On Guam, most dives are off of a boat.
This is because it’s hard to walk out past the reefs with tanks on.
Mostly, we have bays with a reef at the edge. The good diving is past the reef. However, it’s typically a long walk.
Thankfully, it’s not very expensive to get on a chartered boat dive.
I got my certification through MDA, and so I go on their boat dives.
There are other companies, but they all go the same places.
It’s a small island, so there are only so many places to go.
My husband got dive certified after me, and his instructor let me tag along. (That’s me above; not that you can tell.)
We went to Fish Eye, which I have snorkeled several times. It was interesting to dive there.
The class went around the base of the Fish Eye tourist attraction.
I followed along, and got pictures of them feeding the fish.
There are all kinds of fish, including groupers and barracudas.
It was a short dive. We only stayed down for about 45 minutes.
However, we got to see a lot of things in that time, and it was fun.
If you are in Guam, I recommend going to Fish Eye Marine Park.
It is a long walk out from shore, but there is a path to follow under the bridge, so it’s not so bad.
And now, my husband and I are both certified to dive!
Gab Gab beach is a lovely place to snorkel. It’s on the Navy Base, and it’s a hard coral reef with lots of beautiful fish and turtles.
At first I couldn’t figure out why everyone said it was good. I was trying to snorkel from the beach wading out.
However, if you go around to the pool and take the stairs, you can go out past the reef. That’s where the real excitement is.
It is always dangerous to go past the reef, so make sure that there aren’t high winds. Those will cause currents, and that can be a problem.
However, when it is safe and the water is calm, it’s a wonderful place to go.
I had never been snorkeling until I came to Guam.
It’s a steep learning curve trying to study all the names of the fish.
After all, in Arizona there isn’t much call to learn fish names.
However, it’s really a beautiful place to check out, even if you can’t name the fish afterwards.
Tumon Bay is in the center of the tourist part of the island.
Most of the large hotels are right on the bay.
Because of this, you don’t really see as many fish and coral as you would other places. The coral can often be damaged by tourists.
However, you can still go around and see some nice things.
It’s very shallow, so it’s a good place to go if you have children.
Mostly, you’ll find stag coral and trigger fish. Oh, and a lot of sea cucumbers.
Since I loved to Guam, I feel like I spend a lot of my time underwater. One of the best places to do that is Fish Eye Marine Park.
Grab your snorkel and wade out under the bridge. When you get into water that is too deep to stand, start swimming to the left.
This will bring you through an ancient forest of coral, and give you the opportunity to see a lot of cool fish.
Normally, you wouldn’t want to feed the fish in the ocean. However, they already feed them as the fish eye tourist attraction, so sometimes I bring along some rice or peas to give them.
They are so used to eating food from humans that they swam all around and it’s cute.
I am trying to learn all the names of the fish, but unfortunately the locals want to teach me the Chamorro words. That’s not something I will ever use outside of Guam.
Once I find a fish guide for this (very remote) part of the Pacific Ocean, I will try to caption future fish pictures with the names of the fish.
In the meantime, here are some pictures of things you can see at Fish Eye.
I think this is a butterfly fish.
And, I know this one is called a flounder.
As for this little guy, I know he’s a rainbow parrot fish.
This seems to have a shape like a damsel fish.
And, this one I do know. It’s a Picasso Triggerfish. They bite, so avoid them.
Here’s a star fish. Ours our blue, but usually they have five arms. I am not sure why this one has six.
And, this is a Picasso Triggerfish with a Wrasse. I really enjoy the different kinds of Wrasse, but I don’t know all their names.
Whatever this one is, it has a great pattern. Shame they’re always digging up the sand so it’s hard to get a good picture.
This is another kind of Triggerfish, but I don’t know its name.
And this is a soft coral forest full of fish. This is to the left of the Fish Eye, swimming into the Piti Bomb Holes. However, there is a lot of soft coral to the right of the bridge as well.
Some of the bomb holes are very deep, but there are lots of shallow places too. Don’t be afraid to swim over the deep parts to get to the shallower parts.
You can go all the way out to the second reef, which is past the Fish Eye bridge and the Fish Eye structure at least another 100 meters.
There are great views and huge coral forests covering a huge area, so look around a lot!
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