| A Week on Saipan with Tom & Meghan A week on Saipan with Tom and Meghan By Tom Toretch, A.K.A. Onno Savage 02-19-2008 Our vacation in Saipan was an unexpected delight. We were granted a week off for Chinese Lunar New Year just four days earlier and the only flight we could find was to Saipan. My only knowledge of Saipan came from WWII movies, but since the alternative was spending a week freezing our butts off in Seoul, we took a leap. Internet information on Saipan is sketchy at best. Because the island is mainly geared towards Japanese and Korean tourists, local venues: diving and accommodations, do not have English websites. Several of the dive shops we found on the net are now defunct. There are two reasons not to be deterred by this. One, there are plenty of dive shops on the island. Two, SHORE DIVING! You'll need a friendly local, of which there are many, to show you the ropes, and I do mean ropes. Entrance and exit from the shore dive sites are accessed by ropes to pull you through the breakers. I've got almost 300 dives and these were my first shore dives. They were a real treat, no boat, no schedule, no heavy breathers forcing me to surface with ½ a tank of air. They showed me a whole new dimension to diving. THE GROTTO! All other things aside, you've got to see The Grotto. This is a world class dive site. There is a wealth of information on the net about this dive. It's brilliant. The entrance to the Grotto is about the size of a high school basketball arena. It's massive. The cliffs outside the cavern provide spectacular wall dives with depths, well...they're deep. What really made our trip fantastic was our stay with mark and Tammy James. We found them through the MarianasDive site: stay with a diver. They've just built a beautiful house on a mountain top: pool, BBQ, the works! Better than any hotel and the view and breeze were wonderful. Mark and Tammy were fabulous hosts. They took us diving, dining, and site seeing. We took and instant shine to Oleia's restaurant and ate there several times. OK, we ate there almost every day. How can you go wrong with $1 tacos and a porch on the beach! Also, for something a little pricier, 360, a revolving penthouse restaurant is great. Lunch is reasonably priced and you'd get a better view. I'd recommend renting a car. The island isn't huge, but you won't get far on foot. On Thursdays, the local restaurants lay out a huge spread in Garapan, biggest little city there, and for $5 you can have your plate filled with from 5-7 tastes from their menus—a must do. Meghan took her Open Water with Eric at Speedy Tertle. He's a great instructor. She was a little nervous and he put her at ease and gave her a lot of confidence. Eric can also set you up with boat dives. You can easily spend everyday diving, but I would recommend staying shallow for a day and taking a water taxi to Managaha Island. Walk to the other side of the island, have a picnic and spend the day snorkeling with the little black-tipped reef sharks. All-in-all, this was a brilliant vacation, super relaxing with no hassles. Even with Meghan taking her Open Water and car rental, we still dropped less cash on Saipan than we did on the flights to get there. Flight prices had been inflated for Lunar New Year and were around $1600 for two round-trips. Tom Toretch Seoul, ROK onnosavage@yahoo.com |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |