Saturday, November 10, 2007

Today was the day I'd been waiting for: Farmers' Market day in the Keauhou Shopping Center parking lot! It runs from 8:00 'til noon every Saturday, and we went around 10-ish. Good thing we didn't go any later, because we snagged the last instances of some great weird fruits!! The best stuff goes fast. I also sampled SIX different farmers' Kona coffees: Kanalani Ohana Farm, Makua, Kona King, Kona Lisa, Keauhou Kona, and Sweet Spirit Farms. I liked the first one best, but that was also the only one that provided cream, and I don't usually drink black coffee, so it wasn't really a fair comparison. The new fruits I tried (and also bought afterward) were Lulo (it's orange and round with smooth speckly skin, and deliciously tart) and Atemoya (similar to a Cherimoya but much creamier and tastier than the ones I've had), and I also managed to snag some yellow Pitaya! (I'd had them previously from the Hilo Farmer's Market and wished I'd bought more!) Meanwhile, Dean slurped down a strawberry-guava juice and a mango juice. And we used up all the loose change we'd been collecting in the Jeep! A very successful Farmers' Market mission!!! Afterwards, I insisted on stopping at Daylight Donuts (we had never been there before) to see if they had any malasadas. They sell them, but they are ultra-popular and were all sold out for the day! The donut guy told us sometimes people come in and buy them all up, and they only make one tray per day, so everyone else just has to cry. It's only a couple of minutes away, so we'll have to try early in the morning some other time (and try their Kona coffee at the same time!). They also sell Tropical Dreams ice cream (!), so we shared a small cup of mac nut instead.

So, yeah, I had six different kinds of Kona coffee at the Farmers' Market... then later I had Kona Coffee Cafe coffee (it was okay) in Kona, and Pipeline Porter (Kona Brewing Company beer made with Kona coffee) this evening along with my marlin poke from the grocery store. Very Kona-lian day.

Other than that, I got a break from my TANK and we went snorkeling at the good ol' Fishaholic, which is two minutes away from where we're staying. It felt so great (really free) to be snorkeling again! As soon as we swam out past all the waders, we were SWARMED!! We didn't have any treats, but the fish still followed us around and got right up in our faces and wouldn't go away. It was unreal. Mostly butterfly fish (raccoons and threadfin and a single milletseed) and big dark surgeonfish. We also saw some spectacular sailfin tangs (they seemed to travel in pairs, and we saw them several times throughout the snorkel) that looked just amazing when they spread their fins. I don't remember ever seeing those before. There were TONS of fish I don't remember ever seeing before, and just so much variety. A pinktail triggerfish with the most intensely pink tail (it put the picture in the book to shame), a terminal male bird wrasse with really cool bright green abstract markings on his side, a huge parrotfish that I floated above watching chomp coral with his big parrot teeth (listening to the loud crunch crunch), lots of different beautiful multicolored wrasses, trumpetfish, black triggerfish (fins-both-ways) including ones displaying their cool face patterns, regular humus, unicornfish, various kinds of surgeonfish, Hawaiian whitespotted tobies, spotted puffers and stripebelly puffers (so cute!!), all kinds of different parrots, hawkfish, peacock groupers, cute goatfish with their whiskers... probably tons of others I don't know/remember. The fishyholic has SO many different kinds of fish, just everywhere. It's INSANE. And lots and lots of different kinds of urchins. No eels or turtles today, though!

I did a lot of laying very still, just letting the ocean drift me along slowly, watching the fishes' behavior up close. Near the end, we went in that really shallow area over in front of the hotel (I love snorkeling in super-low water and just barely slithering over the top of the rocks/coral, gliding very flat, not kicking) and I looked under rocks. Found a new starfish!!!! A very tiny one, about 1½" - 2" across, cute and speckled. It might be a sheriff-badge star. I found one at Iki last year, but dried up... it was bright orange, and my star today was cream and dark brown (like a chocolate chip cookie) with a star-shape within his star. But he had the little serrated toothy edges, and the same badge shape. He was great! He even stuck out his feet, and was very speedy, and changed shape to crawl into non-flat areas. Not a boring kind of star that just sits there! Excellent star!

Almost forgot: we managed to catch Jeff at the warehouse today!! He was all glad to see us, and gave us each a hug. It was so great to see him again. Good old Jeff. He suggested we could go shore diving together at Puako on his day off if he can't get divemaster time on the boat. Or if we just wanted to instead; whichever we preferred. I asked, "Which would be a better Jeff Jones Experience?" and he make a Jeff joke about how we'd be stuck with him either way. :-) Oh, and he asked if I was still messing around with echinoderms, and I said of course I was and briefly mentioned my great crown-of-thorns encounter the other day. He just shook his head in disbelief. I mentioned that I was a little worried after last time that he'd follow my example and start touching c-o-t-s and get all injured, and he indicated No Way, that he's not that crazy. Ha! Good. You need the special echinoderm tamer touch.

Posted at 10:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I'm a day behind on ALB! I slacked last night because my shoulders hurt, but I scribbled notes in my blog notebook, so hopefully I can reconstruct them now.

We went to the Aloha Angel Cafe for breakfast (hadn't been there in several years) and it was good! I had buttermilk pancakes (fantastic ones) with strawberry topping (they had coconut syrup instead of maple), and a side of Fresh Catch, which was ono (I mean it was actual ono fish, which isn't really ono in my opinion, but was pretty good). Plus the requisite Kona coffee, of course. It was subtly smoky, like SKFS's, but slightly more bitter (how come restaurant coffee isn't as good as random coffee??). Dean got a POG and a breakfast burrito with tofu, and we were impressed by all the veggie items on the menu (all marked with angel-blowing-trumpet symbol).

Anyway, the best part about breakfast wasn't the food, but all the highly entertaining gecko action. There was a large crumb scrap on the porch railing next to our table, which attracted a few brave guys to come lick it with their super-cute tongues (later, one hog gulped the whole thing down!); then I created a frenzy by putting a small lump of strawberry on the railing (it was really soft and slurpy and strawberry-syrupy). A million guys started coming over to lick it, one at a time, each one chasing away the current guy by sneaking up on him and nipping his tail. (Dean warned the current guy: "Watch your six!") They also got into little face-to-face lizard battles. Each one would only last a second, like a little chicken-run kind of stand-off where one guy would give in and veer off and run away and then the champion would get to lick the strawberry lump. I felt kind of guilty (not really) for introducing such conflict into a formerly peaceful native community, though! (I wiped up the strawberry lump before we left.)

We went diving at the Old Airport (surf was not up this time, and neither were the mongooses). It was a good dive, but it started with a LONG surface swim because we were looking for the arc area but didn't find it, so headed way out in one direction then swam tons more in another before finally going below. I think that's why my shoulders hurt last night. Swimming such a long distance on the surface with my heavy tank on and inflated BCD (which is sort of constricting and uncomfortable, not like underwater when you let out all the air and it seems to disappear) was hard, and I was getting tired. I felt lots better as soon as we descended, though.

I found two Green Linckia stars (not together) and two cushion stars (near the first Linckia), plus a few Crown-of-Thorns. (Even got to see the Linckia's feet!) We tried out our new tank bangers, and the sound is not that loud/noticeable underwater... you can hear it, but it seems like we might have to bang a bunch of times if we wanted to get the other guy's attention. It's really easy to reach and use, though. I do mine with my right hand (because my slate is on my left wrist) and Dean does his with his left (because the camera is on his right wrist).

The coolest thing we saw, towards the end of the dive, was a really pretty flatworm (a lot like a nudibranch, but flatter). It was bright blue with bright orange edges, and it crawled on the surface of some coral, then floated free in the water, and I caught it in my bare hand. (I'd taken off my glove so I could touch it without hurting it.) It wasn't the same as any of the ones in the book (it looked a lot like the Fuchsia Flatworm, but different colored), but the book says flatworms are a poorly known group and many are unidentified or unnamed.

After the dive, we went back to the International Marketplace and talked to the friendly Goodies guy at his stand (and bought some mac nuts from him, of course!). He really likes to talk!! He asked us where we like to eat, and gave us a bunch of restaurant recommendations, including U-Top-It for breakfast and lunch, and Teshima, which we always pass on the way to Oshima. I also got a Kona Bros coffee at the Marketplace (French Roast, in the blue bag), and it was ONO!! (As good as the Candy Co.!)

Posted at 7:53:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

We tried out the South Kona Fruit Stand cafe on the way to dive at Ke`ei (new site between Honaunau and Kealakekau Bay recommended by Luke) (BTW, found out he's not an Aussie! He's from Cornwall, England. He just looks and acts like an Aussie!), and it was great. It's high above the road, in a relaxing covered patio lush with tropical plants and a big center fountain, with Hawaiian music piped through a speaker disguised as a rock. I had "fish salad" on a wrap (it was yellowfin ahi tuna) with my first-ever South Kona Fruit Stand Kona coffee (pretty good, a little smoky... not quite the classic smooth-and-intense Kona, but in the good category) and Dean had an avocado and cheese sandwich on a Miller's Wheat (whatever that is) roll. He also got a Mango Madness smoothie, with hemp protein added, which I shared some of. SKFS's smoothies are excellent. Most of the time, we were the only people there. It was nice. Dean even spontaneously commented, "That was really good!"

Ke`ei was also really good. It was by far the best dive of the trip so far. It reminded us both of Puako. The entry was the opposite of yesterday--the easiest ever (an old sandy boat launch with super-calm water, where you can just wade in!), and there are even old picnic tables where you can set up your dive gear. Dean especially liked it because there were caves, and declared it his new favorite dive spot (I think that's a bit extreme, but it was definitely pretty great). When you swim out, there are ages and ages of dense coral covering everything, which is just amazing to take in. (Luke told us it was really old coral, not damaged by some storm that injured a lot of other coral around here... I can't remember what the storm was, though.) Then while you're dropping down, it's SO BLUE. I was watching Dean descend, just suspended in blueness, and it was so cool looking.

We went down to about 80 feet and found a big sandy flat of garden eels. The first ones I spotted were very tiny super-skinny ones, and when I pointed them out to Dean, he couldn't see them at first. (I did a hand signal to communicate what I was seeing.) There were larger (medium-sized) ones off in another direction of the same flat. Whenever you swim toward a garden eel garden, they slurp back into the ground and disappear, so you have to try to be really stealthy, but still they sense you and you can never get near enough to see them close up. I tried hovering above the ocean floor, just floating horizontally a few feet above the bottom, but the ones beneath me wouldn't come back out of their holes. Dean was impressed by my buoyancy control! :-)

We went down a bit below 100 feet then slowly headed back up this huge hill of coral, just like skimming over the surface of a real hill but it was made of coral in every direction instead of grass. Still fairly deep, but not as deep as the eels, we found a crown-of-thorns (1st of the trip!!!) and I had a totally NICE c-o-t interaction, very gently stroking him and coaxing him onto my hand and over, revealing the beautiful feet. He clung onto my hand, reaching out around the edges, just wonderful. It was all so gentle and smooth, I handled him without the least worry of getting pricked. Crowns are my favorite.

In one of the caves (we needed the flashlight to properly see the ground), I found a tiny heart urchin shell, completely intact and perfect, very strongly constructed. I even manged to hold onto it the whole time and bring it back to shore undamaged to keep (proves how calm and easy in/out Ke`ei was). I also spotted a nice spotted whitemouth moray, and briefly glimpsed an octopus, but he hid before I could show him to Dean. We both liked the brown squirrelfish. They were extremely appealing, for some reason.

When we exchanged our tanks at Big, we talked to the calm guy, and he told us about the Black Water night dive, where you go out and float in the open ocean and all these weird unidentified luminescent creatures and jellies and stuff like that swim all around. They put on a video so we could see what it was like. It looked really cool! On the way back, we stopped at Jack's and got tank bangers, then had dinner at Ba-Le. Ba-Le was good! We hadn't been there in a couple years. I wish I could listen to Lava 105 at home.

Posted at 10:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

It's late and I'm kind of tired. (4 AM back home, but only 11 o'clock here.) I also have a good excuse: climbing over tons of lava rocks with my tank and weights on, a rough entry point where we had to pass down our BCDs/tanks/etc., float them, and then re-don them in the water, and then the same thing in reverse on the way out. We went to Crescent Beach (aka Alua Beach), near the Honokohau harbor, a new site recommended by the Aussie guy (Luke) at Big. He gives lots of great shore dive tips, because he actually likes shore diving, unlike most divers! He said he has to shore dive vicariously through us, since he has to boat dive all the time for his job. He also mentions a lot of neat things about creatures (like the shark breathing thing), which of course I find really interesting. When we were picking up new tanks after our dive today, he told us about another new place to try (between Honaunau and Kealakekau Bay) and how to get to the site at Pine Trees (I knew Pine Trees is a surfing spot). I was curious about how much a full dive tank weighs, so he weighed one with a nifty weighing gadget, and it was about 40 pounds. With the regs and stuff hooked up, plus my 8 pounds of dive weights in the BCD pockets, that's about 50 pounds! No wonder I think it's heavy!! It's nearly half my weight! Wearing Crocs makes it TONS easier to walk over lava with a tank on, though. It makes a HUGE difference. I am not a huge fan of my Crocs (unlike Dean with his) but even I consider them indispensable now, if only for that one purpose.

I have a million bruises already, including a huge one (about 2½" across) on my shin that really hurts.

We didn't see anything super-exciting on the dive (it wasn't worth all the trouble getting in and out), although it's supposed to be a really great site, so maybe we just weren't lucky. There are supposed to be lots of eagle rays and free-swimming eels and stuff like that there at times, plus garden eels in one spot. We did see a huge snail in a cave, but I wasn't sure if it was a Triton's Trumpet, so I didn't play any Blonde On Blonde harmonica solos or anything like that. The other cool things I found were a pretty cushion star (nice markings!) at about 50 feet (it felt cushiony when I first picked it up; then it stiffened), another Spiky Cuke at 63 feet (I petted it again, and it was so velvety! like suede), and some heart urchin shells (about 4" long), half buried in sand. I don't think I've ever seen a live heart urchin. I can't remember if I've ever found a heart urchin shell before in Hawaii, either. One of the shells I found was completely intact, and even had some short reddish spines still stuck to it. I saved it for most of the dive, but broke it coming back in. :-( (It was impossible not to.)

The viz was really good, even deep. Everything looked very bright and easy to see.

Other than the dive:

1) I went on a solo Longs mission! I got a can of imitation abalone made from giant squid. That's what it says on the label, at least! (I will have to photograph it.) I had to buy it, obviously, just so I can say I've eaten giant squid! (Even though it's clearly false.) Anyway, why would you make fake abalone out of giant squid? Wouldn't it be better to make fake giant squid out of abalone, since giant squid is a zillion times cooler and rarer???

2) Speaking of weird substances to make stuff out of, we went to the Eelskin Outlet!! It was hard to find, and we had to park the Jeep and walk around Palani Rd. near the pier until I finally spotted the big Eelskin Outlet sign. (I should've brought the camera.) Of course I had to GET an eelskin product, especially since they were all quite cheap (none as cheap as the $5 belts in WINE only, though), so we picked through ALL the eelskin items, trying to figure out the least impractical one. Eelskin products are very smooth, soft, shiny and 70s-ish looking, and would go well with zipper boots. We finally found a small black squeeze-top coin holder, which I can use to keep change in in my car. (They even had eelskin purses of all sizes and shapes, but, NO, I did not get one.) Alas, the Eelskin Outlet is going out of business and it was a liquidation sale. What a shame. Good thing we went while we still can! It was quite an experience. Having a coin purse made out of fish skin is an extremely weird thought.

3) Had my Kona-coffee-of-the-day at the Kailua Candy Company. Their Kona is truly excellent and was by far the best of the trip so far. BTW, in addition to a different Kona coffee every day, I am having fish every day (starting with Saturday, on the plane). It doesn't have to be different every time, though.

4) Went to O's for dinner (fish of the day = the classic, seared-on-the-edges sashimi-style ahi). The best parts were the spinach-tofu potstickers, the ginger lemonade, and the Hawaiian coconut cream cake. O's is the first place we ever went on our very first trip to Hawaii, except it was called Ooodles of Noodles back then.

Posted at 11:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Two final things I wanted to remember to note:

Not doing the early-to-rise thing is definitely much better! I'm TONS less exhausted than I usually am for the first few days when we arrive. I'm not exhausted at all! I even had trouble falling asleep last night and I'm already in danger of staying up too late.

Also: I've felt so calm, ever since the trip started. (I was thinking about how calm I was when my fin disappeared under the waves and seemed gone for good.) Not that I'm usually uncalm, but I've just been especially calm, palpably calm. I feel very relaxed.

Also, I think we're better at relaxing/slacking on vac since our visit to Kauai'i last year, when we were forced into learning how. :-) It's nice.

Posted at 10:34:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

While writing this entry, I am imbibing some super-special Kona Deep, from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, right on Loli Longs' front doorstep. It comes from 3,000 feet deep below Kona, and it's thousands of years old. It tastes like normal water.

Kona coffee mission status: still successful. I had Kona coffee at Peaberry & Galette, in the Keauhou Shopping Center. (Dean had a chai, natch.) I drove, and it was super-easy. The hardest part was backing out of the garage. I also drove when we checked out the 4 Mile Marker to see if it looked safe to dive. It did. (Also tested my Guy here, and it has Longs and Oshima! I saved them as favorite locations.) We each had a crepe for breakfast, at P&G. Dean's = fresh fruit & yogurt w/honey & apple butter; mine = smoked salmon, capers & cream cheese. The crepes were good and P&G had a cool atmosphere (I liked their chairs); plus, they automatically give you real cups if your drink is for there. However, the coffee wasn't the best, as Konas go. It was a little bitter and thin. Oh and they had Kona Deep sea salt for sale! I didn't buy any. (Yet?)

On the way to 4 Mile Marker, I thought of ways to be mean to Triton's Trumpet snails, in case I see any while diving. (They EAT crowns-of-torns!!) Here's my best Triton's Trumpet torture idea yet: glockenspiel mallets!! Give it a big headache! Dean: "So mean!!" I didn't see any Triton's Trumpets or crowns at 4 Mile Marker, though. :-(

No. of pencils lost so far while diving: one, already. It was blue. Fortunately I had just put a spare (pale purple) into the pocket of my BCD, so I was still able to take notes on my slate. Note to future self: always carry a spare dive pencil! I'm not surprised it dissappeared, as the entry into 4 Mile was pretty rough. I got a ton of new bruises up and down my shins. Note to Dean's future self: wear Crocs while walking on the uneven, pebbly, downhill rocks to 4 Mile entry, especially while carrying or wearing heavy scuba tanks that are crushing your feet even harder into the rocks. I refused to walk on the rocks wearing my tank, and at first Dean thought I was a wimp, but then he realised I was smart. He was nice and carried my tank for me (I couldn't have, anyway!). But he discovered the Croc thing only after the dive was over.

It was so weird, when I let the air out of my BCD this time, I dropped! Yesterday at Honaunau I couldn't get myself to sink and had to kick down. I also had to add a little air at the bottom today. We didn't see anything that exciting at 4 Mile, EXCEPT: an octopus (!!), which I found hiding under a rock (it was WINE colored), and mother and baby whitetip reef sharks, swimming in circles in a cave-ish area. The Aussie guy at Big tipped us off about the whitetips and told us where we might be able to find them (except, he only knew about the baby!). They were very cool looking, nice and sleek and classic shark shaped, smooth and grey with white tips. The baby was about 3 feet long, and the mother maybe 6 feet. They were a really nice pair and looked snuggly. Later when we went back to Big to get tanks for tomorrow, the Aussie guy told us sharks swim in circles like that in order to circulate oxygen over their gills, and if they stop moving for too long, they'll suffocate. (They even swim while sleeping!)

After we picked up our new tanks, we stopped at the Kona International Marketplace and I got a li hing mui shave ice (stealth hydration) with li hing powder on top from the place with the extra-sharp blade (for extra-fluffy shave ice!). Dean pointed out that it tasted like Mystique! (Esp. the powdery outside part.) I agreed! (Dean shared my shave ice since they were out of haupia.) As we were walking through the market, I was drawn over to a stand that said Goodies [from Hawaii], and bought a bar of pikake Noni-and-Kukui soap from the stand guy (homemade by his wife). He was a very good hawker (in a good and eager way, not an annoying way) and reminded us of our old fav hawker guy who used to sell the best mac nuts ever at the Ali'i Gardens Marketplace (we were super-sad last year when we couldn't find him there anymore). Later I decided he really reminded me of that guy, and that the name Goodies from Hawaii seemed familiar too, so I checked their website and confirmed it: it WAS the same guy, and Goodies is our old fav mac nuts brand!!! We will have to go back! We didn't see any mac nuts, but maybe they were just further in. Wow!

Posted at 8:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

GREAT LIQUIDATION SALE!

Men's Eelskin & Snakeskin Belts
(adjustable & available in WINE only) $5.00 ea.

25% off Women's Eelskin Wallets & Purses
(AD must be presented at time of purchase)...

Kona Gift Gallery & Eelskin Outlet
75-5663 Palani Rd. (across from the pier)

Posted at 8:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, November 05, 2007

I drove to Oshima's this morning (with Dean), for practice. I like driving the Jeep! Our Jeep this time is a super-nice one. It looks brand new and we think it is brand new. There were only 100 miles on it, the clock wasn't set, and there was still plastic protective stuff on the steering wheel. I also ran across the street to Surfin' Hilary while we were parked in front of Oshima's and got a Kona coffee and a chai for Dean. I think I should try Kona coffee from a different place every day while we're in this part of the island. (I wonder if I will succeed?)

Searched for Jeff x 2, first at the new Bottom Time location at Keauhou Outrigger, where I ran in and the woman on duty said I'd just missed him and that he'd gone to the warehouse. When I told her we were former students of his and wanted to dive with him, she asked me to leave our names because otherwise she'd just have to say something like, "This cute little girl stopped by to see you..." Ha. Then we checked the warehouse, but he wasn't there either. (Probably because we stopped at Killer Taco first. He wasn't there, either.)

We rented dive gear at Big, and all the classic people were there--the Asian girl, Dean, and the annoying owner. They recognised us the second we walked in (not sure about the owner) and the Asian girl remembered us as "her 'French' couple." (She thinks we seem like we're from some old French movie.) She said we looked just the same and looked good and that we don't look like Americans because we're small. She even remembered our BCD sizes! The owner looked on with an incredulous expression about the sizes (XS for Dean and Junior for me) and speculated that we wouldn't be able to shore dive today because the surf's too rough because of a big storm a few days ago in Tahiti (he suggested we needed to go on a boat dive, natch). We knew the waves were high because we could see them from our computer room window, and promised we wouldn't do anything crazy. The other two liked our Jeep ("good nail polish color!").

We tried the Old Airport, but surf really WAS up! Huge waves. Very cool looking. There was a pack of about ten mongooses raiding cat food someone leaves for feral cats. They were so rat-ly! They made horrible rattish cat-fight sounds, and had really beady little eyes. Like a mix between a squirrel and a rat, but with sleek ferret bodies. One was really fat and furry, like he was the boldest and snagged the most food. A cat sat under a car in the shade, eyeing them as they crept up to eat the food nearest her.

We tried Honaunau instead, and it was fine (it's a lot more protected over there). I like my new gloves! I didn't notice them as being weird/different when I had them on in the water, and they are easier to get on and off than my old ones. My gear felt kind of unpleasant at first (super-heavy tank + 8 lbs of dive weights, good-ish distance to walk over lava with my shoulder bones getting killed from the weight by the end, then long surface swim out with snorkels, BCDs inflated for buoyancy feeling constrictive around my chest) but when we descended it all felt great! It's weird how stuff that's such an encumbrance on the surface just disappears underwater.

The dive itself was a little boring--not that much to see--but it was a good first dive of the year, to get comfortable again. After we swam out we switched to our regulators and dropped down to 130 feet (which is the max allowed depth for recreational divers) and checked out the deep depths for a little while, then headed gradually up to 30 feet-ish areas. On the way down, at about 80 feet, we met a really cool deepwater sea cuke with wiggly spikes all over him. He was moving them around all weird alien-ishly. After Dean took some pics, I yanked off my glove and petted him, and it felt wonderful! He was really velvety. I really liked touching him. Later I looked him up in my creature book, and it was a Hawaiian Spiky Sea Cucumber, which occur only in Hawaii. They are one of only three sea cukes of a weird family (family Stichopodidae, and genus Stichopus), none of which I have ever seen before. The book says the members of genus Stichopus can "melt," becoming completely limp and eventually disintegrating if taken from the water. If they are not too far gone, they can reverse the process!!! "Such changes in connective tissue consistency occur on the molecular level and are unique to echinoderms." !!! What the heck! It sounds like something out of a mutant superhero comic book! Echinoderms are so weird and cool. I hope Dean got a good photo of him.

We also saw an urchin spawning and a little deep deep wire coral. (I like wire corals, and we only ever see them diving.) I pointed out a humu to Dean as we were coming in, and he followed him all around underwater for a zillion years (w/the camera), flashing me the shaka symbol afterward. :-) I kept feeling like I was being a gulpy breather (esp. when we were down deep) but whenever we checked our air we had the same amount as each other, and I actually had more left than Dean at the end. (Not to mention that he started with more!) So I guess I didn't do too bad. I feel like I need to get back in practice breathing, though.

When we were climbing out, a big wave came by and washed/sucked away one of my fins, which Dean was holding for me (I'd already taken them off). He kept saying how it just "blew away!" It was so weird because as we were going in, I'd commented about how much I love my fins (they are my oldest piece of gear--I've had them since the beginning) and how awful it will be when something happens to them, because they don't make them anymore and I'd never be able to find new ones like them. Dean had me quickly hook his snorkel back up, and he dove back in, searching among all the swirling crashing waves along the lava rocks as I stood above on the lava flats in my heavy tank, watching, resigned to never seeing my beloved fin again. I don't know how, but after a couple of minutes he found it. Dean is my hero!!

Tom Kah soup at Royal Thai Cafe for dinner, which I was dreaming about at depth, breathing that dry scuba air. The waiters were super nice tonight and one of them kept smiling at me nonstop.

According to a handout I piked up, there's a new shopping area near the Kings' Shops called the Queens' Shops, with a gourmet grocery store and a Persimmon! (!!) I hope it's not a scam, because I am excited. We shall see, when we move to Waikoloa after week two.

Posted at 9:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

I am attempting a new Hawaii blog technique--just take notes while I'm out, then write real entries on the computer, like at home (rather than write huge entries in my blog notebook as I go along, then have to type them up later). We'll see how long this lasts. The only way it'll work is if I keep on top of it and write an entry on the computer every day (otherwise I'll get behind and my notes won't make any sense).

We did not step foot on a beach/in the ocean yet (but we can see the ocean from our lanai!); we took it easy and today was a fantastic first day. I'm not even insanely tired like I usually am at 8 PM on the first day!

We had breakfast at Coffee Shack--perfect air, so still and moist and eye-friendly. There were at least 10 cute little green lizard guys running around on the deck railing behind our table and the side of the building, beside us. One licked Dean's hand. I tried the cappuccino (it was okay) and got French toast made from luau bread. (Dean had the papaya special.) Also, scored a Hawaii Island Times already!!

Next = South Kona Fruit stand!! Open! (New sign: Cafe 10-4, Sunday 10-4, Daily 9-6, Smoothies--Coffee--Sandwiches.) WOW!!!! All the improvements are premium!! We have to go back for lunch ASAP. We got a "Classic Hawaiian" flav smoothie (which I thought was superb, and I'm not usually that into smoothies), lots of fruit (and a certain soap product--I think/hope it's the right flav), including starfishfruit (they had the best mutant six-armed ones at Coffee Shack, as garnishes!) and I got one of those limes that looks like a brain. I don't think I've actually ever bought one before (just admired them). Also got a mango. I'm pretty sure we've never had Hawaiian mango before... I don't think it's normally in season. Odd. I'll have to report back on how it is.

It was great to see Beth again, and she was delighted to see us (she even remembered my name, somehow) and told us all about the additions. She never got my postcard from Kauai'i last year about finding mangosteen, though, and was sad about that. (And ha!--she's never had mangosteen yet!) Oh, and she told us about a South Kona Fruit Stand video on YouTube (it's also partially about the company that makes those soaps, Holly!)!

Went to Longs twice already (had to go back when I saw they had orange beach mats!), and KTA (grocery shopping), in the pouring rain. It's a strange, long, hard rain, from the kona (leeward) direction, instead of the usual short light rain from the mountain direction. But it's nice. Not cold. Refreshing.

Oshima Surf rules! It's my new fav store. I want to go back my myself. I got new slippers (Dean found them) and I love them. They're really soft and petable and white, and fluffy around the opening and on the inside. O'Neil brand. Oshima has tons of surf brands, cheap. It's Oshima! We went to Oshima Dry Goods to look for slippers, first. They had fish in the fishcase that were kinds we see snorkeling. (Fish aren't dry goods, are they??)

Had dinner at Kenichi (it was still pouring out), and it was perfect. (Royal Thai Cafe was closed, for some reason.) It's so cool being based in Keauhou, two minutes from the Longs shopping area. Report for future self: Seafood Sunomno salad (superthin vinegared cukes, seaweed, octopus, and shrimp)--simple and fresh and GOOD! I'm glad I ordered it. This is the first time I've actually liked octy! (It usually resembles chewing on rubber bands.) My blackened cod thing is amazing. My past self didn't lie!

I started telling Dean, "They have to make it slippery--[so you can't gobble it down too fast"] and stopped in mid-sentence because I tasted my uni and was rendered wordless. Oh man. It's Imari-level uni. This meal blew my mind.

Posted at 8:46:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.