Marine monument plan inspires submarine trip

Inspired by a presentation on the potential benefits to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands of a Mariana Trench Marine Monument, 32 tenth grade journalism students from Marianas High School took a 50-minute dive aboard a tourist sight-seeing yellow submarine.

The submarine Deepstar, owned by Pacific Subsea Saipan Inc., is designed to allow tourists to explore the beauty of the exotic underwater seascape in air conditioned-dry comfort. The Deepstar dives to a depth of 100 ft. with audio narration and music playing during the entire tour. Students got to see colorful tropical fishes, beautiful corals and a wide variety of marine life. The tour included visiting World War II historical artifacts, airplane and shipwreck sites.

Bryan Jones, the student’s instructor, said: “The dive beneath the sea provided a wonderful educational opportunity for the students to better understand the world in which they live. Residents of the CNMI have always been closely linked to the ocean but the opportunity to spend time in underwater exploration is unique.”

The interest of the students in the Mariana Trench was triggered during a classroom presentation by Angelo Villagomez on the proposal to create a very large marine reserve in Northern CNMI waters. “It’s not often that our students have an opportunity to become involved in an issue with national and global significance,” said Jones.

In recent weeks, the proposal for a Mariana Trench Marine Monument has been mentioned in newspapers around the world. The proposal has generated considerable discussion in the CNMI and in Washington, D.C. during and following a visit to Saipan by senior White House officials.

Saipan is one of 12 islands in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands that is part of the U.S. Pacific “family.” It lies 3,820 miles West of Hawaii (eight-hour flight). The 60,000 residents are made up of indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian peoples, residents from the U.S. mainland and from all of the nearby Asian countries: Philippines, Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Bangladesh.

MHS, a high school on island, has around 1,200 students from over 12 different countries.

The 50-minute Yellow Submarine dive showed the fascinated and curious students a close up view of the underwater home for a wide assortment of tropical fish and corals that inhibit this part of the Philippine Sea next to the Mariana Trench and North Pacific Ocean.

Jones, a long time underwater photographer and scuba diver, was delighted that some of his students have started to show an interest in studying the blue ocean waters and life within the seas that cover 70 percent of the planet.

Some of the comments from students when asked “What did the submarine dive help you to think about?”:
Kate Edgar, age 15, wrote: “It helped me to think about the marine environment that most of us don’t care about. It made me feel…united with the sea and the fishes living in it…as a part of the ecosystem system.

Keoni Agetular, age 15, wrote: “It also helped me think about all the things we can do to save all the living things in the water…like the fish and the corals.”

Joey Songuo, age 16, wrote: “The submarine dive helped me think about protecting the natural beauty of our waters…meaning our lagoon.”

Elisa Fejeran wrote: That I wished I could just walk around underwater and look around because it didn’t look so harmful at the bottom of the ocean, unlike the top where the water is so rough, the bottom is calm.

Ryan Ichiharo, age 14, wrote: “ It helped me to realize that we can do a lot better and save our water creatures before others kill or hurt them.”

John Lizardo, age 15, wrote: “The purpose was to let us students understand how beautiful and how important marine life is to us.”
The Marianas Trench Marine Monument will help the marine environment to be protected and make marine species reproduce evenly.

“The opportunity to witness first hand the magic of the real underwater water world and the creatures in it…was a first time educational experience for these island high school students,” said Jones.

After the unique underwater submarine experience the amazed and hungry students headed for their favorite place to eat with the famous yellow arches. However only one student ordered a “fish” burger. [B][I](Bryan Jones)[/I][/B]