Saturday, November 04, 2006
[At the Pahu I`a:] Trio of poke: ono (good--with coconut shavings), ahi, and hamachi. Kona coffee press with chocolate lumps. DWP = beet salad (yummy, beety, fresh) (& cute! with tails). My fav poke was the ono because of the poke mix. I gave it some comps to make up for my dissal of ono at Evie's yesterday. (I said, "Isn't ono kind of bland?" when the cook suggested I order an ono sandwich. She was a bit taken aback: "Well, yes, I guess you could describe it that way...")
Posted at 6:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
There's a Richard here tonight and Grand souffle on the menu. It's so still and warm here tonight. And it's raining, just a little. Kona crab vs. cold-water lobster farm lobster: crab wins! (Dean thinks lobster would win in an actual fight, since they're tougher. Even though I suggested the crab would be faster and have a great right hook.)
Grand souffle deserves a crown-of-thorns. (I tried to think of a really high compliment.) It may have been the best Pahu souffle ever.
[Edit, driving back: Flighty music on Lava 105! Bankin' off of the NE winds. And Dean recognized it, before the singing.]
Tropical Dreams ice cream from the kope store! Mac nut is the best. Just get all mac nut. Wind farm of Hawi! Persimmon is my new fav store in Hawaii!! It's almost as good as that oceany store in St. John! (Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But the cards. Man. And it's so orange.) I wanted everything. But I showed restraint. Dean says I have to go back.
Posted at 2:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I officially like shore diving!! The Sug was great! (All you gotta say is sug.)
Posted at 1:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I found Christmas tree worms, which I've never seen outside the Caribbean before. I only noticed them because I was going ultra slow and being ultra observant (impossible on a boat dive because I would've been lost from the rest of the group if I'd stopped to stare stare stare at a shy Christmas tree worm's hole, waiting for him to unfurl). They were very very tiny ones (1/4" tall), and blue. Like the color of blue starfish I want to see but never do. The Christmas tree worms were a triumph.
Also found an eel when I looked in the end of this huge eel-shaped pipe (maybe from the mast of the ship?). It was really dark in the pipe but you could tell it was an eel's head. (I looked at it from about two inches away.) When I showed Dean, he wrote on our dive slate, "That's a great spot for an eel!" And I wrote, "That's why I looked!" And he wrote back, "You know." (I asked him just now if he meant because I'm an expert of creatures or because I'm a fellow eel, and he said he meant the first. At the time, I thought he meant the second. :-)
But the BEST thing was the crown-of-thorns (natch x 1,000!). Only found one, right after I motioned to Dean questioning where the crown was. (We usually find a few at the Sug.) (As you may imagine, my hand signals asking "Where are all the crowns-of-thorns??" were creative, but Dean understood.) Thirty seconds later, Dean found one! Since I was scuba-ing I could interact with it for as long as I wanted without running out of air and needing to surface. It was so great. I used a flat shell to turn it over, and the underside was breathtakingly gorgeous. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I can't even describe it. Flower-like, alien, unfurled. A gaping, circular, teeth-lined mouth. Delicate, soft colors, radiatingly symmetrical. Erotic. Fierce. And all those feet. It clung onto me, without my even asking.
[Edit, 1/6: You can see a little bit of its stomach in this photo! (The c-o-t feeds by turning its stomach outward through its mouth, so sometimes when you first turn one over you can see the stomach sticking out if you look really quick before it sucks it back in. The stomach is transparent and very beautiful.)]
We also saw a nice polka-dotted eel and a blue trumpetfish (= cornetfish?) with an injury on his side. I felt really comfortable / great buoyancy (used 8lbs of weight). Totally non-slurpy with my air. (Used up less than Dean!!) Getting in and out went smoothly, with Dean acting as my Jim (I can barely lift my gear on my own). We took off our BCDs and tanks in the water before climbing up the Sug ladder. Dean used his new compass (bought today) for nav. He's a great divemaster!
I am writing terrible, incomplete, sketchy blog entries. Dreamt about Dennis Wilson this morning. Yesterday morning I had a dream that Dean told me to stop "wiggling and giggling" so much, and that it was like being married to a little kid. (I don't really wiggle and giggle, although I am an admitted goof.)
Posted at 10:24:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm going to keep my eye out for Triton's Trumpets at Sug, so I can be mean to them, since they EAT crowns-of-thorns (and cushion stars and red pencil urchins).
Friday, November 03, 2006
Evie's, since Coffee Shack was closed. :-( For future ref, it closes at 3:00. Honaunau was kind of cloudy. I tried my new dive watch while free diving and Dean's weights in my weight belt (6lbs). Felt like my chest was being crushed by my wetsuit after I dove down. :-( And I had some anxiety-induced mask leaks. (Why??) The deepest I dove was 20 ft. Saw a crown-of-thorns! Never saw one at Honaunau before. It looks blurry and bland-colored from the surface but when I dove to the bottom it was beautiful green and purple, all thorny and wonderful. Also saw a really nice tiger-striped eel (med. width, and long) swimming around (Dean didn't see it), and jellyfish. The jellies were v.v. cool. They were small (looked like 1") transparent bubbles with two spots. Saw a bunch, swimming back through the abyss.
Posted at 3:41:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Edit: No mac nut guy at Ali'i Gardens anymore!! And Kailua Candy Co. has moved. (Maybe their new location is bigger and better.) But Jade brand has sour keikis again! It's really weird coming back somewhere a year later and expecting things to be the way you left them, but they're not.]
Meadow Gold has two new yogurt flavs: coffee and green tea. I tried the green tea this morning (the coffee'll obviously be good) and it's great! Matcha green colored. Subtle taste. [Edit: Tried the coffee on Sat. and I like the g.t. better! They're both "fruit"-on-the-bottom style and the coffee has actual grounds in it.]
Posted at 9:57:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Last night I actually turned down a Longs visit (!!) because I was too tired. We're going today instead. Went to bed around 9:00 (wanted to go at 7) and woke up at 5 AM, but I forced myself to feet until 7:30. Last night at Big Island Divers, Dean bought me a dive computer (watch-style) like his, except mine's white (only available in Hawaii). The Laid-Back Guy at BID said the store was a complete mess after the earthquake but there was no real damage. I can't even feel my dive watch, even though it's almost as big as my arm (in both width and height). Today we're going to 1) Longs, B) Hilary, 3) Honaunau, 4) South Kona Fruit Stand, 5) Ali'i Market for mac nuts, 6) Jack's Dive Locker, 7) BID to rent scuba gear.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Tip for Future Self: don't buy Moon Rabbit (Tsukiusagi) sparkling sake unless you feel like drinking something that smells and tastes exactly like stroganoff. Very mushroomy.
Posted at 7:35:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Jeff Jones moved! Bottom Time. The Laid-Back Guy at Big Island Divers was nice and told us. Also, no more Tim at Tim's. He sold the business to a customer and moved to Oregon. They're expanding the highway so Kona traffic is extra-snaily. Good Deal about an expanded Queen K, though. Dinner at O's. The air feels so good.
Posted at 5:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
No problem finding the hidden dive weights (& special rock) near Iki!! Dean remembered exactly where they were (my Loli sign written with a slate pencil urchin spine doesn't seem to be there anymore, though) and dug them out in less than a minute. They weren't all buried by the earthquake, or anything.
Posted at 11:00:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
No noticeable earthquake damage so far. They're renovating the breakfast buffet room at the Palm Terrace, but who knows if that's related or not. (I bet all those metal covers crashing made quite a clamour in either case, though.) Delicious P.T. breakfast (as always), esp. the pineapple and my oatmeal (the opposite of my normal oat--slimy and creamy vs. dry and flaky) (& brown sug. and mac nut-y vs. salty and blueberry-y). No cream sauce for the homemade-by-Dad style donuts today, though. :-(
The air feels so good here. In SPADES. This is also a 100% wrinkle-proof environment. When we unpacked last night, all my clothes were crinkled through & through, but in the morning they were magically smooth. Cook pines!! (Just passing Waikoloa Village on the way to pick up our package at the Boothby's.)
Ha!! The Boothbies remembered us from last year because of my "cute boxes"! Dean, conceding: "All right, considering how far you could have gone with it, it's pretty tame. It's certainly no MUD Mailing level."
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
[3:53 LA time / 6:63 home time] Wow--I got an actual good tall dry cappuccino at LAX. Very dry, with excellent dense foam. However--and I bet this is a very subtle thing only I would notice, but--the foam tastes a little different. My theory is that California milk is inferior to Connecticut milk. Best thing about the Admiral's Club: the super-nice (& empty!) bathrooms. Best thing about Business Class (!!) = footrests and warm, just baked chocolate chip cookies. I'm not tired at all, yet. [Edit: 'Yet' being the key word, since I didn't get to bed until 5AM home time (= midnight Hawaii time). It's a long day. No plane headache, though!]
Posted at 6:53:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
OAT = 67°! Beautiful yellow day. When we got up at 6:30, the whole back yard was ghostly white with fog--it looked blank out Dean's window. I must've unintentionally gotten a different kind of Moleskine for my blog notebook, because the pages feel much thinner. There must be more of them. I don't really like it, but I'll have to pretend I do.
Posted at 9:38:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Posted at 8:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
So long, silversides. I'll be back in a month.
(I'll probably update sporadically while I'm in Hawaii. Hope so, at least, or I'm going to have an awful lot to post when I get back.)
Jan thinks I'm in danger of turning into a sea creature while I'm away. Maybe so.
It doesn't feel at all like Halloween today. (Good.) For one thing, it's warm. Nothing like this past weekend's gusty, chilly, damp, swirling-leaf weather. And I didn't see anyone in a costume.
Posted at 3:17:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I went to NEAC solely to dry my hair in the sauna (because it's so much quicker and better), and the receptionist at the front desk stared at me as I walked in, blurting out, "Your hair looks good!!" I answered, laughing, "It's all wet." (I'd washed it at home first.) She said, "I know. You have such a pretty face!" Wow. I said thank you, of course, and was all pleased. I was self-conscious about going out in public with my hair all wet and pulled back, but then she liked it. The sauna was boiling hot, because someone else must've used it first and gotten it all heated up. So instead of starting off cool at 80° and slowly creeping up to 130°, it was already at 150°. A little toasty even for me.
Friendly Guy cappuccino today, and my last sight of Rocky was Marshmallow Guy sitting outside on his break, waving as I drove off. Next cappuccino: Waikoloa. But I'll be attempting to get my hands on as many non-Starbucks Kona coffees as possible.
Monday, October 30, 2006
I forgot about posting. Been practicing getting up early, but it hasn't been too bad. Haven't tried any insane (pre-8:30) times, since I only have to get up at 6:30 for Hawaii, not 3:30 like for St. John, and if I spend all week killing myself getting no sleep I'll only be even more jet-lagged. Plus, Hawaii time, with the five hour time difference, is pretty much equal to my nightowl at-home time clock anyway. Also, I must say, I'm a big fan of the end of Daylight Savings Time, even though I hate the end of Daylight Savings Time, because it makes getting up early lots easier.
Posted at 11:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
When I left Starbucks this afternoon and started my car, it was, "Well, I'm leaving in the morning as soon as the dark clouds lift," and that made me smile, even though I'm not leaving 'til Wednesday. ("I know a place where there's still somethin' going on.") It was like old home week at Rocky. Marshmallow Guy, Caitlyn, the Friendly Guy, Conscientious Guy and the Store Manager were all there. (F.G. = weird, because it was pretty late in the day.) I think Lauren might have come in just as I was leaving, too. I don't know what was going on. The only thing missing was D.B.G. Caitlyn made me a cup of pure foam, pretty much. Well, one shot of espresso + pure foam. In a grande-sized cup. I'm going to miss those guys.
