Swimming with Sharks

On this day we went back to Spanish Steps, but this time we took more photo's of our arduous journey there. Its the same place as in this post CLICK HERE FOR OLDER POST

First you must venture down the rope....
Pretty safe looking rope isn't it? The picture is somewhat deceiving as the rope is about 4 inches thick, like the thickest part of a baseball bat.

Then down the oh so safe ladder, which fortunately they made out of metal so it gets blistering hot in the sun.

Here is Christine rappelling down the rope. Where is all of our snorkeling stuff and other supplies you ask? Well on my back of course.


Another deceiving picture, as the angle of this hill is much steeper than it appears.


The Jungle. Looks a lot like Lost doesn't it. I kept expecting to turn around and see a fuselage. And finally out to the snorkeling spot.


Here is Christine with a little shell which housed some kind of gelatinous creature.

And here is the widow maker. A black tipped reef shark. I saw him out of the corner of my eye as I was swimming towards the breakwater. It is where the waves crash, which is surrounded by tons of rocks, so you know its safe..
I saw him and against all common sense swam towards it as fast as I could to try to get some better pictures, but he kept swimming away from me.

Finally Christine called me back as I was about to swim into the waves which would surely introduce me to the rocks nearby. As I was turning around I saw a 2nd shark just a few feet further away. I'd say I got as close as about three feet. Christine said when she went to this same spot a few days prior that there were about 8 of these guys circling her. They are about three feet in length.
And here is the video, it's like the Zapruder film but less steady if you could imagine that.





And this is our journey back up the hill. Oh here are the steps that used to lead the way up and down the hill to a well. Thus the name Spanish Steps (The Spaniards had them built to haul water up from a well). This is about all that remains of them now.

Once you go up the hill, up two steep 90 degree walls, with ropes, up another hill, up another rope, up the ladder, and finally up another rope you see the clearing, and our truck in the background. Let me tell you thats a long hike, and both times we ended up sitting in this clearing to recuperate a little before walking into the sun to the car. This 2nd time was much nicer though, as this area is usually off limits, its not really maintained. The first time we went I think we were the first people to go there in about 100 years as every plant had overgrown into the paths. This time someone went ahead and cleared the path and put up flags to direct you to the water so you wouldn't get lost (like I did last time).

Labor Day Scuba

For labor day we went scuba diving at the above location. If you'll remember this was one of the first pictures of Guam that I put up before we got here (I just found it online I did not take the above picture).This picture I did take, from the water. I tried for that cool half underwater/half above look but it didn't quite work.






Not much commentary. If you look at the first picture from above you can see where the water is deep, where its a darker blue. The lighter blue part is about five feet deep max, so half the time we could just stand up and walk out to the deeper places. I think at the deepest it was about 30 feet. It wasn't raining that day but the water was a bit murky, and definitely choppy. It was hard to swim out there because the waves kept working against us. But it was fun and as always there were plenty of fish to be found.