Chapter 4: Diving Class and Historic Hiking

     There’s much more to scuba diving than just putting on scuba gear and jumping into the water.  Tony had known that before he arrived on Kanifay Island.  He also knew that the Chamorro Bay Resort offered excellent diving courses as well as excellent diving facilities.

     Tony had watched diving videos on the Internet, and he looked up other information on the Internet.  From these web sites, he learned that the “rules” of scuba diving safety are likely to change from time to time.  For example, the rules used to let divers go deeper earlier in the dive but not later in the dive.  Over time, the rule allowed divers to go deeper later in the dive but not earlier.

     Since he hoped to get his C-card for open water diving—that is, the wallet-sized card that would let him rent scuba diving gear without a diving instructor renting it for him—Tony figured that he should take a scuba diving course from the same trainers that would give him his C-card.  He wouldn’t have to “unlearn” any rule that might have changed.

     Even before the summer had arrived, Tony had already taken a fifteen-hour DVD course at home.  To be on the safe side, he took the DVDs with him to the Carolines in case he needed to study them all over again.  He also checked the date on the Chamorro Bay Resort’s scuba diving DVD’s in case they were more recent than the ones Tony had studied.  The Resort scuba trainer would give him a written test on what he had studied.

    The owner of Chamorro Dives was a white-haired Texan with a big mustache like someone from a cowboy movie.  In his youth, he had been a Peace Corps Volunteer on Kanifay Island.  He liked scuba diving so much that he decided to spend the rest of his life on the island.  When Kanifay Island opened for tourism during the 1980’s, he started a small hotel and diving shop.  Since then, Chamorro Bay Resort became Kanifay Island’s best-known hotel, dive shop, and restaurant.

     The Texas-born dive master would not be Tony’s trainer; Tony’s trainer would be a local Kanifay man.  Because the Texan had already made over 12,000 dives—many with hotel guests—Tony looked forward to diving with the world-famous dive master.

     On Tony’s first day of the training, which was a Saturday, he took the written test.  His instructor discussed his wrong answers with him, and he had done well enough to pass the test.  For the next step in the course, Tony and other students would take lessons in one of the hotel’s swimming pools. 

     Because Tony was in good shape, he had no trouble swimming the required 200 yards without stopping.  He did, however, need a lesson in how to keep his head above water for more than ten minutes at a time.

     Once the students passed that part of the test, it was time for hands-on experience with diving gear and diving.  The instructor led them to the dive shop and handed each of them their diving gear.  It was time for them to learn basic diving skills.

     First they learned how to fill their air tanks.  Once they were at the pool, they learned such skills as how to put on their gear, take off their masks and put them on again while underwater, doing underwater hand signals, and buddy breathing.  Buddy breathing, which is two divers sharing the same air tank, is dangerous and you shouldn’t do it unless you really have to do it.  If a diver’s air tank fails buddy breathing may be needed.

     Not counting the swimming test and keeping your head above water, the pool work took about two hours.  Between the written and real-life tests, Tony and his fellow students had had enough for one day.  The instructor told them to return on Monday morning for their first open-water dive.

     They would have to make five successful dives; and, on each dive, they would have to show what they had learned in the pool and classroom.  Then, if they did well, the Chamorro Bay Resort diving facilities would give them their C-card from PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors).

     It was just before noon when Tony’s lessons ended.  Rather than head for Harbor Restaurant, he decided to eat lunch at the Pirate Ship. 

     At the Pirate Ship, the restaurant staff made their own beer.  Tony was never in the habit of drinking alcohol in the middle of the day.  He might have a glass of it if he ever ate supper at the Pirate Ship.

     Tony ordered a light lunch of “fish ‘n’ chips” and ice tea.  Most Americans understand “fish ‘n’ chips” (a British expression) to mean fish and potato chips.  Since potato chips were invented in America, the confusion is understandable.  To make it clear to American tourists, the menu explained that the dish was “beer-battered fish fillets with French fries.”  The meal cost Tony $11.50.

     With a full stomach and the afternoon ahead of him, Tony decided to hike to the old Japanese airfield and take a look around.  First, he had to return to his hotel room, change clothes, and get his camera.

     The Japanese had held Kanifay Island from 1914 until 1944 and had built two airfields during that time.  The one near the southern end of the island became the Kanifay International Airport.  The one near the northern end of the island was left just the way it was after the battle that had been fought from late August until early September 1944.  Grasses, trees, and other plant life grew over much of the airfield.  About twenty Japanese airplanes and a few anti-aircraft guns were left to rust and fall apart.

     It took forty-five minutes for Tony to walk from O’Malley’s Inn to the old airfield.  To Tony, the place was like a field of ghosts.

     He could still see much of the airfield where the planes had taken off and landed.  Maybe it could still be used, but he really didn’t think so.  Part of the airfield was still fairly smooth, but much of it was covered with grass.  In a few places, he could see holes in the ground, where American B-24 planes had dropped bombs on the airfield.

     From where Tony stood, he could see a few planes—Zeroes, as they were called—parked by the airfield.  All the other Zeroes were hidden by banana trees and other plants.

     All the planes Tony saw were full of holes where American fighter planes had shot the Zeroes as that sat by the airfield.  The Zeroes’ wings and motors were broken apart, mostly by the bombs that planes had dropped near them. 

     Tony also noticed that the planes were kind of a reddish color.  He figured that someone had painted them with a kind red paint that kept them from getting rusty.  He had heard that parts were taken from some of the planes so they could be re-used in other planes somewhere else.

       He walked over to a broken anti-aircraft gun and looked at it.  It had become much rusted.  Someone, not bothering to clean off the rust, only painted over it with the red paint. 

     As Tony started to walk away from the old Japanese airfield, he turned around for another look.  Many Americans and Japanese had fought there and never returned home.  Looking at the airfield with its grass-covered airfield and warplanes that were falling apart was like looking at a sad history—a ghostly reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.