Turtle Cove Cannon - March 29, 2008

This will be the last hike that I will be posting for awhile. I am leaving Tinian to look for work soon, but I might be back in June or July for a short period of time. I will miss all of the people that have been my regulars on these hikes; I will miss Tinian, where I was free to roam the jungle and cliffs; and I will miss my way of life here on Tinian.

Before we began this hike, Masa presented me with framed picture that was a collage of photographs from the hikes that we all had gone on. He also had unframed copies for the rest of the hikers. I was really touched by this gesture. I also want to thank everyone for the appreciation party that was given for me the night before this hike. I will be posting pictures from that party later this week. Again, Thank You All!

On this hike, 12 of us set off to look at the cannon, tunnels, and beaches by Turtle Cove. Below is a group picture of the hikers at the parking area below the cannon. From left to right are Masa, me, Lisa, Amanda, Jessabel, Stacy, Erica, Judy, Pete, Kimberly, and Bonnie (my sister-in-law, visiting from California), with Mitch taking the picture.

The cannon was a short walk from the parking area. The cannon is in a cave that was a rock shelter that had been enlarged by the Japanese. In the picture below, I am by the cannon and Kimberly and Pete are walking up to it. There are also bent railroad rails in the picture. I don't know what the rails were used for.

Below is a picture of most of the group standing by the cannon. This picture shows the cliff that shelters the cannon. From here, the Japanese could have protected the northern entrance to Tinian harbor with this cannon.

The picture below shows the breech of the cannon. It is missing the breech door. Also, the rails are clearly visible in the picture.

Mitch happened to notice a red insect crawling on a rock. I didn't have my glasses on and didn't get a good look at it, but from the picture, I can tell that it is a hemiptera. These are true bugs and have sucking mouth parts. I have seen similar bugs, not as bright as this one, hanging on vines, and sucking plant juices.

After we left the cannon, we hiked to the bottom of the slope below the cliff. I was a little worried that we had gone too low and might miss something along the cliff line. So, we ended up climbing back up the slope, which was real steep, as can be seen in the picture below of Erica climbing the slope. After getting up the slope, I found there was nowhere to go, so we headed back down the way we had come.

A little further along the slope, I decided again to climb back up it, to see if it was worth the whole group going up. I decided it was not worth the hike up the slope. You can see how steep the slope was in the picture below of me climbing down it.

After going up and down the slope a few times, I found a valley and decided to follow it up the slope. The picture below shows Erica and Stacy nearing the top of the valley and slope. It got real steep again. After we crossed a small ridge, we ended up going down another valley that paralleled the first valley that we had just gone up. It was a lot of ups and downs for the beginning of this hike.

As we followed the base of the slope, it slowly became a cliff! One of the areas that we walked through has Moses in a Basket, Tradescantia spathacea, growing in it. In the mainland U.S. this is a common ground cover plant. In the picture below, the plants with the green and purple leaves is Moses in a Basket growing on the cliff.

Below is a closeup of the flowers of the Moses in a Basket plant. The white flowers are contained in a bracket that forms the basket.

Just a little way past the Moses in the Basket plants was the tunnel that I remember seeing about 12 or 15 years ago. I really don't know if it is a tunnel or just a cave with three entrances. It may have been a natural cave, or a group of natural caves, that were expanded and connected together by the Japanese during World War II. In the picture below, Bonnie, Stacy, me and Lisa are entering the tunnel/cave.

On the floor of tunnel were a bunch of corroded 3 inch shells. The picture shows three of these shells on the cave's floor. The middle one has been almost completely destroyed by corrosion.

In front of Bonnie, in the picture below, is the tunnel that was built by the Japanese. This tunnel runs to another entrance that might have been a natural opening in the cliff's face, or it might have been dug out by the Japanese.

Below is a picture taken by Judy of Mitch taking a picture of Pete in the tunnel. This is the same tunnel that Bonnie is standing in front of in the picture above.

This is the picture that Mitch took, mentioned above, of Pete in the tunnel.

Below is a picture at the third entrance to the tunnel, just before we all left the system of caves and tunnels. In the picture are Kimberly, Lisa, Jessabel, me, Mitch and Pete.

Next to the tunnel-cave system was another cave/shelter. It had some neat nunu (banyan) roots growing in it. The picture below shows Judy standing in the shelter, with the roots on its roof.

Mitch, digging around as always, found some bones in the shelter pictured above. Some of the bones are pictured below. I am not sure if they are human or some other animal's bones.

After the shelter, it was time to head back to the van. The reason why we turned back is because I knew there was nothing else to see along this cliff line. So we walked back through the tangantangan forest, since it was a lot easier to walk through it than trying to follow the cliff back to the cannon.

As we got back to the parking area, there was an area of grass that we had to cross. I knew that there was a road that went through the grass nearer to the ocean. So we followed the grass until we came to the road. It was a lot easier to use the road than to cut a path through the grass. In the picture below is my daughter, Amanda, following the road back to the van.

After everyone had gotten back to the van, I told them that the hike was not over yet, and that we were going to walk to a nearby beach. So after a brief rest, we headed back down the road, through the grass, to a small path. This path leaded to a nice little pocket beach. The picture shows the entrance to the beach from the trail. There are a lot of puting and banalo trees on this beach.

The picture below shows the edge of the beach as you look north. In the picture Bonnie is taking off her shoes to enjoy the beach.

The following picture shows the land side of the beach. This part of the beach has a nice shady area to rest in.
The picture below was taken from about where I was sitting, in the picture above, looking out towards the beach. I really like this beach.

Judy had baked some brownies for me. I decided to share them with the rest of the hikers. Below, in the picture, is Judy getting a piece of a brownie, while Jessabel looks on enjoying her own brownie. Everyone enjoyed the brownies and none were left to carry out.

Mitch and Judy pointed out the rock that is in the picture below, which sort of looks like either a turtle or a camel. I think it looks more like a turtle, and since it is close to the ocean, it must be a turtle. Maybe the beach next to it should be called Turtle Beach, since it is also next to Turtle Cove.

Except for climbing up and down the steep slopes at the beginning of this hike, this was a very good hike, especially with the long break on the beach. I would like to thank Stacy for driving the van for this hike, and Judy for making the brownies. I also need to thank Judy and Mitch for all the pictures in this posting. Seems my camera decided to stay in Bali, instead of coming back with my wife.

The boonie bee count was one. I got stung in shoulder, and it didn't even hurt that much. Maybe I am starting to get use to being stung after all of these hikes.

I am sorry to say there will not be any more Saturday hikes, unless Mitch or Judy organizes them. It was fun while it lasted and I wish I had started these hikes earlier.

Goodbye everyone, I really did enjoy you all on these hikes and as my friends.

Marpo Valley - February 16, 2008

On February 16th, six of us set off to explore an old Japanese train station in Marpo Valley. This is one of the best preserved train stations from the Japanese time when they grew sugar cane on Tinian. I also wanted a short hike because this weekend was also the Tinian Hot Pepper Festival. I needed to help my wife setup her booth before the festival started.

As I sat talking to Dan and Judy, at Grace Christian School, Mitch, Erica, and Mr. Suzuki walked up with a big Styrofoam box. In the box was a birthday cake for me. On the cake, it said, "Mr. Cole Happy Bee's Day." I think it was very appropriate, especially with the number of bee stings that I have had. I was really surprised and I really appreciated the gesture. My thanks to all for the cake.

After dropping the cake off at my house, since the hike starts less than a quarter mile from there, we headed to where the hike would start from. Right next to the road, where the trail starts, is tall grass. I had already cut a trail through the grass about three days ago, to the train station. The picture below shows the the hikers following me into the grass.

Less then 50 feet from the road is the train station. In the picture below Mitch is standing next to the wall that was right next to the rail bed. There are even steps that go up this small wall, with steps that are only about 6 inches wide. The cement structure above Mitch is a water tank and foundation for maybe a small building.

Below is a picture of some of the tracks that are still found on the old railway bed.

The picture below is taken from the top of the water tank. The water in the tank is about 3 feet deep.

Below is a picture of Erica standing next to the water tank, with the rail bed being on the left side of the picture.

There is another cement structure to the north of the water tank. Between them is a cement stand. This stand is pictured below.

The northern cement structure must have held a large piece of machinery, because of the large anchor bolts embedded in it. This bolts can be seen in the picture below, next to the half-circular depression in the structure.

Mr. Suzuki found an old Japanese gas mask filter near the northern cement structure. He was able to read the writing on the bottom of it, but I don't remember what he said was written on the gas mask.

After visiting the station, we dropped down to the railway to try to follow it toward the north. Below is a picture of Judy on the railway, just below the cement structure with the half-cylinder depression in it.
Just a little to the north, the roadway disappeared, almost at the end of the modern asphalt plant that the train station is near. Below is a picture of the railway just before it disappeared.

We continued toward the north trying to figure out which way the railway went. As we walked, we came upon an old road. As we followed the road, we soon realized that the railway had reappeared and was to our right. The picture below shows edge of the road, next to the train railway.

We continued to follow the road until it disappeared into the jungle. Right before it disappeared, we found some old Japanese bottles. The picture below shows what the bottles looked like when we first found them.

I picked up a few of the bottles to see if they had any writing on them, but we found none. We left the bottles where we had found them.

Being the dry season and not having any rain for a few days, the boonie bees were out in full force. As I led the group through the jungle, besides trying to find an easy trail, I had to be on the outlook for bee nests. The nests varied from the size of a dime, with one to two bees on it, to the size of a softball, with 30 or more bees on it. Below is pictured one of the larger bee nests that we found on the hike, and luckily avoided.

Most of the hike was through secondary tangantangan forest. There were not a lot of down trees and the walking was fairly easy, except for trying to avoid boonie bee nests.

Besides some of the herbs (i.e. weeds) growing on the forest floor, the only tree that we noticed blooming was the Sumak, Aidia cochinchinensis. This plant is found from topical Asia through the Pacific islands, but not on Hawaii. It is one of the more common pioneer species in tangantangan forest, as it slowly changes into limestone forest through a process called succession. The flowers are very fragrant.

Picking the path in the jungle is sometimes fairly easy. In the picture below, you can see the path I choose between the tangantangan trees (Leucaena leucocephala). The path is straight down the center of the picture. Of course, if a bee nest is found, we would have to make a detour around it, which could be easy or not. There was one place where our path was blocked by five bee nests. That was a fairly hard area to get through and not get stung.

We hiked until we hit a fence. In the picture below, the fence is right in front of Dan, covered with vines. At this point, I decided to turn toward the east to find a road that would take us back to the truck. I had hoped that the road was closer than backtracking on the path we had taken to the fence.

Most of our path to the road, which was east of us, was through tangantangan forest. There were a lot of bee nests and hot pepper plants that slowed our progress. There were three places where we had to go through tall grass, Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum). I don't like walking through tall grass because it is very hard to cut through it or push it out of the way. Napier grass was planted on Tinian during the Trust Territory Days, when Ken Jones, from Guam, ran a cattle ranch here. Below is a picture of Dan working his way through the grass.

We stopped often to pick hot peppers as you can see in the picture below.

Finally, we came to civilization, an old watermelon field. Part of the field was still being used to grow tomatoes. A short walk across the field and we were on the road that I had been looking for. It took us a lot more time to get to the road than if we had followed our trail from the fence back to the train station.

The road we found near the agricultural field led to another road that took us back to the truck. The picture shows Erica, Dan and me walking down the main road to my truck.

Mitch had asked if we could stop at San Isidro on the way back to the village. San Isidro is very near to where we had gone hiking. It is currently used for an annual religious festival. In the past, it had also been a site for a quite extensive Chamorro village. There is still one set of latte stones there, as can be seen in the two pictures below.


During the Japanese times, San Isidro had a Japanese Shinto Shrine. This shrine was called the Izumi Shinto Shrine. Below is the picture of the torii gate to the shrine.

This cement lantern-like structure, at the shrine was damaged by a falling tree, most likely during our last major typhoon, ten years or so ago.

The path for the shrine continued down a set of steps that led to the base where the shrine's house would have been.

Below is a picture of the base that would have held the god's house for the Shinto shrine.

After the visit to San Isidro, it was a short drive back to town. The hike took a little longer than I had expected. I had hoped to be done by 10:30 A.M. but I didn't get to the Hot Pepper Festival, to help my wife, until 11:30.

Overall, as always, everyone enjoyed the hike, especially the train station and San Isidro. As for the boonie bee count, it was two, Dan and me. I got stung just above my left eye, which resulted in the eye swelling up. Yes, it was a Bee's Day for me.

The next hike will be to one of the latte sites above the Shinto shrine near Carolinas Heights. We will find latte stones this time since I have marked their position with my GPS two weeks ago. They are not the same as the ones I found last Spring, but they are still of good size and interesting. After visiting the latte stones, we will continue south along the cliff line. Meet at Grace Christian School at 8 AM.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.