Bell begins practice run for swim around Saipan

[I]Editor’s Note: On June 9, 2008, James Bell celebrated his 70th birthday swimming the five-mile channel between Saipan and Tinian. It was a feat he last achieved in July 1981, when he marked his retirement from the U.S. Navy by swimming alone from Saipan to Tinian. His next goal is to cross the Torres Strait from Papua New Guinea to the Australian mainland. To practice for this arduous journey, Bell will be swimming along the coastline of Saipan, with the goal of eventually circling the entire island. Here, he will be sharing his experience with Saipan Tribune readers as he attempts the feat.[/I] [B]By JAMES BELL[/B] [I]Special to the Saipan Tribune[/I]

I returned to Saipan on June 20th with the intention of swimming the 54-mile circumference of Saipan in segments as I did the island of Guam in 1980. This is a beautiful time of year in the Mariana Islands. Though past their prime, the flame trees are still well covered with red blooms and other trees and vines are in bloom. The rainy season started not long after my arrival. We have not had a rainy day yet, just an increase in showers and cloudiness. I returned to the Marianas from Boulder, Colorado, where heavy rain is always accompanied by fireworks. Here, a tropical downpour can come and go without a rumble.

For my first segment, I chose a stretch of reef on the west side of the island and a date of July 4th. The west side or lee side of the island has a barrier reef for most of its length. A large lagoon is enclosed between the beaches and reef, which in some areas lies two miles off shore. My starting point was Sugar Dock dating back to the years of sugar cane growing when the Japanese controlled the island. My ending point was the Hafa Adai Beach Hotel just south of the channel to the commercial port. This route encompassed some of the areas in which World War II amphibious assaults took advantage of an approach over a reef on the side of the island protected from the trade wind swell with gently sloping beaches. In the pre-assault bombardment, villages and everything standing on this stretch of the island were bombed and shelled to rubble to prevent the enemy from having any areas of concealment close to the beach from which they could fire on our landing troops. There is little damage still evident, Sugar Dock being one exception. I was interested to see if the reefs had recovered from the terrible pounding they took in the invasion.

I met a group of friends at the dock including Harry Blalock, a radio station manager, SCUBA diver and underwater photographer. He took underwater pictures of my departure through the channel through the reef which I guess can be labeled “What the sharks see”. Actually, I have yet to see my first shark since returning to the tropics. Once over the reef, I was in a different world. The coral appeared to have recovered well and for much of my five-mile swim along the reef, I felt like I was swimming over a submerged garden. The largest things I saw were a jet black sting ray and a barracuda. I do not recall ever seeing a black sting ray before. My time for the 5.4-mile swim was 5 hours 20 minutes, nothing to e-mail home about, but I can make the excuse that I wasted a lot of time threading my way through a maze of coral awash at low tide.

The second segment of my swim started at the Hafa Adai Hotel on July 9th and ended at the very uninspiring waterfront by the power plant with a turn around Managaha, an island in the lagoon about two miles off shore, enroute. This was a cloudy day with showers, some increase in wind and wave height and with murky water in contrast to the great swimming day I had on July 4th. This swim was a bit hazardous since I was crossing the channel to the commercial port. There was traffic in and out of port and a lot of boat traffic to and from Managaha. The night before my swim, I had a thought that I should check the time of the morning trip of the Tinian Express running from Saipan to Tinian as I definitely did not want to tangle with it in mid-channel, but I did not get around to it. This is a large, fast, water jet-powered passenger ferry which I rode to Tinian the evening before my swim from Tinian to Saipan.

About an hour into my swim, I was well into the channel when I saw two boats approaching from the east. The largest and closest was the Tinian Express aimed directly at me and flying. They obviously had not seen me and there was little likelihood that they would. I put on a burst of speed that would probably take me to the Olympics if I could sustain it and if the Olympic Committee could find a pool big enough to contain the Tinian Express. I had just a few seconds to react and when I looked up, the ferry was closing the last 50 feet between us. My burst of speed had taken me directly into her path. I was just past the centerline—you do not want to be hit by the point of the bow. The bow wave threw me toward Managaha Island and I backpedaled to keep from bouncing off the side of the boat racing by. I went into a ball and held my mask on to keep it from being ripped off by the pounding I knew I would take from the backwash as the stern flew by. All I got was a lot of warm bubbles. I watched as the express slid into a turn at the last buoy and headed south for Tinian. A half hour later, a large open boat returning from Managaha knifed through the waves just ahead of me. The skipper did a u-turn to come back and tell me he had almost hit me. I told him I had just been run down by the Tinian Express and I wasn’t impressed. He laughed and asked me to just get a ferry back from Managaha and not swim the channel again. Actually I swam around to the back side of Managaha and headed back for Saipan in a different direction. All I had to contend with was boats towing people dangling from parachutes. Boats towing parachute flyers do not run fast—a welcome change. On this trip I saw two more 3-4 foot diameter black sting rays and the remains of a landing craft that has lain rusting in the coralbeds northeast of Managaha Island since June 15, 1944. In spite of my mid-channel burst of speed, it took me 4 hours 40 minutes to cover the 4.7 mile route.

My next swim on Saturday, July 12, will be about four miles from the power house to Wing Beach, a transition from one of the worst stretches of shoreline on the island to one of the nicest beaches. After Wing Beach, there will be only limited coral development for miles with the waves beating against cliffs much of the way. The halfway point between Wing Beach and Bird Island, my next stopping point, is the Banzai Cliff where hundreds of Japanese families jumped 100 feet into the sea as the defending forces retreated to the north end of the island ahead of the Americans. I will keep you posted.