Surprise, surprise, another vacation day spent diving on the atoll. Today, we took out a friend who was celebrating her 300th dive. We decided to go check on our calms at Sand Island. I call them our clams because not so long ago, we rescued them from sure death. Let me explain. In 2008, there was an unusual storm surge on the island of Roi-Namur with high waves and winds that actually flooded parts of the island and knocked the few old metal trailers used for vacationers and a few lucky residents off their concrete blocks. These types of storm surges almost never happen in the Marshalls because we are so close to the equator. Storms may form here, but head on out and hit places like Guam or Japan instead, and that’s good for us, because being only a few feet above sea level and so small and isolated, a real storm would effectively wipe us out entirely with no place for residents to go and hide!
Anyway, because of that storm, we noticed that the sands underneath the small patch of exposed land we called Sand Island were shifting, and our clams were right in the path to be buried in this sand. We couldn’t let that happen, so my boyfriend came up with the item to move them to a safer spot near by, but Giant Calms are heavy, and even underwater cannot be picked up and moved easily, so my dive buddy solved this problem by creating a “Clam Spreader,” which is really more like a calm stretcher attached to lift bags to help wrap the calm and keep him safe during the movement as well as give the divers the strength to perform this operation. The actual move of 2 clams on two different dives was a success, and we were curious to go check on the calms and see how they were doing.
Now, these are not just any clams, they are Giant Clams! They are the largest bottom dwelling mollusks on earth, and they reach to 4 or more feet in length and weigh in at 500+ pounds. They can live to over 100 years old, and they are found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Usually, it would be impossible for us to move them away from danger because they attach to the reef and stay there for the rest of their lives, but the two clams we moved were resting freely in the sand, maybe they were even knocked off one of the coral heads nearby during the storm surge, but that we don’t know for sure.
Today, on purely a sight seeing mission, we descended near the anchor line down to about 30 feet and discovered a clam we hadn’t seen yet. It was well hidden among a colorful nest of coral, and it was absolutely beautiful. There are at least 3-4 large ones that we regularly see when we dive Sand Island, but today, I noticed the increasing number of little, tiny baby clams getting their start, and this makes me smile to see such health on the reef and to know that the population of clams is continuing to grow. There are also a lot of friendly and fascinating fish and types of coral to see in this location, but the clams are the highlight, and I never get tired of visiting them and seeing them flourish under the sea.
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