Bermuda and the America's Cup

I’ve just started working on a sailing catamaran as a freelance delivery and charter deckhand.  I was excited to get the job because I intend to buy my own sail boat in about five years to live aboard and sail for several  years.  However, I have very little sailing experience, so an opportunity to get paid to learn a little about sailing was pretty awesome.   Boat owners typically don’t like crew disclosing information about them or their boat, but I can say it is a 74-foot sailing catamaran that is typically crewed by a husband-and-wife team, and only takes on additional crew when the owners have bigger trips with extra guests.  In my case, they were going to Bermuda for the America’s Cup.

On our first day, we were treated to some good tail winds, following seas and the Gulf Stream, which gave us a good push around the top of the Bahamas.  Our route was taking us along the western edge of the Bermuda Triangle, which made it interesting for the superstitious, and I’m learning superstition is part of the sailing culture.  As the sun set, the eastern skyline lit up with a massive electrical storm.  It looked like we were sailing right into it, but it was miles off, and stayed ahead of us lighting up the sky and black seas around us for hours before it finally died out. 

The storm and sailing highlighted one of the biggest differences between this crossing and previous trips I have done on motor yachts.  In the motor yachts, we conducted our watches inside, but on the sailboat we were outside.  Although we still watched and logged wind and sea state on the motor yachts, it was much different being outside the whole time, feeling the wind and air temperature.  I enjoyed it more, but I was also thankful we didn’t get rained on. 

On day two, several small birds took refuge on the boat.  It was a wonder how they had found themselves so far out to sea.  Normally, I hate to see birds on a boat because it always means you’ll be cleaning up bird crap later, but this time I just felt bad for the little guys that must have been blown out to sea on one of the passing storms.  They were the size of a finch, and mostly bright yellow with some black and white on their wings and head.  We named one that was almost full yellow Tweety, and the other Bandit, as it had black on its face resembling a Zorro style mask.  We put out a little tin with bread crumbs and another of water, assuming they must be starved and thirsty.  They never took any interest in the food, but, much to our delight, they did go about eating any bugs that found their way on board. 

On day three, my evening watch started after sunset and well before the moon rose.  I was lucky because we also passed through some bioluminescence, which I may not have seen if the sun or moon was out.  The sky was nearly cloudless, so I alternated between watching our wake light up, and watching the sky for falling stars.  Again, I probably would have missed both of these on a motor yacht since you don’t have the unobstructed view from the bridge that you do when you’re outside. 

On day four, we saw some dolphins that chased us down, and played in our wake for a few minutes before moving on, and on our fifth day we arrived in Bermuda, with the early morning sun lighting up the colorful houses along the south shore.  We hugged the coast around to the east side, and entered Saint George harbor where we needed to check in for customs and immigration. 

St. George

If you ever travel to Bermuda, I recommend spending a little time in both St. George and the Dockyard area.  If you do, you will also travel the islands from end to end, which is also well worth it.  St. George is a UNESCO world heritage site on the eastern tip of Bermuda.  It was the site of first settlement on Bermuda, and the site of the Sea Venture’s grounding in 1609, after it was damaged in storms while sailing to Jamestown, Virginia, with supplies from Britain.  Sir George Somers and the crew of the Sea Venture were able to build two ships from supplies they recovered from the Sea Venture as well as the ample cedar that grew on Bermuda.  After ten months, the ships were ready to complete the resupply mission to Jamestown; however, some of the crew didn’t want to leave the island.

Replica of the Deliverance, located in St George.  It is one of the two ships Somers' crew built to replace the Sea Venture

Their experience and Sir George Somers’ report back to the British government led the British to colonize the island, which had no native population before that time.  Bermuda is still a British territory, but has also grown more independent since WWII.  Prior to the British, the island was first discovered by a Spanish sailor Juan De Bermudez in 1503.  Then the Portuguese visited in 1543, leaving behind wild hogs, which they planned to use to resupply meat supplies on future visits.  However, the cries of the wild hogs, tree frogs and birds – and the treacherous northern reefs – led future sailors to refer to it as Devil ’s Island, and they preferred to give the island a wide berth.  (These reefs have claimed more than 300 ships over the years, and I was able to snorkel around some of the wrecks during my stay.  The hogs have all been eaten, but they remain on the local ‘Hog Penny,’ which was one of the first forms of currency and is also the name of one of the islands oldest pubs.)

Today, St. George is filled with colorful and historic buildings dating back to the early days of colonization, and, despite being a British territory, it is also linked to a lot of American history.  Barber’s Alley is named for Joseph Hayne Rainey (1832-1887), an American slave who escaped to Bermuda and earned a living cutting hair there before he returned to the US and became the first African American member of Congress in 1870.  And, after building up defenses on Bermuda to protect it from possible attack from the US, it housed US troops multiple times.  The confederate Army had staff in St George, and US submarines were also stationed there during WWII. 

Some colorful and historic buildings on Water Street, St. George

One of several torture devices you can find in King's Square, St. George. 

Although the Dockyard - on the western end of the island – is the largest and most impressive fort on the island, St. George is also surrounded by many interesting forts that reflect the changing nature of coastal fortification over the last 500 years -- from Fort St. Catherine, the oldest fort in Bermuda, to Alexandra Battery.   St. Catherine has the classic look of a coastal castle, complete with a dry moat and draw bridge, while the Alexandra Battery is nearly invisible from the sea, and was equipped with modern cannons to defend the island during WWII. 

One of the gun positions for a disappearing cannon at the Alexandra Battery

Fort St Catherines

The Dockyard

After the US declared independence from Britain, the British established a significant naval fort on the western tip of Bermuda to defend against American aggression and support what remained of its Colonial Empire across the Atlantic.  Construction began in 1809, with slaves doing most of the work until they were liberated.  Then convicts were shipped in to complete the construction and housed on old ships that acted as floating prison barracks until construction was completed.   Interestingly, rather than protecting Bermuda from US aggression, the Dockyard was the place the British planned and conducted their attacks on Washington D.C. and supported the blockade of the US seaboard during the war of 1812.  AND, it later housed the US forces it was built to deter, during WWII.

View of the clock tower mall from our boat at the Dockyard

The Victualing Yard, where the British Navy prepared and stored food and other supplies for their ships 

View from one of the gun positions in 'The Keep,' the final defensive fort in the Dockyard

The British operated the Dockyard until the 1950’s, and, although the British Navy departed, they maintained the historic lease on the site until the 1990’s.  During those 40 years, the site was largely left to the elements, but in the past 20 years, it has seen a major revitalization as a harbor for private boats, and major Cruise lines.  In addition, the historic buildings built to house supplies, personnel and naval ship repairs have now been renovated into shops, restaurants and an impressive museum. 

We were lucky enough to dock at Pier 41 for the duration of the America’s Cup.  This gave me an opportunity to explore the Dockyard, and provided a ‘backstage’ view of the America’s Cup team docks and Race Village. 

Watching Team Oracle(USA) leave the docks, as Team New Zealand preps their boat in the background.

America’s Cup

I didn’t know much about the America’s Cup before this trip other than it was a sailing race, but, I’ve learned that it’s actually the oldest trophy in international sport, and it was named after the first boat to win the race in 1851, which actually took place in England.  The victorious sailing yacht, America, returned to America and gave the trophy to the New York Yacht Club, which then began holding the race in which one challenger competes against the current champion.  This challenger is the winner of a race series – called the Louis Vuitton Series - prior to the final race for the cup.  However, the defender doesn’t even compete in the initial Louis Vuitton series of races.  Instead they are guaranteed the spot in the final series of races against the single challenger.  In addition, the defender gets to select the boat design for the race and decides some of the rules for the race.  One analogy I heard was that it would be like the winner of the Super Bowl being guaranteed a spot in the next Super Bowl, and writing the rules for the next season!  This explains why the race also holds the record for longest winning streak in sport history. 

The America’s Cup has led to many innovations in sailing as well as controversies.  This year’s race featured several of those innovations.  The primary one is the foiling catamarans that actually fly through the air and sea.  The main sail is actually more like a plane wing on a Boeing 737 than a traditional fabric sail, and it operates like a wing as well, providing horizontal lift as the wind flows around it, propelling the sailing ships at 3 to 4 times the wind speed!  On a traditional sailing ship the wing sail alone would not be able to provide enough power to overcome the drag of water flowing around the ship’s hull, so they have reduced that drag by using a hydrofoil.  The hydrofoil is a wing under water that provides vertical lift to raise the boat out of the water, so the only points of friction are the small hydrofoil wing and the rudder used for steering and stability, like the tail of an airplane.  They are amazing to watch in action, but also controversial within the sailing community, which has found it hard to accept such radical innovation in the oldest race in international sailing.

The second major innovation is a creative system to keep the boats ‘man-powered.’  I feel I need to put it in quotes because there seems to be a fine line the race teams sail in this regard.  The boats actually have a lot of computer devices to aid the sailors, and the majority of the ‘sailors’ on board are actually called grinders or cyclers, who really don’t need sailing skills or knowledge; some of them actually come from Olympic cycling backgrounds.  They are responsible for charging a hydraulic system that’s used to control the hydrofoils and other systems on-board.   Although controversial, these innovations have led to astounding speeds on the race course of over 50 mph!

Another interesting fact about sail racing is that the race actually begins before it starts.  In the America’s Cup races, the two competitors enter the race course two and a half minutes before the start, and spend that time trying to out maneuver their competitor as they approach the starting line.  They try to cross the start line with the best angle and speed to attack the first mark or turning point on the course.  However, if they cross the start early, they have to drop back two boat-lengths behind their competitor as a penalty.  All of this makes for some very exciting racing before the race has officially started.  One shocking statistic that highlighted how crucial this pre-race jockeying was is the fact that Team New Zealand never lost a race if they won the race to the first mark.

I was fortunate enough to get to watch the races from several vantage points ranging from a small boat on the edge of the race course to a TV in a pub.  But the best place was at the America’s Cup Village Grandstand, where I was able to see the race course, listen to the animated play-by-play of the announcers, feel the wind in my face, and watch the race footage on a big screen.  Without the race-course graphics and camera angles on the big screen, it could be hard to tell who was in the lead at times.  In addition, they have put multiple cameras on board each boat, plus chase boats, helicopters and drones; so the race footage and instant replays are excellent, making TV viewing the second best option, beating out in person viewing from land or even a boat on the edge of the race course. 

Watching Team Groupama come into the finish line from the Grandstand

Not only did I get to watch some of the preliminary Louis Vuitton Challenger Cup races from the Grandstand, I was also lucky enough to have the owners of the sailboat that I work on gave us tickets to join them in the sold-out final day of races.  It was a great experience. 

The mood was set early, before we even left the yacht, as we could hear the announcers doing sound checks and announcing winner ‘XYZ’ and ‘ABC’ before cuing pre-selected victory soundtracks.   As the announcers were rehearsing, we could see the teams preparing their boats for racing and leaving the docks. 

We arrived at the race village shortly after the gates opened and, despite our early arrival, the Grandstands were filling quickly.  However, we were still able to claim prime seats behind the announcers’ booth.  After claiming a seat, I went to the Cup merchandise tent and discovered a fire sale crowd in a feeding frenzy of half-price bargains.  The line for check out extended the entire length of the store, and, as I waited to buy a T-shirt and hat, I heard some other shoppers chatting.  "This is the danger of a sale," a man lamented. "You buy a bunch of stuff you don't need. We came in here for one shirt.  Now look at all this.  I don't even know what this is,” the man said, holding up a tote-bagged item as his wife ran about the store returning to his spot in line with nearly one of everything.

I returned to the stands just in time for the announcers to begin their pre-race analysis, and pump up the crowd before the races began.  As the announcers probably said, the mood was electric.  The Team New Zealand fans knew they only need one more race to win the first-to-seven competition, while the American fans hoped it would be the start of another epic turn-around similar to their famous come-from-behind victory in 2013 when they won eight straight races to beat New Zealand 9-8. 

As the race started, the American fans were cheering early as Team USA won the race to the start line and around the first mark, a critical task when racing Team New Zealand.  However, the mood began to change and then the energy flipped as Team New Zealand pulled into the lead, causing the other half of the stands to erupt in cheers of excitement. 

Throughout the races, the announcers had been throwing some groan-worthy analogies, and they didn’t disappoint on this final day of racing, as they announced that “Team USA’s chances are slipping through their fingers like sand at the beach!” And it continued to slip, as Team New Zealand slowly gained ground.  “It is their race to lose” the announcers loved to say as a team secured a lead, and in this final race it was close, and New Zealand could lose if they slipped up, dropped off foil, or jumbled a jibe.  But they didn’t and the New Zealand fans were elated as they brought home the win and the cup, for the first time since 1995 when they beat the American’s in San Diego.

Typically, the race is held in the home country of the champion.  However, after successfully defending the trophy in San Francisco in 2013, with one of the greatest comebacks in sport history, the US team decided to open a bid for next race venue, and Bermuda won the bid.  It turned out to be a pretty great location for racing, with a large lagoon protected from the big sea swells of the open ocean, and fairly-consistent winds.  Five of six teams in the race actually voted to keep the races in Bermuda in the future; however, New Zealand opted out.  As it turned out, New Zealand won, so the next America’s Cup will most likely be held in New Zealand, much to the Bermudian’s dismay.

If I stay with the yacht I’m working on now, I might just make the journey to New Zealand in 2021 for the 36^th America’s Cup.  The owners of the yacht were rooting for America and a return to Bermuda.  It was a beautiful and central location for the races, and as my boss says, “New Zealand is 100% farther than you think.”  I certainly wouldn’t mind experiencing a Pacific crossing, but 2021 is also 100% farther than I think. 

More on the Battle of Saipan

I thought I had left Saipan for new shores, but thanks to my blog, the island and it's history has followed me.  I was recently contacted by the publishers for a new book about the  battle of Saipan, and they asked if I'd like to read an advance copy of the forthcoming book, Their Backs Against the Sea.

When I was in Saipan, I visited the War Memorial Park, which has a small museum and gift shop.  The museum provided a lot of good information about the Battle for Saipan, as one would expect, but I was surprised to find the book selection about the battle was limited to non-existent.   Even their small library of reference material did not contain any books focused on the battle, which really surprised me.  So, you can imagine I was very happy to hear about Bill Sloan's new book, Their Backs Against the Sea.

However, I was a little surprised that a new book about a WWII battle was coming out this long after the war, and wondered what insight he could bring beyond compiling the accounts from other books about the Pacific campaign.  I was surprised to learn that Bill was able to interview some of the men who were involved with the battle!  Additionally, he notes in the Acknowledgements that this may be the last book he writes about the war, "not because there aren't any more stories, but because only a rapidly vanishing handful of the people who lived those stories are still around."

I'm grateful that Bill was able to capture the harrowing accounts from these men before they were lost along with all the veterans of these battles.  Bill account of the battle of Saipan, as well as the follow on battle to take Tinian, is well researched and written.   Often, when one writes or reads about warfare it can become statistical and broad-brushed, removing the humanity, loss, and individual sacrifice.  In Their Backs Against the Sea, Bill litters his account of the battle with the personal stories of the men that did the fighting.  Their accounts bring chaos, fear, loss, and amazing sacrifices to life and keep the reader on the edge of his seat and the pages turning until the Acknowledgements give way to the pages of sources that made this book possible.  Bill's efforts remind the reader that the men who fought the battles were sons, brothers, friends and comrades not merely numbers.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the battle for Saipan is considered the 'Normandy' of Pacific campaign.  It marked the beginning of the end for the Japanese empire, and yet you rarely hear much about it.  Fortunately, we now have a page turning account about the men who answered the call to service and fought this critical battle for God, country and the comrades on their left and right.  If you want to learn more about this battle and the brave men who fought it, I recommend Their Backs Against the Sea by Bill Sloan.  

The Battle for Saipan in WWII

In my last post I talked about the boom and bust economy of Saipan.  However, I should have called it the post-war boom and bust, since I did not talk about the pre-war economy.  If I included the pre-war history, I could have mentioned the sugar boom during the Japanese colonial period.  As I mentioned in the last blog, the League of Nations gave the Mariana Islands to Japan after WWI.  As the Japanese took control, a young Japanese businessman, Matsue Haruji - with a masters degree in Sugar Chemistry from Louisiana State University (obtained in 1905) - conducted a survey of Saipan and concluded it was perfect for sugar plantations.  Thousands of men were shipped in to clear the jungle landscape and plant sugar cane.  It was so successful that in 1930, he expanded to the southern neighbor island of Tinian, and then further south to Rota.  By the time WWII began, the sugar industry of the Marianas made up 60 percent of Japan's South Seas revenue!

I find this economic story quite interesting for several reasons.  First, it touches on the topic of the book How Asia Works, which laid out an argument for how the economies of Japan, Korea and China advanced, while others with similar potential have stagnated in poverty.  One of the author's key arguments was that these nations imported not just products, but industries.  In this case, Matsue was educated and worked in the American Sugar industry before bringing that knowledge back to Japan to expand the industry in his home country.

Secondly, it reminded me of the book Imperial Cruise, which tells the story of President Roosevelt's cruise to Japan in 1905 (the same year Matsue was in the US earning his degree).  During that cruise and based on America's Asian policy, Japan was encouraged to expand its territory.  Similar to America's belief that we had a 'Manifest Destiny' to expand our nation westward from sea to shining sea, the American government partnered with the Japanese in Asia and promoted the same idea of westward expansion.  This policy would lead to the expanding empire of Japan, which in turn led to the Pacific campaign of WWII.  Remember, we were a trade partner with Japan up to the point when we cut off our oil trade, which lead to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.  What a tangled web we weave.

So, America is drawn into the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor and also has to fight the war on two fronts: Pacific and Europe.  In Europe, America honed their war-fighting skills by fighting their way across north Africa.  Churchill called this the 'soft underbelly of Europe, and it gave the allied war machine a place to 'practice' establishing beach heads, running logistical support, and fighting campaigns across the ground.  At the same time, it forced the German war machine to divert forces and resources to the southern front, ahead of the allies main effort at Normandy.  People always remember Normandy and often forget the African campaign, even though 400,000 soldiers were killed or injured in 3 years of fighting in Africa.  In addition, the southern campaign continued into Italy were another two million were killed, but Normandy is is the battle that marks the turning point during the war in Europe so the northern front is the one we tend to focus on.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific, a similar series of battles led up to the decisive Battle for Saipan, which is often referred to as the Normandy of the Pacific.  During the preceding island landings, the Navy and Marines honed their beach landing tactics and prepared for Saipan.  However, Saipan was different than many of the previous battles for three key reasons.  First, it was a larger island than many of the previous atolls, which meant a larger more entrenched land force, and a longer drawn out battle to take the island.  Second, the previous battles were often either primarily naval battles (Midway) or land battles (Tarawa), but the attack on Saipan would also trigger the largest Naval "carrier-to-carrier" battle in history!   And third, Saipan was the first Japanese 'territory' to be taken, AND the first island close enough to allow the US to establish land bases for B-29 bomber runs into mainland Japan.  The fact that it opened up the mainland to attack and was in the center of Japan's Pacific empire - which allowed the US to cut off many of the occupied islands we had 'hopped over' - made Saipan the decisive point in the Pacific campaign.

Map of the Pacific Front.  The red dotted line marks the furthest extent of Japanese occupation before US forces began to push them back starting with the Battle of Midway.  The Mariana Islands, and Saipan, lie almost directly in the center of the occupied south Pacific and are within B-29 range of mainland Japan, making the battle for Saipan a decisive point in the Pacific Campaign

Now the stage is set, and on 13 June 1944 - a week after the Normandy invasion started - the battle for Saipan begins on the opposite side of the globe.  The Japanese force of 30,000 has been preparing for this battle with bunkers, caves, and even employing the local children to help build a new runway (which is now part of Beach Road).  On the American side there's a force of 71,000: two Marine Divisions, one Army Division, and 15 Naval battleships that conducted a pre-invasion bombardment with 165,000 shells!

The island has few suitable beachheads, so the Japanese had a pretty good idea where the American forces would land.  In addition, they had a commanding 360 degree view from the top of the central peak of Mount Tapochao.  They also knew that they held the decisive territory for the motherland, and were prepared to defend it to their death.  Lastly, before the battle even began, they knew that their Navy would support them with reinforcements.

View looking south from Mt Tapochao.  The International Airport sits on the same site as one of the Japanese airfields, and was a major objective during the initial attack.  The US forces were using the airfield within a week of taking it.  Then the US forces, turned north to attack up the spine of the island.  

As expected, the US forces attacked the southwest beaches where the terrain was much flatter inland, and an offshore reef break gave way to a shallow sand filled lagoon.   Although Japanese preparation ensured heavy losses during the initial attack, the Marines established six mile long beachhead by nightfall on the 15th.  Some of the American tanks lost in the beach landing, still sit in the lagoon with only their turrets poking out above the surf, (If you google images of Saipan, one of the tanks will show up in the first few results.)

The Japanese expected the attack on Saipan, however they did not expect US forces to 'hop' over so many islands in order to attack Saipan.  Despite the surprise, the Japanese saw this as an opportunity to defeat the US Navy in a decisive battle and ordered a naval counterattack on the 15th as well. On Saipan, after a Japanese counterattack that night, the Marines woke up to find the Navy had abandoned them in order to meet the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.  This carrier-to-carrier battle also became known as the great turkey shoot, with over 1700 aircraft involved, and the decisive battle Japan had envisioned swung decisively to the Americans.  The Japanese lost 3 of 5 carriers, 2 oil tankers, and around 600 of 750 aircraft.  The US only had one battleship damaged and 123 aircraft lost.  For the Japanese, this defeat meant they would not be able to reinforce their forces on Saipan.

The second night after the beaches were secured, the Japanese staged a counter attack with their largest tank attack in the Pacific.  The attack was intended to cut off the beachhead by rolling down the flank of the US forces, just south of the city of Garapan along what is now Beach Road.  In the end the tank attack failed, as burning tanks helped silhouette the advancing tanks making them easier targets in the night.  Today, a destroyed Japanese Tank sits at the sight of the battle on top of one of the old battle-scarred beach bunkers.

Destroyed Japanese tank on top of a battle-scarred bunker.  Soldiers wrote that during the nighttime battle the burning tanks would silhouette the tanks that were still advancing making them easy targets.

After the tank battle, the Marines pushed inland, the Army division turned south to take the airfield, and the Marines 'swung like a gate' to the north to prepare for the arduous fight up along the central spine of the island.  Some of the heaviest losses took place during the push north in places nicknamed Purple Heart Ridge, Hell's Pocket and Death Valley.   Eventually, the enemy was pushed all the way to the north end of the island, and the Japanese made one final and unsuccessful counter attack. before beginning to commit mass suicide by jumping off an inland cliff, now known as Suicide Cliff, or into the sea from a point known as Bonsai Cliff.  Unfortunately, Japanese propaganda, and over 20 years of Japanese rule led many natives and Japanese civilians to follow the soldiers over the edge.

East side of Suicide Cliff.  Bonsai cliff is on the horizon where the ocean meets the land.  

Bonsai Cliff - Even if a person survived the fall, they had no way of getting out with miles of cliffs in both directions and heavy currents pulling them out to sea.

In the end 29,000 Japanese soldiers perished, 5000 of which were suicides, and 22,000 civilians, most of which were suicides.   The US had 3,426 killed and 10,000 wounded.  The entire battle took 24 days and ended on the 9th of July.  However, a small band of Japanese continued harassing attacks and escaped capture for another 17 months!  They were led by Captain Sakae Oba and did not surrender until after the war was over.

After Saipan was secured the Americans immediately set their sights on the island of Tinian to the south.  It was attacked on the 24th and secured by the first of August, 1944, followed by Guam, the last Mariana island to be taken by US forces.  The other 13 Mariana Islands were essentially cut off and ignored, as were any Japanese and native people that inhabited them.  Shortly after Saipan and Tinian were secured, the existing airstrips were repaired and additional airstrips were built to begin attacks on mainland Japan.  A year later, on 6 August, 1945, the Enola Gay took off from one of those airstrips on Tinian and dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, speeding the end to the war.

Boom and Bust in Modern Saipan

Apparently, Saipan isn't even recognized by Blogger's spell check.  That is how little notice my current home gets in this world.  Of course since I'm from Wyoming, I'm used to being from a place that is unfamiliar to most.  When I was growing up in Wyoming, I once saw an episode of the Garfield cartoon in which they had a bit: 'If it's on TV, it must be true'.  In it, they explained that an Italian artist was drawing the map of America and when he was finished there was a blank spot in the middle.  He wrote "Wyoming" in the blank spot which meant "nothing's here" in Italian.  It was a clever bit, and I have used the reference often when people don't know the state.  Another amusing response I often get when I tell people I'm from Wyoming is: "Ah, Miami."  I don't hear the similarity, but apparently it's there.

So let me tell you a little about the place I'm living and learning about now.  It is one of 16 Mariana Islands, of which, 15 make up the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).  Saipan is part of the CNMI while Guam is in the Marianas but remains a separate US territory.  Saipan is also on the west side of the international dateline, so it is commonly said to be where America's day begins.  And although Hawaii is the closest US state to Saipan, ironically it's where America's day ends 44 hours later.  Actually, Hawaii does share that distinction with the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska too.

The native Chamorro and/or their ancestral Indonesian/Filipino seafarers, arrived 4,000 years ago.  Archaeologists actually believe that Tinian, Saipan's southern neighbor island, may have been the first Pacific island to be settled outside Asia.  Today, the Chamorro only make up about five percent of the population.  The other 'native' group is the Carolinian, but they arrived in the 1800's, after the first colonial powers, which began arriving in the 1600's.  The Spanish were the first to use the island as a stop off point and built ranches to raise animals to supply ships passing through the Marianas.  The English, Dutch, and others also made it a port of call, and like most colonized locations, most of the locals died from disease or were simply pushed out to make room for colonial expansion.

In 1898, the Spanish lost the island to the US, after the Spanish-American War, but sold it to the Germans without much protest from the US.  However, neither made any effort to colonize or develop the island, so not much changed for the new Spanish and Carolinian occupants or the remaining Chamorro people.  However, as a twist of fate and war, because the Germans owned the island, and the Japanese supported the Allies of WWI, the League of Nations awarded control of Saipan to Japan after the war was over. (The Japanese did take the island during WWI, but at that time it was considered a German territory.)  So as Japan expanded it's empire in WWII, Saipan was not part of its conquest.  Rather it had already been governed by Japan for over 20 years.

The old Japanese Hospital, now the Saipan Museum, which rarely opens.
During Japanese colonial rule, this was one of the most modern hospitals in all of Japan.

I'll write more about the WWII history of Saipan later on, but for now I want to get into the boom and bust life of Saipan as a territory of the US.  The first boom was the US military presence, which still remains part of the local economy, with a fleet of supply ships anchored just off shore, a small Army Reserve force on the island, and a National Park War Memorial all providing jobs, income and spending on the island.  I get rocked to sleep and jostled awake everyday by the boats that run workers to and from the cargo ships anchored in the lagoon.  Although it is still part of the economy, and saw some spikes with the Korean and Vietnam wars, the military spending dried up significantly after WWII.  

The next two booms were simultaneous.  The most significant was the garment industry, which started in 1983, peaked in in the 1990's and was gone in 2009.  In 1999, the industry hit its peak with $1.05 BILLION in sales, which brought in $39.3 million in local 'user fees' taxes for the island that year.  In addition to the tax revenue, the industry also brought in over 15,000 foreign factory workers (25% of the islands population) who spent an estimated $39 million a year in the local economy.  The millions sound impressive, but they actually equate to only 8 percent of the total garment sales revenue. This was a small price to pay for the 'Made in America' tag, which production in Saipan provided to the companies that bought the garments.  As for who was buying the clothes produced in Saipan, it was pretty much every single American clothing company: The Gap, Levi Strauss Co, Cutter & Buck, Dayton Hudson, J. Crew Group, J.C. Penny, Sears Roebuck & Co., The Limited, Oshkosh B'Gosh, The Gymboree, the May Company, Lane Bryant, Wal-Mart, Tommy Hilfiger, and Ralph Lauren to name a few.  

Part of an abandoned apartment complex.  It seemed they had consolidated appliances to different apartments.
This one was the fridge apartment.  Also, it appeared they were renovating a few of the buildings next door,
which I guess was signs of better financial times in the latest boom.

So, what caused the garment industry to crash?  Despite the big money and big brands the whole thing was riddled with corruption, and poor oversight and regulation.  The workers had little to no rights, and some worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Often they were promised good jobs in America, paid recruiters $6000 for the opportunity, and found themselves in Saipan either in a factory working for $3 an hour, or on the streets without any job at all.  Since 90% of these new arrivals were young women, those who arrived with no job awaiting them, often ended up forced into prostitution.  In one case a man contacted a local hospital to ask how much he could make selling a kidney in order to return to his home country.

Ironically, the 1999 peak in sales was also met with three separate lawsuits filed by aid groups on behalf of 30,000 current and past factory workers that same year.  In addition, the factories and their sweatshop conditions were getting more and more publicity in the United States, both in public and in government.  Jack Abramoff, of lobbying corruption infamy was paid $6.7 million by the government of CNMI to prevent congressional oversight of the industry.  Meanwhile, multiple articles were published in both US and international papers as well as magazines.  And some lawmakers were even raising the alarm, despite others trying to brush it off or cover it up.  In the end, Congress finally stepped in to raise the minimum wage and enforce greater immigration regulations, which eventually led to the end of the Garment Industry.

At the same time the garment industry was booming, so was Japan's economy.  And they were also on a real estate buying binge in the US which included Saipan.  I spoke to someone who said any property on the water was going for millions of dollars, and after the crash you'd be lucky to get $40,000.  However, these properties were not actually bought by foreign investors, because Saipan law prohibits anyone other than natives from buying land.  So instead these were 50 year leases on the property, which could be renewed.

At the peak, Japan funded several resort hotels as well as other businesses.  I know of one resort that is still operated by a Japanese firm, and several that have either transitioned to new ownership or failed all together.  One of the most glaring examples is the Fiesta Mall, locally referred to as the Fiasco Mall.  It used to be a popular shopping and hangout spot for everyone from the garment workers to tourists.  Now it is rapidly being reclaimed by the surrounding jungle and only frequented by graffiti artists, vandals, and kids playing war with Airsoft guns.

When Japan's economy crashed, so did the real estate market in Saipan.  Moreover, Japan was also a big part of Saipan's tourism industry, which has always been a mainstay of Saipan's economy.  During the boom, the Japanese were the primary tourists in Saipan, now they have dropped to number three.

The latest boom, has been tied to a resurgence in tourism for two reasons.  The first is a growing middle and upper class in Korea and China, which have taken over the top two spots from Japan.  Now China and Korea are both tied at around 40 percent of the tourist population each year.  That is 80 percent of all the tourism on the island, with Japan making up nearly all of the last 20 percent and the rest of the world barely making a blip on the tourism radar.

The second is the newly legalized gambling industry, which is monopolized by a Chinese firm "Best Sunshine," my employer.  Although, gambling has been legal on other islands in the CNMI, the recent legalization in Saipan is a first for the island, and was done in hopes that it would save the flailing economy and the cash strapped government pension funds.  Japan actually ran a casino on Tinian that went belly up, along with it's ferry, which I would have liked to use to visit the island.

However, the latest boom is already showing signs of bust.  The Best Sunshine parent company (Imperial Pacific International) stock has dropped over 50 percent from recent all time highs.  The main casino hotel project is behind schedule, which has also led Moody's to downgrade the bonds sale from B3 to B2.  Plus, they are under investigation from all fronts, for possible money laundering, to unpaid construction service fees, wrongful termination, and unsafe work environment on the construction site, where they recently denied OSHA access to investigate recent workers' injuries and deaths.  It seems there is something new in the news everyday.

Construction site of the Phase 1 Casino Hotel project.  Lit up at night by the welders.  The speed of progress has been amazing, but I don't know how it will be open in March, when I shot this video at the beginning of January.

Before all of this turmoil, they were allowed to build a temporary 'training' site, which is an actual casino, where new staff are able to learn their jobs as costumers gamble away real money.  The reason it is called a training site is because the legalization of gambling stipulated that the new casino could not occupy an existing property, but must occupy a new construction.  Amazingly, this tiny training location has been able to rake in huge returns.  So much so that it is now the most lucrative casino in the world.  With only about 40 gaming tables and about as many slot machines, the site was able to have over $32 BILLION in chip turnover in its first year alone! That is over $2 million per day per table!  Somehow, this meager 'training' site has been able to beat out the gaming giant of The Sand Venetian in Macau.  It is no wonder there is suspicion of money laundering.

Even my yachting job is tied to this wild casino gamble.  The Grand Marianas yachting fleet is a subsidiary of the casino, and we cater to the VIP customers of the gaming tables.  So, I can only hope that the company is able to raise the $60 million in new capital they need to keep things going before their phase one casino hotel opens in March.  If not, I guess I may be the first to know when I fail to see my paycheck and the fuel trucks stop coming to refuel the boats.

It's too soon for Saipan's next bust... both legal and economic.  Their biggest hope for avoiding the legal bust was the fact that president-elect Trump's ex-casino CEO, Mark Brown, was running the show here.  However, as of TODAY, he was pushed aside and the Chinese COO has taken over as the CEO, as Mark travels to drum up capital after the bond downgrade.   I guess the casino is gambling on the odds of a financial bust being greater than a legal one.  Either way, wish me and Saipan good luck.

Artful Miami

For six months I lived on a yacht in Miami Beach, which was very nice, but I was on the yacht for work not an extended vacation.  However, when I did have time off, I took advantage of the opportunity to explore the city.  I’d say Miami has it all, but that simply isn’t true.  The first thing it is lacking is seasons.  While in Miami, I found myself in the middle of what felt like an endless summer.  Even though I was there in the winter, I had just spent the last summer in Alaska, and the Florida 'winter' felt like summer to me.  This made it hard to remember that it was winter almost everywhere else in the country.  I had never considered how helpful seasons are for marking the passage of time, but in Miami I was losing track of time as fall and winter slipped past and the arrival of spring was just a slow rise in temperatures from hot to uncomfortably hot. For months I spoke to friends about their summer plans, and I kept thinking it is already here rather than three months away.   I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed the warm weather, but I think I prefer a place with seasons to mark my place in the year. 

However, the consistent great weather did afford me the opportunity to check out the impressive Miami art scene.  And I think the art scene might be thriving, because you have to be creative if you’re going to celebrate Christmas when it is 80 degrees outside.  This occurred to me as I explored Wynwood during Art Basel and passed a Christmas tree sales tent with a backdrop of palm trees and an inflatable Santa standing on thick green lawn. 

Art Basel is the biggest arts event in Miami and a plethora of other satellite events and tents have sprung up around it.  I spent my time around Wynwood, the Miami art district, which is full of murals and artisan breweries that are also covered in Murals.  The area is popular year round, especially for their monthly second Saturday events, however the Art Basel scene made a second Saturday look sleepy. 

The streets were packed with traffic, which was largely deadlocked, in part due to the major street party that was going on at 22^nd St. and 2^nd Ave.  Two large tents covered several empty lots, and were filled with bars, a stage of lights, jumbotrons, Speakers and DJ equipment, and a sea of humanity raging between it all.  Beyond the tents was a pop up Skate Park and another large lot filled with food trucks.  I had to make a video, because pictures simply would not do it justice:

At the corner of 25^th and 2^nd, I passed a U-haul that was parked on a corner, back wide open with the storage space converted into a mobile stage.  The band was pouring out into the street, which was being blocked by the onlookers with arms raised and phones recording the impromptu performance.  After a few songs, they broke into slow rap about how the cops were going to shut them down, but that quickly ramped back up into pleas 'for five more minutes.'  I moved on before their fate was decided.

I was more interested in getting to the J Wakefield Brewery, which has some of the best beer in Wynwood.  Despite the great beer, it normally has pretty small crowds and a laid back vibe.  However, as I suspected, they were overflowing with Basel crowds as well, and had a DJ out front keeping the overflowing crowds entertained as they drank beers at the picnic tables or awaited some food at the food truck.   The DJ, beers and crowd were fun, but I didn't linger long, because I wanted to check out the new murals that were being painted around the district.

One of the more controversial aspects of the art scene in Wynwood is the constant transition and renewal of the mural works throughout the district.  At J Wakefield, they have covered their walls in murals, mostly tied to Star Wars, but I've also seen them change in the time I've been here.  While I enjoy the new art, I also hate to see the old works painted over.  The brewery use to  have a phoenix on one of the walls, which has now been replaced by a dragon.  In another year it will probably be something new.  I heard a story about a local painting company that actually has the job of painting over walls to prep them for new murals.  The owner of the company is also a local graffiti artist and often has to take a lot of heat from other graffiti artists while he is on the job painting over their work to prepare it for something new.  He has even had to paint over some of his own work.  In the end he says he does it because he has to pay the bills, and he gets the work because property owners know they can depend on him to show up and get the job done.  I guess it is like all aspects of life, the only thing that is constant is change.  At J Wakefield, the the tap list changes even more often than the artwork, and both will keep me coming back.

Just a few blocks away, I decided to stop at an art shop I had passed several times before but hadn't stopped because of the security, fence and valet had made it seem less inviting in the past.  However, for Art Basel, they were living up to their name - Art Fusion Gallery - with live band in the parking lot, surrounded by several sculpture pieces, in front of the mural covered walls, which also had art video clips being projected on them.  Inside I discovered it had been voted Florida’s number one gallery two years running, and I could see why.  The artwork was excellent and represented local talents as well as several artists from around the world.  They also represented a variety of mediums as well, from photography and paintings, to sculptures and found object pieces.  They even had one artist who had added an augmented reality experience to her paintings, which could be seen by viewing her work through an ipad camera screen.    

In the end, I never even made it to the main Art Basel event tents around the Miami Beach convention center, but I did visit several satellite events around Wynwood.  Although, they did have more of an art show feel, they too had the festival/party atmosphere as well.  There were café bars in each tent as well as a rolling wine carts for the VIP crowd.  I was not a VIP and was primarily there for the art, but as I left someone in line asked me if there was a bar inside.  I told him there was and he loudly reported this news back to his friends.  I'm not sure if it was the news of booze or their thirst for the arts that kept them in line, but they stayed.  

Months later, Miami hosts the much more laid back Coconut Grove Art Festival.  It started in 1963 and has grown to include 360 international artists selected from 1,300 applicants, plus a stage for musical performances as well.  I attended this festival a year before I made it to Art Basel, and enjoyed the fact that it is organized into individual booths for artists to display and sell their work.  This provides you with the opportunity to meet the artists and learn about their work, inspiration and more.  While a few artists were at Art Basel as well, I found that most of the art was being presented by sales surrogates, and sometimes the same artwork was being displayed and sold in more than one area.  This gave Basel a much more sales focused and less approachable feel.  

One artist I met at Coconut Grove, also did murals and told me he had several works in Wynwood,  and even invited me to an event in Wynwood later in the week.  We chatted for a while and he also told me about a cross country road trip he funded by painting mural bread crumbs along his path.   Before he departed on the trip, he had searched his route using google street view, and called businesses that he found with graffiti on their walls.  He would offer his services painting murals and then planned the trip according to the jobs he lined up.  

Another was photographer Brad Pogatetz, who searched for blight in all the towns he attended art festivals.   He had some pretty amazing photographs of churches and factories in various stages of decay.  I was shocked to see some of the churches that had been allowed to crumble, with such beautiful art and wood work left to the destructive forces of the elements.  

I probably chatted with over a dozen artists before I finally decided I needed to cut the conversations short in order to make it through the other 300 exhibits.  Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to finish before the show closed for the evening.  

Besides the annual shows and the murals throughout the city, Miami also has several art museums and even an art bar worth checking out.  On my first trip to Little Havana, I discovered CubaOcho, which proclaimed it had 'the best Mojitoe' around.  Of course I had seen this same sign outside of almost every bar I passed in Little Havana, but what drew me into this bar was that it was also called a Museum and Performing Arts Center.  

Inside I found walls, ceilings, and even table tops covered in art.  The stage looked like a library, complete with an antigue fainting couch and other sofas.  Even the bar was covered with artwork.  The owner had escaped Cuba with some Cuban artworks that were endanger of being destroyed by the Castro's communist revolution, and after arriving in Miami, continued his efforts to rescue pre-revolution artwork, as well as introducing post-revolution Cuban artwork to the Miami area.  The Mojito was good, but it is the artwork that keeps me coming back.  

Finally, even the architecture of Miami has Art in the name.  Miami Beach is famous for it's Art Deco skyline, as well as the later development of MiMo, or Miami Modern architectural style.  This was one of the first things that drew me to Miami, long before the yachting.  I have been on several Art Deco walking tours and also would recommend the FIU Wolfsonian Museum, which is housed in a historic storage building that was built in the Art Deco style as well.  The Museum has a great collection of art and appliances from the 1920's and '30's all built in the futuristic style of the Art Deco era.  

So, despite the lack of seasons, Miami is not lacking when it comes to art from all disciplines.