Storytime: Gore in Guam

I'm going to tell you a story.

The year is 1992. I am 12 years old. My Dad, a pilot, took me and my brother to Guam for two weeks. He was there for work. I have no idea why. For those who don't know, Guam is an island in the Pacific more or less halfway between Japan and Australia. It's part of the chain of islands called the Northern Mariana islands in the region called Micronesia. It's quite close to the deepest ocean point on Earth, the Mariana Trench. You can drive the perimeter of Guam in about an hour.

So there we were, in Guam for two weeks. It was my second time out of the US, the first being our trip to visit my Mom's family in South Korea in 1987. To get there we flew out to Wake Island, then stopped for a few hours in the Narita Airport in Japan, then finally to Guam. Narita was awesome to twelve-year-old me, because it was 2:00 AM and there were cartoons on TV and weird food in vending machines.

The first thing I noticed about Guam (besides the coconut trees, 80 degree temperature, and humidity) were the geckos. Geckos on the ground, geckos on the walls (indoors and out), geckos on the ceilings. I never could catch one of the fast little buggers. They're completely harmless, though you had to make sure not to leave food out unattended because you could end up with a bag of baby carrots and geckos, or a can of mandarin oranges and geckos, or a bottle of soda and geckos.

There are a lot of Japanese tourists running around Guam, which meant Japanese trinkets and food in the convenience stores, which was pure awesome for me. We toured the whole island. Tarzan Falls was beautiful. We saw dolphins at Two Lovers' Leap (every island has their own Romeo and Juliet story!). We posed by the cave where the Japanese soldier hid for 28 years after WWII ended (ha!). But the best part was hiking into the jungle to a lagoon where the locals had hung a giant rope on which to swing into the water. Everyone was swinging, letting go at the highest point over the water, and dropping. I didn't so much do that as smash into the water to keep my head above. There's something wrong with my nose and I can't go underwater without holding it and I've never been a fan of jumping or diving into water…or being in water without scuba or snorkle gear for that matter. I was however disappointed that we didn't make it out to Jellyfish Lake because swimming amongst the stingless blobs would be badass.

Anyway, I'm getting to the good part of the story. My dad could scuba dive but since I was only 12 I couldn't yet get my scuba license. I spent hours snorkling around while my dad, and I think my brother too, dove with his co-workers.

Oh my gosh, let me tell you about the coral reef. I'm sure it isn't nearly as spectacular as the Great Barrier Reef, but it can hold its own. The majority of the coral around and on the island is brain coral. It's kind of creepy and isn't any fun to stub your toe on. The waters are filled with black and yellow butterflyfish. The corals are like underwater rainbows. It's mindblowing.

So we're at this one beach that's notoriously good for diving. Not so much for snorkling, and let me tell you why. The water is shallow, maybe one to two feet deep as you walk out about 50 yards to where it drops off like a cliff a good 12 to 15 feet down. The waves were of course breaking against this coral shelf. I was almost at the drop off point when this HUGE freak wave comes at me, knocks me down, and sucks me out over the dropoff. Thankfully I had my mask and snorkle on but in the process of being sucked out I was tumbled around like ice in a cocktail shaker and took in a bunch of water through the snorkle. It was the most terrifying ten seconds of my life as I scrambled to get my bearings and clawed my way back up onto the reef. Those few seconds were a nightmarish swirl of color and pain. I remember screaming through my snorkle tube. I stood up and walked back to the beach sobbing with blood running down my leg. In my scramble to get to the shallows I managed to scrape my leg against the reef. I had a huge coral burn above my knee and more going all the way down my leg and onto my foot. Thankfully one of our group who had stayed back on the beach had a first aid kit with her or I could have ended up with a nasty infection. The rest of the trip was painful every time I went back into the water but I didn't care. I still have a huge scar above and beside my knee and a few more small blips going down my leg.

But I have to tell you, those few seconds of terror were also the few seconds where I saw some of the most intensely beautiful coral reef I've ever seen.

So that's my Guam story. I've been yearning (yes, yearning) to go back ever since. No place in the world has ever felt more like home to me.