Bry-Guy is AFK.......

At least until I can get my own connection set up in my apartment.  The free wifi that I was using no longer exists and paying to use the internet cafes is prohibitively expensive.

Other than that I seem to have acquired an electric bill that doubles every month.  I have a feeling that my faulty air conditioner which never seems to stay off is the culprit.  I went to the power company trying to figure out why a single bedroom apartment is drawing 1,200Kilowatts per per month and they're going to send a guy over to investigate my meter.

Good news is I got another part time job.  I'm now an aircraft handler and driver for Micronesian Aviation Systems.  Basically I pick up and drop off Japanese tourists between the airfield and their hotels.  Hopefully this will pan out to be more full-time.  Haven't done much flying this month because Micronesian Air's C-172 is getting a new engine and won't be ready until January.

I've been trying to get a checkout in a smaller Cessna 150 owned by Freedom Air; Micronesian's neighbor.  It's $30 per hour cheaper to rent and 10% slower than a 172 and would be perfect to build 250 hours of pilot in command time between Guam and Saipan.  Only problem is I find new mechanical problems before every flight.  It's actually quite pathetic.  First check flight couldn't be conducted due to an inoperative green (right wing) indicator light by the way are not required to be on for daytime flights, but company policy states that the lights must work.

Next set of problems after the first day were to find that the intercom batteries had died because the mechanic left the unit on and this made the radios unusable.  After fresh 9volt batteries were installed we then found that the starter motor slips and fails to start the engine.

So I rescheduled a week later only to get a call from my flight instructor friend that this time he found a bad magneto (one of two mechanically driven permanent magnet dynamos that provide the charge for the spark plugs,) so we rescheduled yet again.   So the next day after the mechanics had performed extensive cleaning of the cylinders, plugs, magnetos, and fixed the starter motor.......the damn green left wing position light is out again.  OMFG I can't believe this shit!  You must be wondering to yourselves if I'm crazy enough to strap this small hulk of aluminum and rivets to my ass and fly it right?


I'm heading home for the holidays with a brief stop in Tokyo and then on to NJ and NY.  Just a couple weeks, and should be back on island early January.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Island thanksgiving at the Hyatt with free flowing champagne......this could turn out to be an interesting night.




.....Hey it beats open-faced turkey spam sandwiches with cranberry jelly.

A little bit of New York City by bike.

I was recently cleaned out one of my camera's memory cards and found the video footage I shot while cycling in New York City back in May of this year.  I was testing out a new camera called a Go Pro HD Hero.  The device is about the size of a brownie and is as simple as cameras get.  It shoots up to 1080p HD video as well as the ability to automatically snap a 5 mega pixel still every second, 30 seconds or minute depending on how you set it.  It has an ultra wide angle semi-fisheye lens with a maximum aperture of f2.8 for low light situations and comes in a special housing that is water resistant to 180ft, shock resistant, and can be mounted on just about anything.  The Hero can be purchased with additional mounts that allow it to be mounted to windows, via suction cup, roll bars, handlebars, surfboards, your head, helmets, even on the wing of an airplane!  I've seen skydivers strap it to their heads and I strap it to my head when I scuba dive.

Anyways here are some still images cut from footage the first time I used the camera.  It's in 720p, mounted upside down on the front of my bike's handlebars as I rode around NYC for a day.

Enjoy!

The steps at Grove St. station, Jersey City.

Grove St. PATH.

PATH riders

World Trade PATH station exit.

Man at crosswalk.  Woolworth's Building in background.

The New York Stock Exchange, Wall St.

The South St. Seaport.

Musicians performing at the Seaport.

Riding down South St. towards the Staten Island Ferry terminal and Battery Park.

Silhouette of track bike rider, Battery Park.

Korean War Memorial, Battery Park.

Second World War Memorial facing the Hudson, Battery Park.

Looking at the waterfront late in the afternoon, Battery Park.

Wreckage of World Trade Center, now an eternal flame memorial, Battery Park.

Rider approaching the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian level. 

Riding towards Brooklyn.

Heading towards one of the tower supports.

Spider web like design of the wire tension cables.

"Welcome to Brooklyn."

Leaving Brooklyn.

Heading back towards Manhattan.

Sushi Samba.

Heading towards Time Square at dusk.

Time Square.

More Time Square.

Turned the camera on myself, Time Square.

As always, temporary barriers for perpetual construction are placed around sidewalks everywhere.  Riding back towards PATH to go home.

Wreck Diving: Japanese Seaplane.

I'm finding it difficult to keep blogging between sleeping and diving lately.  I really do enjoy all three activities but it's not working out well due to a slow internet connection and slow photo uploads.  However, I'm wide awake and it's 5:30 in the A.M. and cannot sleep so here's a new post.....

Went on another free, weekend, divemaster led beach dive with the Micronesian Diver's Association.  This particular dive was dove off the old Japanese fuel piers at the U.S. Naval Base, Guam.

Eric, our guide that day.  We're following some nylon line that is attached to the plane from shallower water as the visibility is not very good.

Approaching the seaplane's pontoons at 90ft.

Eric rubs off some of the silt that is covering the wings to expose the Japanese "Hino-Maru" or red rising sun roundels. 

 Here's a close up of the "Hino-Maru" still red, still intact.

Size comparison of the one of the pontoons with a diver.

Front of the pontoons.  It appears that the thin aluminum skin has deteriorated to expose the inner, stiffer ribs and formers.  

My buddies Dawn and Ky photographing a lurking lionfish.

Lionfish.

Eric again. This time we are on the right wing.  The flaps were left in an almost 90 degree down position.  Not sure if they were damaged or if it was intentional.

Inside the fuselage, pilot's seat.

Checking out the fuselage.

Diving Blue Hole

 Perhaps one of Guam's most geologically spectacular dive site is "Blue Hole."  A 60ft long limestone and coral tube that you can swim down into and out the bottom or swim into from the bottom and then up and out the top.  It's a really cool dive and anyone interested in diving who visits Guam should check it out!  These are images i took on my fourth time to Blue Hole.  I first dove it in 2005 with my best friend in high school (Mr. K. K.) on a senior spring break dive trip from Japan.  Since then I've been back 3 more times.  It never seems to get boring for me.  First went back on a weekend boat dive about a month ago with Micronesian Diver's Association and 2 more times as part of my PADI training for deep diving and assisting with an advanced open water class.

These were taken from the advanced open water class as part of my internship as a dive-master candidate with Seleen Divers off of Wes's sailboat:

Here are the two advanced open water students hanging on to the mooring at the hole.

Not usually this cloudy in the water but still a good 60-70ft visibility.  The top of the hole is visible as a dark blue shape left of center.

Getting closer as I work my way down the mooring line.

Wes says O.K.

Having a break sitting at the top of the hole around 60ft.

We make our way into the hole.

One of the students descending into the abyss.  Below 90ft the partial pressure of nitrogen in your system increases to the point where it becomes narcotic and you can get nitrogen narcosis.  Basically you feel drunk. A good rule of thumb is for every 10ft below 90ft is like having another martini.  

Small reef fish expecting to be fed come and visit.

The view looking up through the hole to the surface from around 100ft.

More fish waiting at the window at the bottom of the hole at 122ft.

Wes goes down and out first.  The top of the window is 122ft and the bottom is around 220ft with a steep slope that drops off well beyond recreational diving depth limits to 280ft.  Know your limits because with the spectacular visibility some inexperienced divers who aren't watching their depth go deeper than they should which has caused stupid accidents in the past.  If you drop a camera, or flashlight or diveknife, you aren't going down to retrieve it.  

After swimming back up the outside, we stop to look at a large boat anchor which holds another mooring.

just relaxing before the assent.

Lastly we stop at 15ft on our ascent for our safety stop for 3 minutes to off-gas any nitrogen micro bubbles that have accumulated in our tissues at depth before surfacing.  

All images shot with GoPro HD.