Jim Bell continues his swimming ways

Jim Bell has moved to Tinian with a goal to swim around the island. About once a week he picks out a route and swims one leg of the island. Then he recuperates for a few days, and then swims the next leg of the island. He began with the local beach and is swimming up the west side of the island (clockwise around the island)-- his biggest challenge will be swimming the south-east section of Tinian, as there is nothing but shear cliff side, and no where to stop or get out of the water. He is still thinking about that...

Here is his trip so far, in his own words:

The Old Man in the Sea did not go home - sorry to disappoint you. The month of October was spent settling into my new temporary home on Tinian, south of Saipan, and starting on my swim of the shoreline of Tinian. Tinian is a very different place than Saipan. It is a smaller island with a much smaller population due to the fact that much of the island is leased by the military and uninhabited.

Most of the western shoreline of Saipan is beach protected by a barrier reef while Tinian has only one segment of barrier reef and few beaches. There are miles of cliffs and wave cut benches on Tinian's west side similar to the configuration found on Saipan's exposed east side. Much of Tinian's east side is cliffs dropping directly into the sea which will be a challenge for swimming.

My swim began on October 15th at Kammer Beach adjacent to the village of San Jose. There is probably a story for every foot of the shoreline of an island and early in my swim one of these stories came to mind as I passed the main pier in the port. The heavy cruiser Indianapolis anchored off shore in 1945 and sent a landing craft to the pier carrying components for the A bombs destined for Japan.

She departed on July 27th and headed south for a brief stop at the island of Guam before proceeding west for the Philippines. Just after midnight on the night of July 30th she was hit by two torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-58 and sank in 14 minutes. Of the 1196 men on board, about 300 went down with the ship and about 900 survived, some in rafts, but most in the water and not all wearing life jackets. Most had no food or water. Through a tragedy of
errors help did not arrive for four days by which time only 316 survivors remained, the rest having succumbed to thirst, exposure and shark attacks. It was the worst naval disaster in US history. Captain Charles McVay, the commanding officer of the Indianapolis, was court-martialed and, in a rush to judgement, held culpable, but finally exonerated 33 years after he had committed suicide.

My first swim would take me through the intricacy of a once busy harbor now used by occasional supply ships and the once daily departure and arrival of the Tinian/Saipan Express ferry. A Saturday swim would take me around the breakwater which, like most of the berthing areas of the harbor, is in advanced decay. In the tropics, ocean and vegetation work tirelessly to erase the works of men.

This first swim on Tinian ended in a typical bay surrounded by cliffs whose maximum height is attained at the point of farthest penetration of the bay inland. The bay is known for its green sea turtles, but I saw none on my way to the strip of sand called Barcinas Beach. The trail to the top of the cliff was steep and slippery, but passable.

I had some hiking to do to get to the main road and felt inclined to explore a side trail. I came upon a small cemetery, well tended, but with most of the inscriptions weathered from the markers. The only one with a legible date was that of a man from the island of Yap who had died on June 10th 1954, my 16th birthday, taking the dateline into account. Checking the book "History of the Northern Mariana Islands" by my friend, Don Farrell, I found that the cemetery
belonged to a leprosarium operated from 1948 to 1956. How many stories would come from this cemetery if tombstones could speak? People uprooted from their war ravaged homes and sent to another devastated island, not to start a new life, but to die.

Attaining the main road, I started hiking back to town when, suddenly, a black creature came at me from the grass beside the road. My blood ran cold - an abandoned kitten! As I cuddled the purring fur ball, my mind went back to the year 1980 when I was swimming the shoreline of Guam. I had just climbed a steep trail from the ocean when a black kitten with white paws came out of the grass. I would bury "Tommy" on the side of a mountain overlooking Provo, Utah eight years later. Time will tell what lies ahead for "Tommie" and myself.

My next swim would take me out of the bay and around Diapblo Point. The point is known for a current that frequently flows strongly from the north; not good news for a swimmer swimming weakly from the south. Fortunately, my run of bad luck on currents may have changed. There was no current.

After rounding the point, there was a long stretch of cliffs with wave cut benches and , where the cliffs attained their greatest height, some sea-level caves. The next bay was like the last one with a fringing reef around the perimeter of the bay, but no barrier reef across the entrance. On the south side of the bay the erosion of towering cliffs has created a high arch extending from
the cliffs into the water, a beautiful example of nature's sculpturing probably seen by few. The tide was in and I rode waves across the reef with no trouble.

Tali Beach was a short stretch of sand wrapped around large boulders accessed by a trail that became a technical rock climb part way up the cliff. Ropes had been strung up a crack in the cliff and some of the ropes were in bad shape. I didn't have to talk too hard to persuade myself to reenter the water and search for a better exit.

On the north side of the bay, the cliffs lowered and I found a small protected inlet where I could easily climb from the water and then up the cliff. For the short swim up to the north side of the bay, I had just left my tennis shoes on instead of removing them and tying them on my belt. That is a procedure I may continue since, often, I will be exiting the water onto rough coral rocks with a need to move fast between waves.

Getting to a road required a hike of about 1 1/2 hours through a jungle composed mostly of tangantangan trees. These are trees imported from Spain which probably would have been better dumped in the ocean on the way. They provide seed pods which are not edible and grow close together making cross-country hiking a chore.

Interspersed with these trees were occasional papaya trees and other tall trees giving some variety. I saw no animals, but many beautiful butterflies and not so beautiful spiders and wasps. The wasps are usually referred to as "boonie bees" in the islands and swarm at anyone drawing too near their nests. I used to have swelling around boonie bee stings, but now the pain is gone in about ten minutes and the stings leave no mark. Either the bees have gotten nicer or I have gotten meaner in my old age.

My next swim took me around a point into a long stretch of cliffs high enough to have a number of caves eroded into the rock at the waterline. In several places caves had worked their way back into the cliff and joined with other caves creating foreboding labyrinths. Wave erosion had created some areas with wide overhanging cliffs and the low wave heights allowed me to swim close enough to the cliff to enjoy the shade of these overhangs.

The next bay is known as Dump Coke Bay (a place where Coke bottles and heavy debris from the war was jettisoned from the cliffs), another bay with a short stretch of sand on the south end and large boulders and cliffs lining the rest of the bay. I decided to swim around to the north side of the bay where the cliffs are lower to look for a good place to exit the water. I was running a little late and decided to try a cliff which , although about 100 ft high, looked
climbable.

The cliff I selected had very steep debris slopes between vertical rises of 8 or 10 feet. It was not good rock, but crumbling coral. There were 5 vertical sections and they got more challenging as I ascended. About half way up the cliff, I had both feet on a bush jutting from one of the vertical segments when the bush snapped. Fortunately I had both hands gripping firm rock and dangled
only a few seconds before repositioning my feet.

As I contemplated the fifth vertical, the worst of all, the sun sank into the sea; my haste had cost me almost two hours of precious daylight. There were handholds at the limit of my reach, but no footholds. I was losing strength and my heart was beginning to tell me that I had been stressing it long enough.

Climbing down was not an option, nor was hanging on the side of the cliff all night. It was time for action of some sort.

I tested my handholds and they were good. I then started moving my feet and legs in a running motion. There were no footholds, but there was enough friction with the side of the cliff to take some of the weight off my arms allowing me to lunge upward and grab a higher handhold with my left hand. I followed the same procedure with my right hand and both handholds were firm. With my next lunge, my left hand shot over the brink of the cliff and gripped the base of a bush.
My right hand found a firm anchor and I pulled myself over the cliff edge. I knelt for a few moments in a sincere prayer of gratitude, then hurried into a darkening tangantangan jungle.

My plan was to go cross-country to the fence surrounding the Voice of America antenna field, thence along the fence line to the guard post and a telephone.

It was still twilight when I reached the edge of the jungle and entered a wide stand of sword grass. Sword grass is a plant that grows to about 8 feet in height with razor sharp edges on the blades. I knew I could make slow progress through sword grass after dark, but not through the tangantangan.

A change in plans came when I encountered lantana (a vine whose stem is covered with small sharp stickers that break off in the skin) festooning the sword grass. Lantana is to be avoided in any case, but especially when you are attired in swim trunks and a short-sleeved shirt. Darkness found me working my way back through the sword grass in the opposite direction. I found that
navigating through sword grass was best accomplished by walking backwards with the hope of breaking out into a clearing or into a road or trail. Hours later, I had succeeded in defining the boundaries of my nocturnal prison, hemmed in by lantana or tangantangan on all sides.

Sleeping in sword grass is not that bad as long as you do not turn over too often. It was light enough to start the new day at about 5:40 and I had hopes of finding a way to the antenna field before noon. I had underestimated the density of the grass and tangle of vines even in areas not infested by lantana. My ability to thrash my way through was decreasing by the hour as I approached 24 hours without food or water.

By late morning, I had changed plans ,yet again, and headed back toward the top of the cliff. This time, I followed the cliff line farther around the north side of the bay and finally came upon a dirt road invaded by grass and overhanging branches. It turned toward the east which would be the quickest way to reach a more travelled road. As soon as I had this thought, the road turned
abruptly northeast through endless fields of tangantangan and swordgrass sweltering under a nearly cloudless sky. I realized this was a road to nowhere and probably not travelled by more than a few cars in a week.

Like a man in the desert, I was seeing "mirages"; a tin building nestled among trees on a hill turned out to be the sky viewed through the branches of tall trees. I was lying in the shade for 40 minutes and then walking for 10 minutes in the heat of the day. In mid- afternoon, I was able to walk without resting, finally reached a park without a drinking fountain and connected with a paved road.

The first car was going in the opposite direction, but had a phone from which I called to have myself removed from the missing list. While waiting for a vehicle which had been dispatched by the Department of Public Safety , a truck with WATER stopped to offer assistance. After thirty hours of unplanned fasting, I downed the sweetest water I ever tasted.

I have a lot of shoreline left. I will keep you posted. Jim Bell

We get to see Jim at least once a week at our little church meeting we hold in our apartment for local LDS members. We always ask Jim to give us an update on his incredible adventure. We wish him good luck and God-speed for the rest of his journey!