By Audrey McAvoy
The Associated Press
Piti, Guam – Wetsuit and flippers on, oxygen tank strapped to my back, I steadied myself for the underwater descent.
“Look below you,” my scuba diving teacher said. “There are some fish right there.”
Breathing carefully through a mask – a skill acquired just minutes earlier – I gingerly dipped my head into the shallow water to see several black and white striped butterflyfish darting between our legs.
Welcome to Diving 101 on Guam. This small island, about seven hours west of Hawaii by plane, offers great diving opportunities for beginners as well as experts.
In two outings as a beginner diver and snorkeler, I swam among schools of elongated purple trumpetfish, tiny red arceye hawkfish and multiple varieties of boxy butterflyfish with shimmering yellow scales.
More experienced divers can explore dozens of shipwrecks, a legacy of intense battles for the strategically located island by Spanish, German, Japanese and American navies over the past 450 years.
As a novice, I enrolled in an introductory scuba class to learn the basics of inhaling and exhaling.
My teacher, Michael Bass from Guam Tropical Dive Station, showed me how to pinch my nose and breathe so my ears would adjust to increased pressure during our descent. He also taught me hand signals for “I need to surface now” and “OK.”
At Piti Bomb Holes Marine Preserve, a common training ground for beginners, we swam among rich varieties of purple, yellow and blue fish just yards from the shore.
I got to hold a red and white striped creature called a banded coral shrimp on the palm of my hand after Bass nudged it out of its hiding hole. The shrimp, with spindly white legs and a striped body that made it look like a colorful spider, danced on my hand for a few seconds before scurrying off.
Locals tout an underwater reef tunnel known as the Blue Hole as a must-see, though you will need to be an advanced diver to go.
Part of the way down the Blue Hole, about 120 feet below the surface, a shaft opens out to views of whales, sharks and turtles gliding by.
John Bent, the president of Guam Tropical Dive Station, said Guam’s warm, translucent waters make the island a top diving location.
“I will give you some of the best visibility anywhere in the world,” said Bent, a native of Adelaide, Australia. “In Blue Hole, you can get dizzy looking, it’s so clear.”
Divers also can get a good look at Guam’s shipwrecks, including the Tokai Maru Japanese freighter sunk by a torpedo in World War II. It rests atop a German ship, the Cormoran, purposely blown up by its captain to avoid capture by the United States in World War I.
Divers have found debris from at least one 17th-century Spanish galleon scattered around the sea floor, but tropical waters have eaten away at the wooden vessel and there is little left to see.
If you prefer not to hoist a heavy tank on your back to go scuba diving, you can see plenty of fish just by snorkeling.
Borrowing a breathing tube, I waded out for a look in Tumon Bay just off the beach fronting Guam’s major hotels.
Both Tumon Bay and Piti have become magnets for fish since Guam started enforcing marine preserve rules there and at three other points around the island four years ago.
The Guam Department of Agriculture still is studying the effect of the regulations on Tumon Bay, but data from Piti and one other preserve show fish populations doubled in the two years leading up to 2003.
In Tumon, several Picasso triggerfish – a palm-sized fish with purple, red and yellow scales splashed across a white torso – darted along the ocean floor. A lone snapper, perhaps 2 feet long, swam nearby among the plentiful coral beds.
To protect the marine preserves, Guam is thinking about requiring permits for dive and paddle boat companies that take tourists to the areas. Individuals would still be free to explore the areas without special permission, as long as they obey the rules.
