Saturday, March 29, 2008
All right, here it is, my final list! The most overplayed songs on Lava 105 (not necessarily in order of repeatedness):
Posted at 12:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
One Tin Soldier - Original Caste
Jack & Diane - John Cougar Mellencamp
Wooly Bully - Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs (why???)
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
I Was Made to Love Her - Stevie Wonder
Honky Cat - Elton John
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
Summer In the City - The Lovin' Spoonful
Love Train - The O'Jays
Why Can't We Be Friends - War
Come and Get It - Badfinger
With A Little Luck - Wings
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
Red Rubber Ball - The Cyrkle
Sunshine Superman - Donovan
Who'll Stop the Rain? - Creedence Clearwater Revival
You May Be Right - Billy Joel (always plays when we're on Napoopoo Road)
Baby Don't Go - Sonny & Cher
It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones
It Ain't Me, Babe - The Turtles
Barbara Ann - The Beach Boys (weird choice for most played Beach Boys song!)
Poor Side of Town - Johnny Rivers (plays when we drive by the Keauhou Shopping Center on the way home at night)
... and the #1 most overplayed song on Lava 105:
Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) - Looking Glass (they once played it twice in a matter of three hours!!!)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Posted at 11:34:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
This is completely anti-linear, but I need to write more about Pine Tree Portal. We dove there three times total: yesterday (did justice to that), Sautrday (the 22nd), and last Monday (the 17th). Our first dive there was the one where I found the baby crown-of-thorns, which I made the video of.
It's a site we discovered on our own because we know there are a lot of dive boat sites just offshore (we've been to several of them), so we figured out an entry spot that seemed feasible from shore, and tried it. The "Pine Trees" area was named by surfers; it's generally a surfing spot, and there are all these little coves where you can drive around on coral and get to various pockets of sand and black lava and lava tidepools. Our spot is shortly past the end of the Natural Energy Labs' territory, and you can drive on white sand and back the Jeep right up to lava, set up your gear on the clean flat lava, then walk a short distance over the lava and climb down to enter at a fairly calm inlet where there aren't too many swells or too much whirlpool action going on. We named it "Pine Tree Portal" because it was our portal to Pine Trees, but on our second dive there we discovered what an apt name it is in another way: the spot where we back up the Jeep lines up perfectly with an underwater lava arch. Surface-swimming out on a 270° heading, we swim right over it; coming back in on a reciprocal heading, you see this huge arch in front of/above you, and you can carefully ascend up the rocky sides, passing through it, emerging and surfacing right in front of the Jeep. Very cool.
We heard whales (faintly) both the second and third times we visited. Saw lots of fish families. I stroked wonderful petty-soft spiky Stichopus sea cucumbers every time. On our second dive there, one clung onto me with his tube feet. They're a deep velvet green with knobby spikes all over, and no two look alike. The spikes are blunt, not sharp like a crown-of-thorns' thorns, and are of various number, sizes, and arrangement. Their feet are petite and purple, in delightful rows on either side of a soft strokable stomach. I really really like Pine Tree Portal's Stichopus cukes and every time I see one, I head right for it. I usually see two.
On our first visit, of course, there was the baby crown-of-thorns. I was in a really good mood that day, even before I found the crown, and it felt wonderful to be underwater again. I spotted the crown almost right after we descended; it was crawling across a patch of sand at a very speedy rate. Dean was swimming away but I couldn't follow and lose the baby crown, so I stayed by its side and just waited for him to notice I wasn't behind him; I knew he'd glance around eventually and come back to see what had captured me.
It was only 3.5" across, and I counted 16 arms. Just like an adult crown, but in miniature, and with much shorter arms proportionally. Tiny pale yellow feet, tiny round voracious mouth with tiny circle of teeth, delicate thorns sticking out every which way, and it all fit in the palm of my hand. I never ever imagined I'd find a baby crown! I wasn't wearing gloves because of my hand, so there was no question of whether or not I'd take them off to handle it. I just had to reach out, barehanded, and caress it, turn it over and under, cradle it and lightly stroke the tiny thorns. Absolutely so so so so so wonderful. It even clung on my hand with its tiny tube feet. What a way to break in a new dive site!
Then, gloveless, I went around touching everything. Velvety Stichopus cucucmbers, which feel like a wet wetsuit; Asparagopsis taxiformis, which feels like seaweed (if only I'd touched it from the start I'd have known right away what it was!); a Divided Flatworm--so soft, yellow & black like a butterfly. I wasn't even cold! Pine Tree Portal is great. (Three exclamation points.) It's been an all-around enjoyable site, every time.
This morning I had a long dream about trying to buy Melona pops at a grocery store (I think it was back home in Connecticut). They had them, and a bunch of other exotic popsicles too, but they were up really really high on the top of a shelf in the corner of an aisle and I had to climb this precarious metal wheely ladder/stairs thing to get them. One of the flavors they had was li hing mui! The weird part was, the section was on a normal (super-high) grocery store shelf, not a freezer case. Pretty implausible, since Melonas melt in about two minutes.
Posted at 10:34:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We got a flat tire today! But it was in the Kailua Candy Co. parking lot, so it was very easy to change. Considering all the zillions of grrrry and remote places we drove the Jeep on this trip, getting a flat in a parking lot was pretty silly. (But good.) Before the Candy Co., we stopped at Blue Water Hunter to get more of Dean's dive socks, and the owner guy recognized us the second we walked in the door and greeted us with a cheerful, "Welcome back!" I have no idea how he remembered us, since we've only been there once, and it was back in November. He had this cool jaw with teeth on display and I asked him about it. They looked almost human, with a few weird pointy teeth thrown in. It was the jaw from a Mu fish, aka Big-Eye Emperor, and they use those teeth to eat urchins! They just chomp right down on them and don't even mind getting stuck in the face with spines. They are also super-smart and know the difference between a regular diver and a spearfisherman diver. When they see the spear they go "Gulp!" and run away. Also, they taste like lobster.
We had dinner at the Ke`ei Cafe, very enthusiastically recommended by Norm at Big. (We wish we could remember his great quote about the "cloudlike" mashed potatoes.) I knew about Ke`ei, but we've always been scared to go there. It was nice! The decor was nice, the staff was nice, and they even had a bunch of different vegetarian things for Dean! We had reservations for 5:30, so we got to eat out on the narrow balcony in front, where there's only room for three tables. Everything was good! The food reminded me a little of Nancy's.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Posted at 10:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
"Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea / Joy to you and me..."
I finally got a Captain Dano's fish sandwich again today! Every time I've tried to go there lately, it's been slackishly closed early. Very thwartful. Today we made sure to go super early and managed to snag a sandwich, but Dano didn't realize it was for me so he fried the fish and included normal fries instead of curly fries. It was still pretty good, but not as wonderful as the classic. After I ate it, I ordered a li hing mui shave ice, and while the girl was making it, the Dano's lady (who'd just arrived) started talking to me because she remembered that I'd tried to order a li hing mui shave ice before but they were out of li hing mui. She was quite impressed by my customer loyalty / devotion to Dano's fish sandwich. And she told me Dano's is moving! When we come back next time, it won't be at the International Marketplace anymore, it will be on Ali`i Drive, at Tante's Restaurant. They are teaming up with a relative there. Yikes--it was lucky I talked to her! I would have been so disappointed if I'd come back looking for Dano's, and would have had no idea where they'd gone. I also asked her if the guy I think is Dano actually is Dano, and she confirmed that he is, then introduced him to me and we shook hands. It was then that he asked me if I was going to join him for a fish sandwich and looked all crestfallen when I told him I'd already had one and he realized that the sandwich he'd just made with fried fish and no curly fries had been for me. Alas. The li hing mui today was really good, though.
But no, the highlight of the day was not Pine Tree Portal or getting to meet Captain Dano. The highlight was the incredibly sweet going-away gift Sara at Big Island Divers surprised us with when we returned our gear! It's beautiful and orange, with a huge handmade paper flower on the bag and super-soft Japanese-looking red ribbon. The tissue paper wrapping inside is the color of the ocean. The card is so nice ("Dear Dean and Laura, A.K.A. 'My Favorite Couple'..."), and there are so many perfect little artistic touches. Sara is the best. I'm reeally going to miss her.
Posted at 10:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I tried the gourka this morning. On the outside it looked like a big pointed yellow plum, but when I sliced it in half there was no pit in the middle--instead there were several seeds. It smelled and tasted like a very intense, tart apricot. The flavor was good, but the tartness was a bit much, so I didn't finish the whole thing.
I'm tired tonight. We went for an encore dive at Pine Tree Portal, then returned our gear. I'm not calling it our final dive, because yesterday's dive was perfect as a final dive. So today's was an encore. It was a great encore dive, with a little of everything--whales; one cute little crown-of-thorns, the diameter of my pencil; a huge triggerfish, pale gray with elegant top & bottom fins waving; got Dean to touch a cushion star and a velvety Stichopus cucumber with his glove off (!) (he liked both!); etc., etc.! At one point, we kept seeing stuff every two seconds, like, Oh look, there's a cushion star! (*ecstatically rub hand on cushion*) And look, a spiky cuke! (*fondle cuke, stroke its tummy, admire its purple feet*) Wow, check out that big eel! (*Dean mimes that I should try petting that with my bare hand, too...*)
Then we saw a gigantic porcupine fish (so cute!) while doing our three minute safety stop in front of the Portal, and at least three baby lei triggers up really close right at the base of the portal, hiding in and out of a crack there. We picked up heavy rocks to slow our ascent when swimming up through the Portal, then popped out lined up perfectly with the Jeep parked on shore, backed right up to the lava.
The picture above is my air gage with an ending psi just slightly above zero. Dean actually did run out of air (two seconds before climbing out), but I didn't quite. We got massively whaled trying make our way back in after passing through the Portal, and really had to fight to reach our climb-out spot. Struggle struggle struggle against the ocean, getting nowhere and nowhere, getting washed up on rocks, but not the right rocks. Then all the sudden the ocean decided to spit us out in our little cove where we wanted to be! And we swam right over and climbed out, two inches from our waiting shoes. I actually liked it a lot as an ending to the dive... the whole rest of the dive was very easy with lots of variety, and a nice fight with waves and current seemed like a good real way to end it, to round it all out--a classic Hawaiian shore dive that reminds you how powerful the ocean is. So anyway, that's probably why I'm a bit rung out now.
Oh and speaking of whales, yep, we SAW a whale (quite a bit!), when we were gearing up! Lots of spouting and splashing around. We could see its whole dark body breaching on the surface of the ocean. It was out between two dive boats that were diving the same general area that we do from shore. We also heard whales, one last time, underwater. Not too loud, but loud enough. Absolutely whales. Perfect encore.
The head shot picture is from a couple days ago. My hair loves Hawaii. I can't believe how well it's behaving despite going an unreasonable amount of time without a haircut. It seems to thrive on the whole cycle: get all salty / get rinsed off with a gallon of water / get dried by the sun and breeze. Happy hair. I have almost no trip photos of myself not underwater, though!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Posted at 10:26:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Driving on Mamalohoa Highway in Captain Cook:
L: *audibly sniffs air*
D: It smells like sulfur!
L: Yeah! Because it smells like eggs!
D: Wow, it's never been this pronounced!
And then rain spattered the windshield, and it was gone. But we definitely both smelled it. It's neat sharing an island with the most active volcano on the planet.
It rained really hard this afternoon, driving back after our dive. It was nice. And it rained really hard last night and the night before, too, after midnight, when I was in bed. I had the windows wide open, and it was LOUD. Loud enough to wake me up! The weather has been so nice on this trip.
It smells really strongly like nasturtiums on Mamalahoa Highway up near Dragon's Lair Farm. I don't know if it's actually nasturtiums or not, but that's what it smells like.
We stopped at South Kona Fruit Stand on the way to Three Step and Beth was actually there today! We said goodbye to her, since we probably won't see her again before we go. I'm glad we got to see her again! She's never been there when we stop by, other than on our very first day. Why are South Kona Fruit Stand smoothies so good??
When Dean checked our air before the dive, I had almost 3400 psi but he only had 2300! (The tank is supposed to have 3000.) I think Ralph and Thumper failed to check it when they gave us the tanks on Sunday because they were in a hurry when we showed up, closing down early on Easter because no one was there. We decided to share my air on descent and while we were down deep; then when my tank had been depleted to 2300, Dean would switch to his air.
It was actually really fun sharing air! I liked it. It was cool free falling together, intertwined, Dean breathing off my spare regulator. Then we swam side by side in the sandy deep, my left hand on his BC, pal-ish, right hand pointing at things to see and signing. I felt sort of protective of him since he was breathing off my air! :-) I actually kept close by his side for most of the dive, even though there was no reason to anymore once we were even and he'd switched to his own air.
When we were on the bottom, we lay on our backs and breathed upward for fun, watching our own bubbles rise up, up, up, forming twin columns all the way to the surface. There was space of eight inches or so in between during our inhales; then the streams began again. It's cool being able to see your own breaths. Breathing while lying down is harder, sort of like how it's harder to breathe lying down when you have asthma.
It's so fun hunting among the corals for creatures, finding surprises, finger-spelling about them, sharing discoveries. We saw rare long-nosed butterfly fish (two yellow ones and a black one) and the mad Domino Damselfish from Sunday, aggressively pacing in defense of his ohana (he was freaking out when we were planning our egg hunt, as if to say, "What's going on?? This shouldn't be happening! What's that egg carton doing here?!"). We looked for the special egg from Sunday, but it wasn't there anymore. I wonder if someone found it??
On our way out, there was a magnificent zebra moray right near Three Step, gliding around in the open, snaking among the ground coral like a snowflake moray. So striking! What a memorable way to begin and end the dive. It was our 69th dive, and our 20th of the trip. We're going to return our gear Wednesday, so depending on what we decide to do tomorrow, it may have been our last. (For now, that is--natch.)
Sourdough English muffin face-off: Love's vs. Cascade Pride vs. Oroweat. Oroweat (aka "Orwell") is the CLEAR winner!
Posted at 11:35:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I went on a solo Jeep mission to Kona to escape mowing day! It was real easy: Ali`i Drive all the way to Palani Road, left on Kuakini Highway and right into the parking lot! Sarah's Consignments. I even bought two tops, for only $9.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Posted at 11:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I have a zillion (about four, actually) partially-written posts saved in draft mode, but I'm trying to catch up. I really, really shouldn't write such long posts. But it's difficult not to!
Today's dive at Ke`ei was really nice. Just nice, nice, nice. Nice temperature while getting geared up at the picnic table (not hot, just perfect), much clearer skies (we could see the Captain Cook monument in the distance across Kealakekua Bay), and a lappy, deep turquoise ocean. Dean kept commenting about how lappy it was and I kept commenting about how beautiful the colors were. It was so calm swimming out, it reminded us both of a lake. It felt like it would have been a perfect final dive.
When we were down deep with the garden eels, a huge triggerfish kept swimming around. It was an unusual one, not a type we normally see, and I asked Dean, "What kind of trigger is that??" He wrote back, "A nice one. :)" It was dark gray with mustache. I looked it up in my book later, and it was a male Bridled Triggerfish, the largest kind of trigger that lives around here, by several inches. It reminded me of a Queen Trigger, but not as fancy.
The visibility was great, and I have good pictures of a lot of the best stuff we saw:
1) A beautiful banded urchin sitting on a rock, so I was able to pick him up and pose him for the camera. Dean later commented about how effortless my buoyancy looked today, how I was just floating, hovering with ease in mid-water, and changing position at will, moving over coral. The water was so calm, and my trim is fantastic!
2) My new brittle star ring. :-) It's part of the leg of a gigantic brittle star, which broke off when I tried to grab him. (They grow back, so no worries.) It was still wiggling after it broke off, and I got it to wrap around my finger and stay that way. I still have it, and it it fits my ring finger perfectly. (Unlike in this picture, it goes on all the way.)
3) An incredibly cute little dwarf moray (I can't believe this great closeup photo Dean got!).
The other cool thing we saw was male collector urchins spawning! We've seen this a few times before, but it was an especially good show because the urchin was doing it for a long time, and reaching all his tube feet (the ones on the top of his body) out really far, waving them around like mad. Not only that, but his spawning inspired the urchin next to him to start spawning too, and then a couple more started, too, while snuggling really close together and rubbing/intertwining their spines! Sea urchin orgy! (There's a neat YouTube video about this topic.) I'm pretty sure they were all males, though, because the fluid they were ejecting was white (eggs are yellow, at least from what I've read/seen online). Dean got some good video footage of the first one, although it's hard to see his tube feet waving around, in the big milky cloud! I'll put it online if I have time to edit it.
Posted at 9:08:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to post about the Farmers' Market on Saturday! The Lulo guy wasn't there, so I couldn't give him my lulo drink recipies. :-( But, we got a coconut (macheted for us on the spot) and drank it through a straw, then got it macheted open and ate the inside! Dean forgot that he really likes coconut juice, and now he wishes he got a coconut at all the previous Farmers' Markets, like I told him to! I also got a gourka, but I haven't eaten it yet. When I asked the gourka guy what it was, he called it a very rare and exotic fruit. It sort of looks like a big pointy yellow plum. I guess it is rare, since there's no entry for it on wikipedia!
Other random flotsam:
- We discovered Melona and are crazy about it. I like the honeydew melon flavor (it tastes uncannily like one!) and Dean likes banana (he likes the melon too, surprisingly). We both like strawberry. And we can't find mango! I think they sell Melona at A Dong, back home...
- Underwater stuff we keep seeing and I couldn't identify? They're seaweeds! (We don't see very many seaweeds, and they're not in my book.) Asparagopsis taxiformis (no it doesn't look too much like asparagus) and Gibsmithia hawaiiensis, which really cool looking.
- There was a very interesting article in West Hawaii Today (Friday's issue, which I randomly found at Coffees & Epicurea yesterday and stole, since it was old anyway) about a local master's student's experiments showing sea urchins to be good because they eat invasive algae! It was accompanied by a shorter article about eating uni, and also listed this URL. What a great research topic!
- According to Dean, A La Scoop banana bread dunked in Larry's Famous Chai is the "premium of premiumness." (I agree that their banana bread is quite remarkable, but I prefer it undunked.) It's a good thing Coffees & Epicurea and A La Scoop are within a reasonable distance of one another, because he now thinks that it would be impossible to consume one without craving the other.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Posted at 9:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The underwater Easter egg hunt was a big success! We drove down to Honaunau because it's an easy entry and exit at Three Step, and it seemed like it would be a good place to hide them. There were a billion Hawaiian parties going on there, so there was NO parking, but we managed to find a spot up the road and geared up there and walked down. It wasn't too bad because it was downhill, even though it was hot! (We poured water on ourselves first so we wouldn't overheat in our wetsuits.) Once we got down to the lava entry, everything went great!
We descended right away and swam out to a spot at about 55 feet where there was a small sandy cove with dense coral on either side of it, sloping down to about 70 feet. I carried the eggs in their split carton, inside our new mini goodie bag. It seemed like a good location for the hunt, so we designated a starting point and a range to each side of the sand where each guy would hide five eggs for the other guy.
We also had one additional special egg, which was cracked but not smashed, and we'd decided to use that one too, but leave it underwater for someone else to find! I wrote "He has risen" on it with pencil this morning. I placed that egg first (in a non-hidden spot) and then we rock-paper-scissors'ed to decide who'd hide which set of eggs. I won, and we split up and each hid the other guys' eggs, then met back when we'd finished. I won the second rock-paper-scissors too (we had to go a zillion rounds on this one because we kept tying!) and picked that I wanted to be the searcher guy first.
It was fun!! I liked it best when Dean was searching for my eggs while I watched, and he said he felt the same way. :-) I found all of Dean's eggs really fast except for the last one, then got distracted because I found a HUGE Keferstein's sea cucumber instead. (I didn't know what it was at first, its tentacles were so big!). But after we looked at the cuke, I found the egg right away. :-)
Dean took a lot longer to find mine. I think I learned good egg-hiding skills from my dad. :-) My favorite was the one I hid behind a sea cucumber, so he had to pick up the cucumber to get it out. I tried to use a blendy-inny egg that matched the cucumber. Most of the dye came off in the water, though, so only the blue eggs really looked colored. (Back on land, we observed that the pink ones still looked semi-pink, too, but it didn't show well underwater.)
We finished finding all the eggs in perfect timing (the entire dive was an hour), with 4 no-deco minutes left! I had only about 100 psi of air left when we climbed out.
