Dark Blue, Dark Blue…

So, I spent the last week and a half diving alongside scientific-divers-in-training out at Coconut Island. And unfortunately, I was so preoccupied with getting together the gear that would ensure my safety and survival while underwater, that I failed everyday to remember the other most important piece of gear: my camera. So though I personally have no pictures to show, I think others may and I will try to get ahold of them. In all honesty, no picture I or anyone else took would accurately showcase the things I’ve been priveleged enough to have seen and experienced. But at the same time, pictures could do it quite a bit better, I’m sure than my fumbly bumbly words. Or at the very least, in a shorter amount of time and space. Though perhaps not less memory space…ah. I digress.

The point is: I got to do some incredible dives. A lot of them were just in the bay, on shallow reefs. The bay where  we were diving has been heavily polluted, and it shows in the health of the corals and other life on the reefs. But a few were well protected and in such amazing health; almost 95% living coral, tons of fish and so many turtles! It was beautiful. We also did a deep dive, to about 100 feet, where we dropped down off the boats onto a reef 40 feet deep, then swam over this amazing dropoff..literally 60 feet of wall straight down. And at the bottom there is a cave filled with jacks and it was soooo cool. We also did a night dive, which is incredible because everything in the ocean seems to come alive at night. The surface is dead calm, glassy and black…but below you can hear the deafening roar of shrimps and crabs click-clicking away ( you wouldn’t believe it but it really turns into a roar), see beady red and orange eyes poking out from every pocket of coral, and see fish and eels in a light completely different from the day. Namely because there is no light but your flashlight beam. And when you turn that out, nothing but the blackest black you’ll ever see. Amazing. And then. The culmination of it all. A blue water dive. Which means, roughly, you are suspended in the water column,  tethered to a line which is tethered to a boat which is drifting along with the current, miles outside the safety of the bay (which truly isn’t safe, since 10+ foot tiger sharks are spotted there regularly), neither at the bottom nor at the surface, but sitting in the middle surrounded by nothing but blue in every direction. If if weren’t for the sunbeams passing through the water, and the fact that bubbles go up, you would have no idea what direction was what. It was amazing. We swam right in the middle of a huge school of mackerel, and drifted so far that we watched the bottom come up and were above reef by the end, swimming with turtles and fish and getting stung by jellies, and sunburned on the surface, but not caring at all because it was so worth it. Awe-some.

And next, I leave for a cruise. From this Wednesday until basically the end of August I will not be near a computer, and mostly not near any forms of communication besides the spoken word of mouth. I will hopefully be accumulating many more stories to flesh out these posts, and perhaps keep some people entertained.

oh yeah, and I’ll bring my camera this time.

the life..

Hello hello. update: I am still doing the same thing I was doing last time I wrote, namely, nothing. I did go on a short 5-day research cruise, but since then I have reverted back to my state of nearly catatonic bliss, accomplishing little more than a sunburn. (yet another lesson learned; no matter how short the stay in the sun, sunscreen is ALWAYS a necessity.) I did get to meet with a guy who happens to be in charge of all diving and boating operations for the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology  (HIMB) located on Coconut Island (google it, that shizz is amazing) and I got to spend an entire day wandering around dive offices across the Island. We went to the one on campus at Manoa, went to the office for the National Monument that is the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, saw the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab’s  (HURL) deep sea submarines (so cool!) and then got to explore all of Coconut Island, and help wrangle baby hammerhead sharks. yes, that is right. dude. no words for the coolness. And starting tomorrow I’m going to be diving with the  HIMB  scientific diving class. A-MAZING.

Other than that though, I spend my weekdays under my favorite banyon tree down at the beach, and my weekends exploring. This weekend we went snorkeling up on the north shore which was super nice, so clear and so warm and so many cool things to see. We also went on a hike to this place called Laie falls, which was the most amazing place. So it’s an hour and a half hike up to this one waterfall, right? THEN you can be B.A. like we were, and hike down a bit to a second waterfall. From there, you can climb through the mud to a tree which has a rope leading down to a third waterfall. so you climb this rope down, then you wade through the pool to another waterfall. then you shimmy on your butt through the actual waterfall to get to another pool. then you swim through that to get to another waterfall, and this one is straight down, so you have to climb down a rope, again in the waterfall to get to the next pool. then i would assume one could keep going, but the water was a bit too high and coming a bit too hard to try and finagle our way down the next waterfall. so then, after a delicious picnic lunch of fruit and pb&j’s, you have to climb back up. through the waterfalls. It was SO incredible. it had been raining a bunch, so the water was murky with sediment, but it still was so beautiful.

In other news, I bought a bike! so now I am mobile even when brett has his bike at work. whoohoo.

well, I hope all is well back on the mainland!

peace and love, all.