Banzai Cliff, Japanese Monuments, Sunrise Saipan, (Common Wealth of the Northern Marianas Islands,) CNMI.
Hundreds of Japanese jumped to their death rather than be captured by the USA forces taking the island in WWII.
SAIPAN: BANZAI CLIFF On A WINDY DAY!
A ‘SURVIVING’ glimpse: Photographing in the pre-dawn (about 04:00 AM set-up) at Banzai Cliff Saipan. A typhoon had recently passed creating Huge waves and 30 to 45 knot winds.
The surging seas and the eroded coral coastline made for Great extra-terrestrial looking photos .
The rental car’s headlights arced across the low vegetation as I turned off the coral road onto a dirt track on the west side of Banzai Cliff. Sharp spikes of the eroded coral reef poked through the dirt requiring cautious driving to avoid a flat tire. A short distance further the lights probed over the cliff edge into a shredded mist of salt spray and darkness.
I was here at 4:00 A.M. to capture the wild face of Banzai cliff. A passing tropical storm had produced 45 knot sustained winds and whipped the ocean into 20 foot swells which crashed against the shore below with a force great enough to drive wind blown spray over the 90 foot high Banzai Cliff. The previous afternoon I had located a place at the cliff edge to set up a massive, heavy tripod to hold my 6x7cm, Medium Format, camera during the hour-long time exposure required to capture the image in my mind. An unsettling mixture of unmoving rock and churning ocean was the pre-visualized goal. Little did I realize how intimately I would experience them both.
I parked the rental car about 10 M (33 feet) back from the wave eroded western end of the cliff.
When I opened the car door it was almost ripped out of my hand by a seemingly malevolent blast of wind. The ferocity of the wind was hardly a warning, considering what followed.
Battling the shifting wind I struggled with the lurching trunk lid while removing a heavy tripod. Hunched over to minimize my surface area presented to the wind, I crept to the edge of the cliff over the razor and needle sharp, eroded, coral rock. Only a few tufts of salt resistant grass clung tightly to the rock where I wedged the wide-spread legs of the tripod into the punishing rock. The surf boomed enormously in the blackness just below the cliff edge. I knew that I was standing on an very deeply undercut ledge no more than a few feet thick, but trusted to fate that this morning would not be it’s last, or mine.
Then back to the car, still on hands and knees, for the heavy, medium format camera. Finally, one last scrambling trip for a floor mat from the car to cushion the sharp rocks (long exposures, sharp rocks and a skinny rear end don't mix well).
The strongly buffeting winds made me feel very insecure when close to the edge, so I attached a piece of 1000 lb. test fishing/trolling mono-filament line to the tow hook under the front bumper of the car (I carry the line for lowering my camera bag down cliffs). After tying the line around my waist by passing it through my belt loops, I carefully crept out towards the cliff. With the line pulled snug I could just comfortably sit behind the tripod which was set as low to the ground as possible to minimize wind induced vibrations in the camera. The camera itself projected just slightly over the cliff edge so as to capture as much as possible of the waves crasing against the cliffs below. Then, as I sat down on the sharp coral rock, I realized that, in my concern over attaching the mono-filiment line, that I'd forgotten the floor mat. Thoughtlessly I stood up to get it.
Because of the deeply undercut shape of the cliff, the winds driven against it are compressed in the echoing space below the cliff edge. Squeezed by the typhoon strength gusts the air is driven up the cliff face before escaping over the lip of the cliff. As the compressed mass screeches past the edge of the cliff it suddenly expands creating a pulsating vacuum which pulls air across the top of the cliff. A paradoxical, laminar air flow OFF the face of the cliff and out to the ocean occurs. Just as I carelessly stood to fetch the floor mat a strong gust was hitting the cliff face. The air swirled around me as I was caught by an upward and outward moving wind which may have been as strong as 100Kph (60mph).
I knew the gusts were there, knew that the reverse flow occurred and even knew that a tourist had been lost at this point in just such conditions. I'd even tied myself off (rudimentary to be sure) because of conditions, BUT I allowed my attention to be distracted by creature comforts. Big mistake!
Standing, I felt suddenly light-headed and dizzy, as if about to faint.
The next events must surely have taken less than two seconds. For an instant I suspected my dizziness was due to a drop in blood pressure from suddenly standing, but in a gut wrenching nano-second the screeching wind snatched me from my feet, lifted my body into the air and out over the edge of the cliff.
I recall getting a momentary glimpse of the darkly foaming water about 30m (90ft) below. I was certain I was dead!, for even if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be instantly gripped by one of the incoming monster waves and smashed to death on the rocky cliff face, I knew that with more bubbles than water in the churning mass below, it would be impossible to swim in the foaming water and that at the very least a horrible drowning death awaited in the storm tossed water below.
Suddenly I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach and the air "ooffed" out of my lungs as the mono-filament fishing line reached its maximum stretch and tightened around my waist. The next thing I new I was laying, bleeding and bruised, on top of the cliff face just to the side of my tripod mounted camera.
Never had I enjoyed pain so much. Feeling these sharp rocks and the damage they had caused was like a blessing when compared with the alternatives that could have been happening at that instant.
I lay still for several seconds, relishing life. Eventually I began to look around and plan on getting out of the spot I was in. While the fishing line had saved my life, it had dropped me on the very edge of the undercut cliff. Slowly I disengaged my snagged skin and clothes, then carefully crawled away from the edge.
Thirty minutes later I was sitting in the bright fluorescence of a Winchell's doughnut shop, cuddled up to a hot cup of black coffee. A terrible ache throbbed through my head and body as I wondered why the early customers were scrutinizing me in such a bizarre way. They stared, as if mesmerized by the results of a fatal car crash, then looked quickly away when they saw my eyes search theirs for comprehension. Finally I couldn’t take the ‘looks’ any more and headed for the men’s room. Gazing in the scratched bathroom mirror I discovered that blood from several scalp wounds had oozed down the side of my head, around my ear, down my neck and soaked the ripped left shoulder of my shirt. I'd been so shaken by the fall that I didn't even realize I'd been cut. Despite efforts to clean up the tiny Winchell’s restroom, the front desk staff at my hotel gasped in shock as, laden with camera gear, I dripped a trail of blood across their marble floor.
“Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them.”
Hundreds of Japanese jumped to their death rather than be captured by the USA forces taking the island in WWII.
SAIPAN: BANZAI CLIFF On A WINDY DAY!
A ‘SURVIVING’ glimpse: Photographing in the pre-dawn (about 04:00 AM set-up) at Banzai Cliff Saipan. A typhoon had recently passed creating Huge waves and 30 to 45 knot winds.
The surging seas and the eroded coral coastline made for Great extra-terrestrial looking photos .
The rental car’s headlights arced across the low vegetation as I turned off the coral road onto a dirt track on the west side of Banzai Cliff. Sharp spikes of the eroded coral reef poked through the dirt requiring cautious driving to avoid a flat tire. A short distance further the lights probed over the cliff edge into a shredded mist of salt spray and darkness.
I was here at 4:00 A.M. to capture the wild face of Banzai cliff. A passing tropical storm had produced 45 knot sustained winds and whipped the ocean into 20 foot swells which crashed against the shore below with a force great enough to drive wind blown spray over the 90 foot high Banzai Cliff. The previous afternoon I had located a place at the cliff edge to set up a massive, heavy tripod to hold my 6x7cm, Medium Format, camera during the hour-long time exposure required to capture the image in my mind. An unsettling mixture of unmoving rock and churning ocean was the pre-visualized goal. Little did I realize how intimately I would experience them both.
I parked the rental car about 10 M (33 feet) back from the wave eroded western end of the cliff.
When I opened the car door it was almost ripped out of my hand by a seemingly malevolent blast of wind. The ferocity of the wind was hardly a warning, considering what followed.
Battling the shifting wind I struggled with the lurching trunk lid while removing a heavy tripod. Hunched over to minimize my surface area presented to the wind, I crept to the edge of the cliff over the razor and needle sharp, eroded, coral rock. Only a few tufts of salt resistant grass clung tightly to the rock where I wedged the wide-spread legs of the tripod into the punishing rock. The surf boomed enormously in the blackness just below the cliff edge. I knew that I was standing on an very deeply undercut ledge no more than a few feet thick, but trusted to fate that this morning would not be it’s last, or mine.
Then back to the car, still on hands and knees, for the heavy, medium format camera. Finally, one last scrambling trip for a floor mat from the car to cushion the sharp rocks (long exposures, sharp rocks and a skinny rear end don't mix well).
The strongly buffeting winds made me feel very insecure when close to the edge, so I attached a piece of 1000 lb. test fishing/trolling mono-filament line to the tow hook under the front bumper of the car (I carry the line for lowering my camera bag down cliffs). After tying the line around my waist by passing it through my belt loops, I carefully crept out towards the cliff. With the line pulled snug I could just comfortably sit behind the tripod which was set as low to the ground as possible to minimize wind induced vibrations in the camera. The camera itself projected just slightly over the cliff edge so as to capture as much as possible of the waves crasing against the cliffs below. Then, as I sat down on the sharp coral rock, I realized that, in my concern over attaching the mono-filiment line, that I'd forgotten the floor mat. Thoughtlessly I stood up to get it.
Because of the deeply undercut shape of the cliff, the winds driven against it are compressed in the echoing space below the cliff edge. Squeezed by the typhoon strength gusts the air is driven up the cliff face before escaping over the lip of the cliff. As the compressed mass screeches past the edge of the cliff it suddenly expands creating a pulsating vacuum which pulls air across the top of the cliff. A paradoxical, laminar air flow OFF the face of the cliff and out to the ocean occurs. Just as I carelessly stood to fetch the floor mat a strong gust was hitting the cliff face. The air swirled around me as I was caught by an upward and outward moving wind which may have been as strong as 100Kph (60mph).
I knew the gusts were there, knew that the reverse flow occurred and even knew that a tourist had been lost at this point in just such conditions. I'd even tied myself off (rudimentary to be sure) because of conditions, BUT I allowed my attention to be distracted by creature comforts. Big mistake!
Standing, I felt suddenly light-headed and dizzy, as if about to faint.
The next events must surely have taken less than two seconds. For an instant I suspected my dizziness was due to a drop in blood pressure from suddenly standing, but in a gut wrenching nano-second the screeching wind snatched me from my feet, lifted my body into the air and out over the edge of the cliff.
I recall getting a momentary glimpse of the darkly foaming water about 30m (90ft) below. I was certain I was dead!, for even if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be instantly gripped by one of the incoming monster waves and smashed to death on the rocky cliff face, I knew that with more bubbles than water in the churning mass below, it would be impossible to swim in the foaming water and that at the very least a horrible drowning death awaited in the storm tossed water below.
Suddenly I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach and the air "ooffed" out of my lungs as the mono-filament fishing line reached its maximum stretch and tightened around my waist. The next thing I new I was laying, bleeding and bruised, on top of the cliff face just to the side of my tripod mounted camera.
Never had I enjoyed pain so much. Feeling these sharp rocks and the damage they had caused was like a blessing when compared with the alternatives that could have been happening at that instant.
I lay still for several seconds, relishing life. Eventually I began to look around and plan on getting out of the spot I was in. While the fishing line had saved my life, it had dropped me on the very edge of the undercut cliff. Slowly I disengaged my snagged skin and clothes, then carefully crawled away from the edge.
Thirty minutes later I was sitting in the bright fluorescence of a Winchell's doughnut shop, cuddled up to a hot cup of black coffee. A terrible ache throbbed through my head and body as I wondered why the early customers were scrutinizing me in such a bizarre way. They stared, as if mesmerized by the results of a fatal car crash, then looked quickly away when they saw my eyes search theirs for comprehension. Finally I couldn’t take the ‘looks’ any more and headed for the men’s room. Gazing in the scratched bathroom mirror I discovered that blood from several scalp wounds had oozed down the side of my head, around my ear, down my neck and soaked the ripped left shoulder of my shirt. I'd been so shaken by the fall that I didn't even realize I'd been cut. Despite efforts to clean up the tiny Winchell’s restroom, the front desk staff at my hotel gasped in shock as, laden with camera gear, I dripped a trail of blood across their marble floor.
“Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them.”
Banzai Cliff, Japanese Monuments, Sunrise Saipan, (Common Wealth of the Northern Marianas Islands,) CNMI.
Hundreds of Japanese jumped to their death rather than be captured by the USA forces taking the island in WWII.
SAIPAN: BANZAI CLIFF On A WINDY DAY!
A ‘SURVIVING’ glimpse: Photographing in the pre-dawn (about 04:00 AM set-up) at Banzai Cliff Saipan. A typhoon had recently passed creating Huge waves and 30 to 45 knot winds.
The surging seas and the eroded coral coastline made for Great extra-terrestrial looking photos .
The rental car’s headlights arced across the low vegetation as I turned off the coral road onto a dirt track on the west side of Banzai Cliff. Sharp spikes of the eroded coral reef poked through the dirt requiring cautious driving to avoid a flat tire. A short distance further the lights probed over the cliff edge into a shredded mist of salt spray and darkness.
I was here at 4:00 A.M. to capture the wild face of Banzai cliff. A passing tropical storm had produced 45 knot sustained winds and whipped the ocean into 20 foot swells which crashed against the shore below with a force great enough to drive wind blown spray over the 90 foot high Banzai Cliff. The previous afternoon I had located a place at the cliff edge to set up a massive, heavy tripod to hold my 6x7cm, Medium Format, camera during the hour-long time exposure required to capture the image in my mind. An unsettling mixture of unmoving rock and churning ocean was the pre-visualized goal. Little did I realize how intimately I would experience them both.
I parked the rental car about 10 M (33 feet) back from the wave eroded western end of the cliff.
When I opened the car door it was almost ripped out of my hand by a seemingly malevolent blast of wind. The ferocity of the wind was hardly a warning, considering what followed.
Battling the shifting wind I struggled with the lurching trunk lid while removing a heavy tripod. Hunched over to minimize my surface area presented to the wind, I crept to the edge of the cliff over the razor and needle sharp, eroded, coral rock. Only a few tufts of salt resistant grass clung tightly to the rock where I wedged the wide-spread legs of the tripod into the punishing rock. The surf boomed enormously in the blackness just below the cliff edge. I knew that I was standing on an very deeply undercut ledge no more than a few feet thick, but trusted to fate that this morning would not be it’s last, or mine.
Then back to the car, still on hands and knees, for the heavy, medium format camera. Finally, one last scrambling trip for a floor mat from the car to cushion the sharp rocks (long exposures, sharp rocks and a skinny rear end don't mix well).
The strongly buffeting winds made me feel very insecure when close to the edge, so I attached a piece of 1000 lb. test fishing/trolling mono-filament line to the tow hook under the front bumper of the car (I carry the line for lowering my camera bag down cliffs). After tying the line around my waist by passing it through my belt loops, I carefully crept out towards the cliff. With the line pulled snug I could just comfortably sit behind the tripod which was set as low to the ground as possible to minimize wind induced vibrations in the camera. The camera itself projected just slightly over the cliff edge so as to capture as much as possible of the waves crasing against the cliffs below. Then, as I sat down on the sharp coral rock, I realized that, in my concern over attaching the mono-filiment line, that I'd forgotten the floor mat. Thoughtlessly I stood up to get it.
Because of the deeply undercut shape of the cliff, the winds driven against it are compressed in the echoing space below the cliff edge. Squeezed by the typhoon strength gusts the air is driven up the cliff face before escaping over the lip of the cliff. As the compressed mass screeches past the edge of the cliff it suddenly expands creating a pulsating vacuum which pulls air across the top of the cliff. A paradoxical, laminar air flow OFF the face of the cliff and out to the ocean occurs. Just as I carelessly stood to fetch the floor mat a strong gust was hitting the cliff face. The air swirled around me as I was caught by an upward and outward moving wind which may have been as strong as 100Kph (60mph).
I knew the gusts were there, knew that the reverse flow occurred and even knew that a tourist had been lost at this point in just such conditions. I'd even tied myself off (rudimentary to be sure) because of conditions, BUT I allowed my attention to be distracted by creature comforts. Big mistake!
Standing, I felt suddenly light-headed and dizzy, as if about to faint.
The next events must surely have taken less than two seconds. For an instant I suspected my dizziness was due to a drop in blood pressure from suddenly standing, but in a gut wrenching nano-second the screeching wind snatched me from my feet, lifted my body into the air and out over the edge of the cliff.
I recall getting a momentary glimpse of the darkly foaming water about 30m (90ft) below. I was certain I was dead!, for even if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be instantly gripped by one of the incoming monster waves and smashed to death on the rocky cliff face, I knew that with more bubbles than water in the churning mass below, it would be impossible to swim in the foaming water and that at the very least a horrible drowning death awaited in the storm tossed water below.
Suddenly I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach and the air "ooffed" out of my lungs as the mono-filament fishing line reached its maximum stretch and tightened around my waist. The next thing I new I was laying, bleeding and bruised, on top of the cliff face just to the side of my tripod mounted camera.
Never had I enjoyed pain so much. Feeling these sharp rocks and the damage they had caused was like a blessing when compared with the alternatives that could have been happening at that instant.
I lay still for several seconds, relishing life. Eventually I began to look around and plan on getting out of the spot I was in. While the fishing line had saved my life, it had dropped me on the very edge of the undercut cliff. Slowly I disengaged my snagged skin and clothes, then carefully crawled away from the edge.
Thirty minutes later I was sitting in the bright fluorescence of a Winchell's doughnut shop, cuddled up to a hot cup of black coffee. A terrible ache throbbed through my head and body as I wondered why the early customers were scrutinizing me in such a bizarre way. They stared, as if mesmerized by the results of a fatal car crash, then looked quickly away when they saw my eyes search theirs for comprehension. Finally I couldn’t take the ‘looks’ any more and headed for the men’s room. Gazing in the scratched bathroom mirror I discovered that blood from several scalp wounds had oozed down the side of my head, around my ear, down my neck and soaked the ripped left shoulder of my shirt. I'd been so shaken by the fall that I didn't even realize I'd been cut. Despite efforts to clean up the tiny Winchell’s restroom, the front desk staff at my hotel gasped in shock as, laden with camera gear, I dripped a trail of blood across their marble floor.
“Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them.”
Hundreds of Japanese jumped to their death rather than be captured by the USA forces taking the island in WWII.
SAIPAN: BANZAI CLIFF On A WINDY DAY!
A ‘SURVIVING’ glimpse: Photographing in the pre-dawn (about 04:00 AM set-up) at Banzai Cliff Saipan. A typhoon had recently passed creating Huge waves and 30 to 45 knot winds.
The surging seas and the eroded coral coastline made for Great extra-terrestrial looking photos .
The rental car’s headlights arced across the low vegetation as I turned off the coral road onto a dirt track on the west side of Banzai Cliff. Sharp spikes of the eroded coral reef poked through the dirt requiring cautious driving to avoid a flat tire. A short distance further the lights probed over the cliff edge into a shredded mist of salt spray and darkness.
I was here at 4:00 A.M. to capture the wild face of Banzai cliff. A passing tropical storm had produced 45 knot sustained winds and whipped the ocean into 20 foot swells which crashed against the shore below with a force great enough to drive wind blown spray over the 90 foot high Banzai Cliff. The previous afternoon I had located a place at the cliff edge to set up a massive, heavy tripod to hold my 6x7cm, Medium Format, camera during the hour-long time exposure required to capture the image in my mind. An unsettling mixture of unmoving rock and churning ocean was the pre-visualized goal. Little did I realize how intimately I would experience them both.
I parked the rental car about 10 M (33 feet) back from the wave eroded western end of the cliff.
When I opened the car door it was almost ripped out of my hand by a seemingly malevolent blast of wind. The ferocity of the wind was hardly a warning, considering what followed.
Battling the shifting wind I struggled with the lurching trunk lid while removing a heavy tripod. Hunched over to minimize my surface area presented to the wind, I crept to the edge of the cliff over the razor and needle sharp, eroded, coral rock. Only a few tufts of salt resistant grass clung tightly to the rock where I wedged the wide-spread legs of the tripod into the punishing rock. The surf boomed enormously in the blackness just below the cliff edge. I knew that I was standing on an very deeply undercut ledge no more than a few feet thick, but trusted to fate that this morning would not be it’s last, or mine.
Then back to the car, still on hands and knees, for the heavy, medium format camera. Finally, one last scrambling trip for a floor mat from the car to cushion the sharp rocks (long exposures, sharp rocks and a skinny rear end don't mix well).
The strongly buffeting winds made me feel very insecure when close to the edge, so I attached a piece of 1000 lb. test fishing/trolling mono-filament line to the tow hook under the front bumper of the car (I carry the line for lowering my camera bag down cliffs). After tying the line around my waist by passing it through my belt loops, I carefully crept out towards the cliff. With the line pulled snug I could just comfortably sit behind the tripod which was set as low to the ground as possible to minimize wind induced vibrations in the camera. The camera itself projected just slightly over the cliff edge so as to capture as much as possible of the waves crasing against the cliffs below. Then, as I sat down on the sharp coral rock, I realized that, in my concern over attaching the mono-filiment line, that I'd forgotten the floor mat. Thoughtlessly I stood up to get it.
Because of the deeply undercut shape of the cliff, the winds driven against it are compressed in the echoing space below the cliff edge. Squeezed by the typhoon strength gusts the air is driven up the cliff face before escaping over the lip of the cliff. As the compressed mass screeches past the edge of the cliff it suddenly expands creating a pulsating vacuum which pulls air across the top of the cliff. A paradoxical, laminar air flow OFF the face of the cliff and out to the ocean occurs. Just as I carelessly stood to fetch the floor mat a strong gust was hitting the cliff face. The air swirled around me as I was caught by an upward and outward moving wind which may have been as strong as 100Kph (60mph).
I knew the gusts were there, knew that the reverse flow occurred and even knew that a tourist had been lost at this point in just such conditions. I'd even tied myself off (rudimentary to be sure) because of conditions, BUT I allowed my attention to be distracted by creature comforts. Big mistake!
Standing, I felt suddenly light-headed and dizzy, as if about to faint.
The next events must surely have taken less than two seconds. For an instant I suspected my dizziness was due to a drop in blood pressure from suddenly standing, but in a gut wrenching nano-second the screeching wind snatched me from my feet, lifted my body into the air and out over the edge of the cliff.
I recall getting a momentary glimpse of the darkly foaming water about 30m (90ft) below. I was certain I was dead!, for even if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be instantly gripped by one of the incoming monster waves and smashed to death on the rocky cliff face, I knew that with more bubbles than water in the churning mass below, it would be impossible to swim in the foaming water and that at the very least a horrible drowning death awaited in the storm tossed water below.
Suddenly I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach and the air "ooffed" out of my lungs as the mono-filament fishing line reached its maximum stretch and tightened around my waist. The next thing I new I was laying, bleeding and bruised, on top of the cliff face just to the side of my tripod mounted camera.
Never had I enjoyed pain so much. Feeling these sharp rocks and the damage they had caused was like a blessing when compared with the alternatives that could have been happening at that instant.
I lay still for several seconds, relishing life. Eventually I began to look around and plan on getting out of the spot I was in. While the fishing line had saved my life, it had dropped me on the very edge of the undercut cliff. Slowly I disengaged my snagged skin and clothes, then carefully crawled away from the edge.
Thirty minutes later I was sitting in the bright fluorescence of a Winchell's doughnut shop, cuddled up to a hot cup of black coffee. A terrible ache throbbed through my head and body as I wondered why the early customers were scrutinizing me in such a bizarre way. They stared, as if mesmerized by the results of a fatal car crash, then looked quickly away when they saw my eyes search theirs for comprehension. Finally I couldn’t take the ‘looks’ any more and headed for the men’s room. Gazing in the scratched bathroom mirror I discovered that blood from several scalp wounds had oozed down the side of my head, around my ear, down my neck and soaked the ripped left shoulder of my shirt. I'd been so shaken by the fall that I didn't even realize I'd been cut. Despite efforts to clean up the tiny Winchell’s restroom, the front desk staff at my hotel gasped in shock as, laden with camera gear, I dripped a trail of blood across their marble floor.
“Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them.”
See photo in original gallery.
