson on a sandy beach. You first just make sure you can equalize the pressure of you ears by blowing with your nose plugged and mouth shut (Valsalva maneuver).

We then went out into the sandy beach and saw some amazing stuff. The water is between 87-90F. The beach feels like a bath. I had never experienced anything like a warm warm ocean before.

The ocean was as clear as you can imagine.

We are getting all prepped.

Once inside the water, there was often schools of fish all 360 degrees around me. The Disney in me was thinking of The Little Mermaid where Ariel is spun around by a bunch of fish. That was what it felt like. The lagoon part of the atoll is a sandy floor with bunches of coral here and there. All the fish congregate in the coral so it's easy to see huge numbers of them.

We had a total of 4 people, 2 customers and 2 instructors.

The other guy with me was a Japanese scientist. We saw this sunken ship and got to explore it a little.

Thumbs up was the sign for saying we were okay and since it was my first time I am pretty much giving the thumbs up sign in every picture.

We also had a plan that had been sunk to explore. It was so interesting seeing all the coral and fish growing all over it.

You can see the back of the broken fuselage behind me, along with a huge school of fish.

For our second location, we went to the ocean side of the atoll. It's great because it is so different. While the lagoon, is a shallow, sandy beach, the ocean side is all coral. It has big waves and currents. After the instructor had jumped in and tested the currents to make sure they were calm enough, we followed after.

Now we can't even see the bottom. It's just a steep wall of coral. The fish are more spread out, but there are tons of them and many are quite big. There are supposed to be a lot of sharks, but we didn't see any that day. We did see a dolphin briefly but they are pretty shy out here.

With the wall of coral in the backdrop.

"Aerial" view

The lent us their underwater camera to take some pics of the favorite fish we saw.

This was a good shot to get an idea of the sheer volume of fish. It certainly doesn't give the incredible feeling of being there, but is the best I have.

I liked the long skinny, guys.

This was one of the largest piece of coral I saw.

There were these seas of sea urchins as far as the eye can see. The idea makes Keiko hungry, she says.

These guys were really close to our hotel actually.

This was from the Internet, but it was a good pic showing what the lagoon looks like.

Same with this one.

I didn't do this, but there my name was...

CDC Trip 2: An atoll nation

Have you ever heard of an atoll? This is the wikipedia animation of how they form. Per wikipedia, an atoll "is an island of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely." I give some pretty good pictures in my scuba blog.

Here is a great example of what an atoll looks like from my favorite source:

So on any point of the island, you can pretty much see water on both sides. Nothing but beach front property. It is so beautiful, just the paradise that you see on all the movies. And I was able to stay there for 3 weeks. I felt so lucky the whole time (at least when I wasn't missing my wife).

The next few pics are from the airplane.

Here is the first island we went to. You can actually see buildings if you look close. This is as developed as it gets.

Other pictures are of various islands we passed over on the airplane. You can see the basic structure of the islands though.

The ring that forms is split up so that you have some parts of it covered in water, leaving these secluded islands just like in the B.C. comic strip or"Cast Away."

You can see how long these islands can be.

There will be more pics like this, but just a little close up. The plants are very thick.

This island is rented out for tourists and locals.

This is an example of housing.

They have unique trees there. And palm trees are naturally everywhere.

I believe this is called breadfruit. One of the more unique native fruits.

Basketball on the beach,.

CDC Trip 1: Hawaii

Part of my training this year at the CDC is disease outbreak investigations. Well, one occurred. So I have spent 3 weeks in some remote islands in the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii. The plane trip was so long from Atlanta that there is a rule that you need to rest on the way there. So I stayed at Honolulu.

I showed up at the hotel and I think because it is a low peak season, but they upgraded my room to a suite in a corner room facing the ocean and the city.






These are some pics of Waikiki beach from my room.






I also was able to hang out with some friends I knew in Hawaii. The same rule applied on the way back. My CDC team took a trip around the Oahu to see the various beaches, eat the famous garlic shrimp and shaved ice, and had a great time.



Hotel lobbies are done right in Hawaii.