Scuba diving the Kerama islands

After a full day of sightseeing on Saturday, I was feeling a little guilty about the dive trip I had planned for Sunday. Senior staff reinforced their opinion that we should enjoy the time off while we had it before heading out to Beijing in a couple of days though, so we followed through with our plans.

Although it had been over 10 years since I had been underwater with a tank on my back, Kim and I had signed up for a two tank boat dive earlier in the week. I got certified in Hawaii when I was stationed there 15 years ago, but it had been so long I couldn't remember through which organization I had gotten certified. After a discussion with the marina dive locker manager, it was decided that the quickest way for me to be able to do a dive here was to get a refresher class in the pool with a dive master and then do a supervised dive on Sunday. After a couple of hours in the pool one night this week with Liz, dive master extraordinaire, I relearned the safety basics and felt comfortable enough to go deep in the ocean again.

So, bright and early yesterday morning Kim and I along with Scott, one of the throws athletes took a cab out to the marina to catch the dive boat. The boat captain briefed the 20 or so excited divers that the winds were pretty strong so we'd have to head out a couple of miles to see how choppy the waters were going to be before he made a decision on whether the trip was a go or not. The destination for the dive was the Kerama Islands which are a chain of subtropical islands located about 20 miles southwest of Okinawa. Only four of the 22 lush islands with pristine beaches are occupied making it an ideal getaway for divers and snorkelers alike. Although a bit choppy, the hour and a half boat ride was actually quite enjoyable. I love being on the water and we all commented that even if we couldn't dive once we got out there, the $75 we paid for the trip would be worth it just for the boat ride!

As luck would have it, we made it out to the dive site and were ordered off the boat by the captain. He didn't have to tell anyone twice as we all suited up and flowed out the back end of the vessel. Scott snorkeled while Kim and I dove down the 40-50 feet with Liz. Here we encountered lots of live coral with starfish, tropical fish, sea snakes, eels and urchins. We even caught a glimpse of a sea turtle off in the distance. Kim and I had brought down some cheap disposable cameras that allowed us to capture some of the sea life. Liz dove with a nicer digital (that's her with Kim right under the boat) and and she gave me this one of Kim and I giving the OK sign.

After about an hour of bottom time, we surfaced and ate sandwiches as the captain maneuvered us to the next dive site. The day and water was comfortably warm, but it still felt good to sit in the sun as we waited out our surface interval before going back down. The next dive took us down to around 70 feet in and out of coral reef trenches full of sea life. Kim and I didn't find out until later, but apparently there was a white tip shark swimming with us for the majority of our dive and we never saw it. The other divers all told us they had gotten pictures but we were still disappointed that we didn't get to see it in real time! We did a drift dive and popped up about an hour later wherever the current brought us and the boat captain brought the boat around to pick us up. Even though we still had air left in the tanks, the waters down at that depth are chilly and we were ready to surface in order to warm up a bit. Although we couldn't stay down as long as we would've liked, it was still worth it to dive in a bikini and t-shirt! Now that I've gotten the dive bug again, I'll have to keep reminding myself that diving in the 7 mm wetsuit with boots and hoodie required for the chilly California waters do not make for an enjoyable dive. For now I can only dream of the day I'll live near warm waters again. . .

That's it from Okinawa and Kadena. We have a farewell dinner tonight then fly out tomorrow for Beijing. Not sure how much I'll get to post from China, but I haven't had many problems on my three previous trips so I anticipate being able to keep everyone up to date. Still watching Hurricane Gustav's path and anxiously awaiting word on how my family and Houma make it through the storm.

Okinawa Ocean Expo Park

On Saturday, a handful of staff accompanied a few of the "wheelies" of the Track & Field team to Okinawa Ocean Expo Park on the northern part of the island. The bus ride along the western coast of the island was beautiful and filled our time with ocean and shoreline scenery. After a quick bite of Japanese bento box lunches, we headed down towards the Churaumi Aquarium.

As you can see in this picture, the aquarium is HUGE (second largest in the world!) and actually contained two whale sharks along with several hundred other species of marine life. Notice the folks standing on the ground along the bottom looking up at the tank for a perspective on how big the tank and the whale shark are! Along with various smaller tanks containing sea life specific to Japan and Asia, there was also exterior dolphin, manatee and sea turtle pools.

Next on the sightseeing list in the Expo Park was the Native Okinawan Village. It's a reconstruction of a traditional village from the 17th to 19th centuries and represents architecture from the Ryukyu Kingdom period. I loved all the raw wood and paper screen walls that slid open to allow a breeze to blow through the whole structure. I wouldn't be so thrilled about sleeping on the wood and mat floors though! The cooking area was unique, but we had to chuckle at the full circuit breaker panel just behind the wall to this hanging tea kettle room! The whole place was so peaceful with incense burning and little shrines scattered throughout. The village is also used as a cultural center and there were some classes of weaving and string instruments going on with what appeared to be some middle school groups.

From the village, we strolled through the botanical garden to the Tropical Dream Center. I wouldn't have been able to pull my mom from this place had she been here! It was filled with tropical flowers, shrubs and trees. I had never seen so many, nor so many different types of orchids in my whole life. Absolutely beautiful!

We spent the last bit of our time going for a dip at Emerald Beach. The water was so warm and inviting, we didn't want to get out to catch the bus back to base. I would say that it was a relaxing day, but the staff did so much walking and the athletes did so much pushing in their wheelchairs in the heat that everyone was pretty wiped out by the end. All in all, a great day of sightseeing though!

Arduous duty?!

OK, I hate to admit it but this trip has felt more like fun than work! Yes, I'm still doing my job, but everyone here is bending over backwards so much to accommodate us that my job has been pretty easy. I've really been able to take advantage of the snippets of time between duties and enjoy being on Okinawa.

I boasted to Mariko, one of the managers at the dining facility that I had gotten out and experienced some "real" Japanese sushi. When I told her the name of the restaurant to which we had gone, she kind of smirked and asked me what I was doing later that night. Um, I guess going with you? She and another manager, Chikara arranged for me to have dinner with them and a long-time friend of theirs at a restaurant called Uokura. It was about 15 minutes away, halfway between Kadena and Naha but so worth the drive!

They were both born and raised on Okinawa and were excited to facilitate a real dining experience for me. There wasn't another American in the restaurant! We sat at the sushi bar where a conveyor belt of dozens of sushi options continuously flowed pass us. Chikara guided me through all the options as I'd point to something passing by and ask what it was. Once he realized that there was nothing that I considered off limits, he excitedly started ordering and educating me on the different types and species of each option. Seafood salad, green tea, miso soup, cold soba noodles (purple ones!), sea urchin, eel, several types of tuna, mackerel, seaweed, fish eggs, octopus and tempeh comprised the dinner. Just about everything was raw with an amazing array of textures and tastes. I pointed to and inquired about one dish in particular. He told me that that specific sushi was considered advanced and wasn't sure if I was ready for it yet. I grinned and asked if we could order it anyway. It turned out to be raw sea urchin. I cautiously broke off a tine piece with my chopsticks to taste. The texture was similar to liver pate but my vocabulary lacks an adequate adjective to describe the taste. I actually liked it and and commenced to eat the whole bitesize portion. After sampling so many different dishes I finally had to admit that I was stuffed and to asked them politely to quit ordering!

Today Kim, Beth and I walked out the gate and over to a place called China Pete's. This is where I had bought my set of Noritake China table setting when I was here 15 years ago (which I still have and use!). Kim and Beth loved the place and purchased several sake sets and chopsticks. As I've become a minimalist over the years, I've stopped buying trinkets during my travels that will require dusting and will eventually suffer the fate of a Goodwill donation during one of my many moves. It was fun to look around though and I got some great pictures of local pottery and China. Instead of buying things to take home, I simply take pictures of subjects that I can have enlarged to hang in my home to remind me of places I've been.

Today ended with a leisurely dinner at the Kadena Marina. One of our staff members, Mark has a vehicle here so we took a couple of athletes down to the waterfront to dine at the base marina as the sun set. Robin and Mallory are a couple of track & field athletes and thoroughly enjoyed feeding the fish and the view that accompanied our dinner.

We've already started the meetings to discuss logistics for us to move from here to Beijing. Time has flown and it won't be long before we find ourselves in the midst of Paralympic competitions. As the athletes taper down to peak we have some sightseeing trips planned so I should have more to post about soon so stay tuned!

Off base

Lots of activity the last few days! Training is going well and everyone has pretty much fallen into a steady routine at this point. The athletes are getting acclimated to the time zone, heat and humidity and are peaking for their competitions. Won't be long now until all their hard work pays off!

As for staff, we manage to sneak an hour or so whenever we can to leave base and see a little of Okinawa. Kim and I went out to a nearby beach and jumped into the wonderfully warm ocean water. Unlike the chilly waters off the California coast, the water was warm and inviting and it was hard to pull ourselves out of it!

As we walked along the boardwalk, we discovered several of these vending machines offering cold beverages. For around 100 yen (approx $1) you can get just about anything you're thirsty for. We also stumbled across a few amusing public announcements like this sign informing folks to pick up after their dogs. Even though I've seen a ton of these literally translated signs during my travels in Asia, they still make me chuckle!

On another quick outing, I journeyed with another two-wheel enthusiast in our delegation the 3 miles off base to an Okinawan Harley-Davidson dealership. It was small by American standards, but about the same size as the one I visited in Beijing last March. We all joke in the States that HD stands for "hundred dollars" since there's not much for sale with a price tag of less than $100 at HD dealerships. That is most certainly true here. . . I paid $68 for a Harley-Davidson t-shirt. I know, I'm crazy for paying that much, but it's a pretty sweet shirt!

Last night, a group of staff went out to eat at Kitakaisen sushi restaurant out in town. It was authentic Japanese but with a Western twist (there were pizzas on the menu!). I had a crab and rice soup that reminded me of seafood gumbo back home, complete with a whole half crab in the bowl. I'm pretty proficient with chopsticks at this point in my life, but peeling crabs is still a hands on endeavor in any culture! I talked Beth into getting the yakisoba and she wasn't disappointed. Everyone ordered different dishes and we tasted a bit of everything. My goal of having sushi everyday while I'm Japan is still on track- 5 days running!

That's all for now, I'll keep posting as time allows. Thanks for checking in!

Paralympian arrivals

I apologize for not having pictures to accompany this post, but it's been pretty busy around here! The advance party and at least a hundred military personnel greeted the plane full of athletes and staff upon its arrival. Although their transportation was made as hassle free as possible (loaded in Colorado Springs and landed right on base without having to disembark anywhere in between), the passengers were tired and dazed upon arrival. In an enormous show of support and efficiency, the Kadena folks got everyone and their bags unloaded and to their rooms in an hour and a half. Considering we unloaded dozens of wheelchairs, that was quite a feat! The amount of support from this military community has been monumental and inspirational. Each athlete was paired with a military "sponsor" to give them assistance during their stay here at Kadena. At a place and time when these military service members are all facing their own significant personal and professional events, they greeted each athlete enthusiastically and genuinely excited to be part of the Paralympic movement.

Now that we have a day of training, eating and logistics under our belt we have a better feel for the flow of the upcoming days. I'll try to post again as soon as possible, hopefully with some visuals!

First day on the ground

Luckily, I've never really had a problem with jet lag. I'll admit that I feel the effects more as I get older, but I still don't seem to suffer with it as much as my colleagues. After almost 30 hours of wakefulness for the trip over (I had a great book!), I fell into bed the first night and slept soundly. By 7:00 a.m., I was out for a morning run in the already hot & humid day that was to greet us. By mid-morning, it was already in the upper 80s with 85% humidity! Loved it!



There are 6 staff that came out early on the advance party to get things ready for the disabled Swimming and Track & Field teams for their training camp here on Kadena AFB. We each broke off to spend the morning with our respective contacts here on base. I had breakfast with Lou who runs just about every dining establishment on this base plus the golf course, marina, etc. He and his staff took me through their plans for the teams' arrival and stay. Now, he and I have been emailing for weeks about the menu and logistics in preparation for this camp, but the amount of work and preparation they put into this effort blew me away. After rallying back up with the other staff members of the advance party for lunch, we all marveled at how much these folks have bent over backwards to make sure this camp is successful and that the athletes are as prepared as possible for their competitions in Beijing. I can't comment enough how amazingly enthusiastic and hard-working both the military and civilians on this base are as they continue to go above and beyond for our athletes.



Of course, a lot of my excitement about being on Okinawa involves the food! For lunch, I revisited the meal I practically lived off of on the flight line for 6 months while I was deployed here back in the day- yakisoba! Okinawa has it's own variety of soba (noodles) that is stirfried (yaki) with meat (chicken, beef, or pork), cabbage, tofu and vegetables. It was still just as tasty as I remembered it!



After more meetings and base touring, we finally ended up at an off-base restaurant in the evening for dinner. In the picture is Kim and Tina sampling some of the Awamori, a type of sake unique to Okinawa. It's an alcoholic beverage made from rice, but it's distilled instead of brewed like most sakes. It was served to us in a small ceramic pot with a large bucket of ice and bottled water. You fill the small glass with ice, pour Awamori until the halfway mark, then top it off with bottled water. Unlike sake, it was surprisingly smooth and mild- quite nice!





For dinner, I ordered nigiri sushi. In this picture, you can see the array of fresh seafood I was served. Fresh raw slices of ahi tuna, albacore tuna and mackerel sitting atop lightly vinegared sticky rice with a thin layer of wasabi (Japanese horseradish) were accompanied by lightly cooked shrimp, pickled ginger and some type of scrambled egg cake. The salad had raw seafood and roe with a slightly tangy soy-based dressing. The black and orange item you see at the bottom left of the long white plate is gunkanmaki (vinegared sticky rice surrounded by a strip of nori, AKA dried seaweed, and topped with large, plump roe, AKA fish eggs). Click on the picture for a closeup view of these delicacies!

The seashell plate contained some type of edible mollusk that tasted somewhat like an oyster but had the rubbery consistency of pickled calamari. The blue bowl contained what I thought was a warm flan for dessert, but after sticking a spoon it it and stirring it around I discovered what appeared to be gizzard and unidentifiable seafood bits. Undaunted, I tasted it and confirmed that yes, it was a gizzard in a yellow, gelatinous mild custard-like consistency. Not terrible, but not worth another biteful!


Day 2 will involve a little sightseeing and preparation to receive our 100+ athletes on the airlift from Colorado Springs!

Okinawa, Japan

Just a quick one to let everyone know I made it safe and sound to Okinawa. As always, the flights to Asia are long, but I'm feeling pretty good. Got a tasty meal in my belly, all I need now is a hot shower and my pillow! I'll post tomorrow after I get out and about.