CRUISE VIGNETTES 21, Enna G

REST AND RECREATION FOR THE CIA
We visited a portion of Saipan that had been closed to all visitors, and most Islanders, for many years. It was a housing development that looked just like a housing development in the Los Angeles area, nothing at all like you would expect to find on a South Pacific Island like Saipan. We were told, and I also later read in a book, that this was the training ground and the location for “Rest and Recreation,” for CIA spies who spent most of their time inside China.

SNORKELING
We had bought masks and snorkels in Los Angeles, and now we had a chance to use them. Neither of us are strong swimmers (strong? even “weak” doesn't describe our swimming ability!), so we don’t like to get in deep water. Here, we could walk out for a couple of hundred yards, and still the water would only be chest high. And what colors! What form! What beauty! And that was just Emmy in her swim suit. The fish were colorful and beautiful also.

What you see in an aquarium pales compared to what we saw on the reef at Saipan! Every color and size of fish imaginable. We have snorkeled at other places — at the Island of St. John in the Virgin Islands, and in Hawaii — but they did not compare to the lagoon at Saipan.

At one place I motioned to Emmy to look at the unusual “plant” sticking out of a rock on the floor of the ocean. It looked like a half-dozen, foot-long chicken feathers. When she reached out her hand, the feather-like plant just disappeared, her finger never got within 6” of it! All that was left was a small hole in the reef. After looking and asking a lot of people in several aquariums in the US, who should have known, we finally found one store that had a picture and a name in a book — it was a living creature called a Sea Anemone. It looks like a flower, but it is a hollow tube that opens at one end. It has tentacles (feelers) around its mouth. It has no bones, and it can grow up to 10 inches wide. It likes dark places, and catches its food with poison darts. The “feathers” waved in the water to collect food, but it sure had an alarm system. As you would expect, Google knows all about Sea Anemone.

It may be difficult to explain, but this is the best way I can think of to show what a Sea Anemone looks like when it wants to “disappear.” Form your thumb and finger in a circle, put a little portion of the middle of a handkerchief in that circle, grab it from underneath with your other hand and jerk the handkerchief — all that’s left is the “hole.” Well, maybe it does take a lot of imagination, and a little practice.

WAR RUINS
There is an island a mile or so off shore, and while we had several days to waste, they made arrangements for us to ride a small boat to that island, and have a picnic. Of more interest is the couple of US Army tanks that sit on the bottom of the shallow ocean, with the top of the tank, and the turret, sticking out of the water. Reminded us of the “Mulberry docks” left from the Normandy invasion at Arromanches, France. Wonder how long either will last.