Marooned at Managaha Island

Prudence is the better part of valor.

This couldn’t be truer than last July 26 when organizers pulled the plug on the scheduled crossing from Managaha Island to Hafa Adai Beach Hotel in Garapan.

Worried they couldn’t guarantee the safety of participants in the 2nd Annual Escape from Managaha Island, KFC Club founder Kiyokazu Onishi and former Saipan resident Bill Sakovich decided to shorten the course and make it just a race around buoys positioned off the waters of the uninhabited island.

The decision originally did not sit well with majority of the participants. Three swimmers even escaped the attention of the organizers and did the crossing sans support craft albeit only to the Hyatt Regency Saipan.

Non-escape winner Colin Thompson of Saipan said he already had doubts the evening before the event that the crossing might not push through at all because of the approaching storm.

Thompson still went along with the ferryboat ride to Managaha Island hoping for the best. And when organizers did the inevitable cancellation of the four-mile swim, he wasn’t really that surprised.

More disappointed than anything, the 6’5” former waterpolo player at University of California Berkeley said he respected the decision of the organizers and did not even entertain thoughts of crossing to the Hyatt.

Even women’s winner Sachi Nakamura of Japan didn’t regret coming to Saipan to swim the abbreviated course. The 23-year-old sales executive from Saitama said organizers could not predict the weather and in the end they did what was good for the participants.

She hopes, however, that Onishi and the rest of the organizers would schedule the Escape earlier next year, so she could finally swim the crossing.

Two of the islands’ best runners also participated in the non-escape and also echoed Thompson’s thoughts.

“I really wanted to the swim. I’ve been waiting to do this since last year. But who am I to question the decision of the organizers. They did what they had to do,” said Ketson “Jack” Kabiriel.

Yoshi Suzuki seconded Kabiriel, “I was really confident I could make the crossing this year. I was disappointed when that didn’t happen. I’m glad they [organizers] canceled the crossing, it was still a very tough swim and I even drank a lot of water.”

Of all the participants of the Escape, none probably trained harder and looked forward more to the crossing than veteran triathlete Carol Lynn Calobong-Pierce.

Pierce said she swam between one to two miles a day for more than a year just to be ready for the event. “I’ve been training for this forever. It’s just sad that the Escape was cancelled for the second straight year.”

Three youngsters from the Saipan Swim Club showed promise during the shortened course and might crowd each other for the Escape’s top plum in the future.

Juan Camacho, who finished third behind Thompson and Japan’s Takayuki Tarashita, said he felt bad the crossing was scrapped. But unlike other swimmers, Camacho said he was disappointed more because he hated going back to Saipan by boat.

Another swimmer prone to seasickness was Chang Kyun Kim. The recent Saipan transplant said he would rather swim back to Saipan than endure the dizzying ferryboat back.

Of the three, only Juan’s younger brother Michael seemed OK with the 15-minute cruise. He, however, said that the shortened race was far tougher than the 800-meter course the junior swimmers did last year.

One swimmer perfectly summed up the unsuccessful crossing and the cautiousness of the organizers.

He said Onishi’s group could’ve decided to throw the dice and just tell participants, “Hey, 49 of you will go out but probably only 44 of you can come home safe.”

It’s a good thing reason did prevail that particular morning.