I was browsing through a Robert Service poetry book and came upon a poem he wrote called "Atoll". It immediately reminded me of a drawing that I did in my mission journal back in 1978. The words of his poem fit perfectly with my drawing.
Isn't that a beautiful poem? Robert Service died the year I was born. Maybe we passed on the way by. The following are pictures that I took while on a trip to the Ulithi Atoll. What a beautiful place that was! I worked as a Japanese dive guide for Japanese divers on the cruise ship, "Oceanic Grace".
Ulithi Atoll was so peaceful. Just sky, sand, palms, and sea.
This is one of the Japanese Divemasters that I was working with.
This is the Cruise Ship "Oceanic Grace".
This is a map that shows the location of Ulithi Atoll in Micronesia.
A close-up map of the Atoll.
Some interesting stories from my trip to Ulithi:
They had me come stay on the ship the night before the departure so that all would go smooth. It was weird walking around the ship that night as there wasn't a soul around.
The ship had a small casino on board and in the evening after dinner all of the passengers would go to gamble. I would go out to the pool and be the only one there. One night there was a large bunch of bananas hanging at the pool. It hung 3 or 4 feet down. They were smaller than the bananas we usually buy at the store but boy were they tasty. They had been brought aboard at the island of Woliai. They were delicious and before I knew it I had eaten
a slug of them. I was worried that the next day I would be sick. No problem, I was fit as a fiddle the next day.
I remember the music that was playing on board the ship at night. It was Astrid Gilberto, a Brazilian Bossa Nova singer. She sang a song called Insensitive. That style of music has always intrigued me since the first time I had heard it. The first time was in a little floating restaurant in Ensenada, Mexico with my parents when I was 16 or 17 years old.
The first dive site was several Landing Craft that had sunk after WW II. The US Army had given the natives in Ulithi Atoll the landing crafts after the war. They enjoyed driving them around the atoll until the fuel ran out and then a typhoon eventually sunk them. The Yap government had a representative on board as we dove so that no one would take items from the wreck or ocean. I remember seeing a white water pitcher that had the Naval symbol on the side of it. I also remember seeing the brass bell on one of the landing craft. Of course the reason those items were still there was because of the protection of those items by the government of Yap.
Another dive was along a wall on the south side of the island of Falalop. On the way back to the dive boat, which was a tender for the cruise ship, two Black Tip reef sharks followed us back to the boat. They were just like the dogs who run up behind you when your back is turned and then move away when you face them. They were so aggressive that we ended up swimming backwards all the way to the boat. Later, we were told that the sharks are aggressive there because that was the area where the inhabitants throw their garbage into the ocean.
When we first arrived in the atoll, representatives of the ship met with some island leaders that had paddled up to the cruise ship in a canoe. They wanted payment for the cruise ship using the atoll as part of their voyage. The cruise ship reps gave the island leaders beer and disposable diapers as trade items.
I found a beautiful Map Cowrie while diving on one of the Landing Crafts. It was empty, the animal was gone. Map Cowries are probably my favorite cowrie.
Here is another great poem about the sea by Robert Service.
