{"id":234696,"date":"2016-08-22T06:06:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=234696"},"modified":"2016-08-22T06:06:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T20:06:11","slug":"sacrifice-worth-pagan-castaways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sacrifice-worth-pagan-castaways\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacrifice worth it for Pagan \u2018castaways\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former<\/a>
Former representative Cinta Kaipat, front center, joins members of the group that went to Pagan and got stranded for a few days on one of the CNMI\u2019s northernmost islands after their arrival at the Saipan seaport. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Celia K. Selepeo and Sylvan Tudela, both part of a 20-member group that became stranded on Pagan for close to a week, said they were glad that no untoward incident happened during their brief \u201cvacation\u201d in one of the CNMI\u2019s northernmost islands.<\/p>\n

Selepeo and Tudela along with former Pagan residents, AP photojournalist Daniel Lin, representatives from nonprofit group Earthjustice, and other members of environmental organizations went to the island to see firsthand its biodiversity. They went on the nearly 200-nautical mile journey north aboard Super Emerald. <\/p>\n

Tudela owns Chelu Photos and his staff\u2014Diego Kaipat and Gus Castro\u2014went with him to Pagan to film the documentary \u201cToo Beautiful To Bomb.\u201d They envision the documentary would promote Pagan and raise awareness to protest the U.S. military\u2019s plans of creating a live fire training range facility.<\/p>\n

The group left Saipan on Aug. 10 and was supposed to be back on Aug. 13 but strong winds and heavy rain caused by tropical storms Conson and Chanthu delayed their trip back. The low pressure area and the monsoon flow also added to their problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeli [Tenorio] who was in charge of the trip was in constant communication with her husband Norman on Saipan. The winds started picking up so we discussed and decided to stay put to wait the storm out,\u201d Selepeo told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper Emerald captain Bob Taguchi was forced to cut the anchor out and moved to the other side of the island to find shelter. We thought that we\u2019re going to lose the boat but there was no mishap. The boat [captain] tried to find shelter and [they] hid there for a couple of days,\u201d said Selepeo, who added their only line of communication was Lin\u2019s satellite phone.<\/p>\n

She said Lin, Earthjustice, and another group from California were surprised to see how beautiful Pagan was. \u201cWe went up there to show them where the military wants to make exercises. They learned that pagan is a beautiful place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to try to do whatever we can to fight for Pagan. We\u2019re going to make sacrifices for her since she\u2019s for the people. It was a never tiring adventure and we all get together and laughed every night,\u201d added Selepeo.<\/p>\n

Tudela, meanwhile, said he and his documentary crew worked for two days in getting footage that would help them piece together the documentary. \u201cWe shot most of our footage in the first two days. We set up everything the first day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we settled down, we did some drone shots on the two lagoon beaches. The next day we went out and hiked to different parts of the islands with Gus Castro as one of our guides,\u201d added Tudela, who is the documentary\u2019s director of photography. A nonprofit group is funding the documentary.<\/p>\n

Rain, rain, and more rain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tudela said they took refuge at Northern Islands Mayor Jerome Aldan\u2019s house where they had to board up the windows and fix the door to keep them dry from the pouring rain. \u201cThe first night we were outside and kind of weathered the first part of the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next day, it was not getting better, and we decided we should get inside the house. When the rains stopped the following day, we fixed the house since the windows don\u2019t have any covers and the door was open. We worked to shield us from the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the tarp that they brought was not enough to keep them dry. \u201cOur biggest problem was the rain, and there were lots of it. The first two days was kind of okay but it got worst after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

They collected rainwater using their empty water bottles since they were running low on drinkable water, other people caught wild pigs for food, and other members of the group cut wood and prepared the meat to smoke it.<\/p>\n

MV Luta to rescue us<\/strong><\/p>\n

Selepeo said Norman Tenorio tried his best to find another ship or any vessel that was big enough to travel under the bad weather and rescue them in Pagan.<\/p>\n

He got a hold of Lt. Gov. Victor B. Hocog and asked him if he could talk to the U.S. Coast Guard to allow the cargo vessel MV Luta to set sail and pick up the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorman\u2019s plan went smoothly. The MV Luta was given clearance as the weather improved. We were picked up on Aug. 18 and got back on Saipan on Aug. 19,\u201d said Selepeo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very thankful for all their help and dedication to keep us safe. Their effort to send a ship that would sail despite the bad weather is truly good thing. We are very thankful to the crew of MV Luta,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celia K. Selepeo and Sylvan Tudela, both part of a 20-member group that became stranded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":234697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[26,650,13042,1634],"class_list":["post-234696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cnmi","tag-communication","tag-gus-castro","tag-super-emerald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}