Saturday, March 14, 2009
Okay, I'm all caught up for the week, except for our Puako dive on Wednesday!
Posted at 11:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Fake post written by Dean, trying to copy my anti-linear style while testing out my This. The facts are all true, though.] Hi. I just bought a new stand for my laptop. Cheesecake. Brown with room for the mouse. Honu. Too much mac nut syrup [ed: in Dean's chai, not the cheesecake!]. Sara's place. Nasty weather at Pipe. Scammed Sara but didn't tell Dean not to spill the beans. Laura: "She doesn't know where it is." Dean: "She's never been to the Imari?" Laura: "Aahhhh!" Sara: [LOL]. My This is great. Very ergonomic. Slight angle. Coooool.
Posted at 5:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 1:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Today's Agenda:
- Keauhou Farmers' Market
- KTA
- Keauhou Farmers' Market, part two (buy bag of coffee from Lulo Guy with change from supermarket)
- Mangosteen Video
- Big (pick up tanks for future use)
- Office Max
- Kona Coffee & Tea (chai for Dean)
- Kailua Candy Company (coffee and cheesecake for Laura)
- Check out Pipe near seahorse farm [we went there, but the weather was too nasty to really check it out -- windy rain!]
- (optional:) Hang around at Pine Tree Pools (book/GWC) [rain!]
- Lotus Cafe [too full from cheesecake!]
- Catch up on ALB
(Note: picture is from yesterday at tangelo stand, not today doing any of the above agenda items.)
Posted at 12:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Excellent Farmers' Market day, as always! It was overcast today, and even rained a few drops, but the weather mostly held out. The Tart Lady's stand wasn't there this week, but we got some tasty stuff at the Lotus Cafe's stand, which we have never frequented before. In the market's current setup, the Tart Lady's stand usually forms the closer short end of the long rectangle, and the Lotus Cafe stand is on the far end, where the band used to be. (Now the band is in a new spot, along the left-hand long end, where the Weird Fruit stand is also located.) The Makali'i To Go hot food stand is on the left-hand close end of the rectangle, and the Lulo Guy's stand is along the right-hand leg. Anyway, at the Lotus stand we got:
Posted at 11:12:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
- toasted coconut "gelato" (made from coconut milk) (tasty, but a bit icy-textured)
- Thai summer rolls w/peanut sauce (came with one for each of us, and they were good!!)
- lilikoi juice (Laura: "Lilikoi juice is my official favorite juice!")
Now we massively want to go to the real cafe! It's near our Na Hale o Storage and the Kailua Candy Company. We tried to go there once last year, but it happened to be closed that day.
Oh yeah, and we also want to go to The South Kona Green Market tomorrow! The Lotus guy said a lot of the same vendors go there, but it's more a hang-around market than a shop and leave one. It's in Captain Cook, on the good ol' Mamalohoa Highway. We saw a thing about it at the tangelo stand we stopped at yesterday, too, and I took a picture so I could look it up later. They have late hours: 9 to 2!
Other stuff we got at the market:
- a billion tangelos
- a few papayas
- 10 calamansi!
- 10 lulos!
We also got our usual Makali'i To Go food, but there was no jam this week, so my Real Bagel was not up to snuff. Dean suggested the maverick move of going back to our place and getting our jar of poha jam, bringing it to the market, and using it on a second bagel, which was what we did (our place is only about two minutes from the market), but the second bagel was still kind of a dud since it wasn't as well toasted and I was already full from the first one. Oh well, the Lotus stuff was great! Next week I'll go back to my fish taco at Makali'i. I've had my fill of Real Bagels for now. (Dean's Dean Plan was still classic, though.)
We had our usual good chat with the Lulo Guy, who told us that he learned the lulo ropes as a young Peace Corps volunteer in Columbia. He said my 10 were his biggest lulo sale all day, put together. Apparently lulos aren't too popular (fools!), but I admire how he tries to share the lulo love with people every week. Most people who try them think they're too tart because 1) they're wimps and/or 2) they haven't had them in the proper context (like a Bananalulo!). The Lulo Guy agreed that would be a more enticing lulo introduction, but he can't serve dairy ingredients because of the health code. Oh and he hasn't tried my Bananalulo recipe yet, but he has it on his refrigerator! We also bought a bag of his coffee beans to give the Gs. His coffee won first prize in the Gevalia Kona Coffee Cupping Contest in 2005.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Posted at 4:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Stands! 1) Eddie Aloha (no Eddie, piggy, or tangelos this time, but we got a couple of papayas from another one of the standkeepers, plus I snapped a great picture as we were driving away!), B) Cute little roadside citrus yumminess lockbox table! With tangelos, and good ones!! It was in the shade, so I got some really nice photos there too, including Dean picking out the fruit (I like how his hand is blurry in this one--it's an action shot!) and then paying.
We went to Mi's Italian Bistro for dinner--a new place in Kealakekua on Mamalohoa Highway that we'd never been to before. It was only 4:30, but before very long it started filling up, and before we left every table was occupied. Excellent that it's doing so well! It looks very plain outside, but I'd read that the food is extraordinary. It's a very word-of-mouth kind of restaurant. I had a French press of Kona coffee, but even better was the "Hawaiitalian Soda" made with homemade local grapefruit syrup. I also loved the freshly-baked focaccia, which was cut up into cubes and lightly toasted, with a olive oil dipping sauce. And for dessert we got the famous banana rum flambé with homemade caramel sauce, macadamia nuts, and Tropical Dreams' Tahitian vanilla ice cream, served on top of a slice of banana bread. It sounds kind of huge and overwhelming, but it was actually just the right size and was very Yum! It reminded me of that Havana Banana thing from the place in Key West. We had a great view of the open kitchen from our table, so I got to watch the chef in his tall chef hat preparing the dinners with his two assistants. He even waited on us himself, and was really nice! Mi's was good and we should go back! It is an Italian restaurant, so go when you're in the mood for an Italian entree, made with fresh and local ingredients.
Four Mile (Pine Predictor) = Rough!
Posted at 1:08:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Ke'ei = Rough! (But sunny and beautiful. The ocean was so blue, and we could see all the way across Kealakekua Bay to the Captain Cook monument.)
Honaunau was calm enough, though, and we went in at 3-step. I think there's more gravity at Honaunau!! My tank always feels really heavy there.
Dean forgot to put the batteries back in the camera, so he couldn't take any pictures, but luckily we didn't find any super-cool creatures or anything. We did see the ALOHA sign, though! (There was a sea cucumber with a lot of aloha on it.) And the area where we descended would have been a perfect spot to record a descent video because the wall of coral on the side was great for falling-perspective! Next time...
The viz was really excellent, and although I was a little bored by the lack of little creatures and fish among the coral (they've really seemed to decrease at Honaunau since we first started coming back in February 2002) I realized the terrain there is really pretty if you look at it like an underwater landscape instead of focusing up close. Hills of yellow and peach. I usually pay attention to small up-close details (underwater and above), not the big picture, so it was cool to try a different perspective, and the amazing visibility made it possible to see really far. Dean's into that kind of thing on dives all the time, so he really enjoyed it.
Afterward, there was sun to dry my hair as we degeared in the hui lot! My hair love LOVES sun.
!! Two more weeks in Hawaii! Dean'll be working, but it's still wow. ( = three more Farmers' Markets!)
Posted at 12:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
My papaya rash is almost 100% cured by the neem treatment! However, now I have three bristles from a dried heart urchin stuck in my thumb. They hurt, like little splinters. It was my own fault; I rubbed off all the bristles just to see what it would look like underneath. Heh.
Posted at 11:45:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Posted at 10:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Okay, Old A dive (from Tuesday!). It was a really nice dive. Even though I felt like my tank weighed ten thousand pounds on our first couple of dives, I'm a lot more used to it now (??), and had no problem with the Old A walk. Weird. During the long surface swim out to the deep part, I noticed the water was full of millions of tiny round jellies, filling the blue, so I refocused my eyes and stared at them as we swam along to take my mind off wondering how much farther it was. They looked like transparent peas. Jellies are so fascinating to me.
When we were about to descend, Dean spied a spotted eagle ray from above and went down after it. He got some nice video footage of it gliding along / gracefully flapping its wings. I followed him down a minute later and swam really fast to catch up, then we continued down the rest of the way, to 123 feet. It was neat gradually descending while swimming along, rather than dropping straight down like we usually do. When we reached the bottom, the whales were singing again and they sounded spooky! It was really COOL down in the depths and I accidentally went all the way to 135 feet while exploring. Oops. (The recreational dive limit is supposed to be 130.) I love it deep! 0 minutes no deco time! Time to ascend, but slow. Lots of sputnik urchins down there. Long long whale-ing. Then I started getting COLD.
I always start feeling cold about 30 minutes into a dive (at least on this trip), which is kind of a bummer since our dives usually last about an hour, but it's okay when there's cool stuff to distract me, like ONE OF THOSE FREAKY MAUVE SEA CUCUMBERS!! Dean noticed it hiding among the coral and shined his dive light to show me. It was the same unidentified kind I obsessed over previously on ALB--the one I saw at Honaunau on March 16th last year, and while snorkeling at Tree Beach on November 21, 2005. They are so weird. Reeeeeally long (couldn't see its head, just different pieces of its body through holes in the coral, but it was over two feet long), cool mauvey-violet color, and some parts of its body looked so FAT. Ak! Just imagining what the whole body would look like is thrilling. It was scared of the light and started to withdraw. We could see its body retracting, disappearing around corners. Dean got a few photos of a segment of it this time, despite the fact that it's really dark where it likes to hang out/hide!
We also saw a nice big (2½") divided flatworm while headed back toward shore, and a really big zebra moray, hiding in coral sort of like the weird cuke, where I could see different segments of its body but not its head (usually you can see an eel's head and neck, but no body!). But I could see it a lot easier and see a lot more of it!
The Unimproved Road is improved! (There were even white cars braving it.) Dean blasted through with the Jeep. But it's too windy here, so we're saving the Herb for a better day and blasting back.
Posted at 3:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
...
We're at Iki instead! Our Long Hot Walk Through Endless Fields of Lava wasn't hot at all because of the WIND, but Dean found a special spot for us to hang out where the "low pressure area provided by the Bernoulli effect around the airfoil-shaped low bushy tree" makes the wind drop off to almost nothing the minute you step around the corner, and it even was quiet enough for me to make my special 70th Birthday Phonecall. It's actually hot here, because it's sunny!! Bring back the clouds! We want clouds! (In fact, there are some easing in.)
Luke told us the surges are supposed to calm down dramatically Sunday-Monday and suggested we take advantage and try diving Pipe Dreams if it looks calm enough. It's at the huge pipe near the seahorse farm, a spot we admired last year but thought looked impossible. According to Luke, it's a rare occasion when it's flat enough to be safe but Sunday or Monday just might be the day.
[Edit: Beautiful colors today! I took these at Ke-Awa-Iki: 1) Dean as we walked on the long lava trail to get there, B) the view of Mauna Kea from the close end of the beach (you can see the snow on top!), and 3) the view of Kohala from the same spot. It's so cool to be able to see multiple mountains/volcanos so clearly at the same time. The vog this year is definitely much improved.]
We also had fun lying low together out on the flat lava, until the waves started encroaching too far on our spot, so we began the Long Walk Back.
Posted at 10:28:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
We were all out of breakfast food (other than way too many ripe papayas), so we went to the Aloha Angel for breakfast! Greek three-egg scramble with avocado for Dean, and Fresh Catch Sandwich for me. The waiters kept saying how great walu is and that it's the most prized fish in the islands, etc. It WAS amazing. Shad-like. Extremely tender, tasty, and succulent.
I'm still not sure which Fresh Fish Sandwich wins. Dano's is more inhalable with the simple grilled bun, and it has the special Dano's sauce. But, Aloha's is a superior sandwich overall. BTW, the Aloha Angel Cafe doesn't seem to be called the Aloha Angel anymore. Now it's just the Aloha Cafe, and they got rid of the bront-bra-bront trumpet-blowing angel symbols marking the vegetarian items, but other than that the menu is the same.
Also, I've been meaning to mention: even though Lava 105.3 has a lot more variety this year, instead of repeating the same 25 songs over and over, I actually like it less. They keep playing more modern songs that I don't enjoy at all (it's supposed to be an oldies station, but the definition of oldie sure is shifting), so I've been switching to other stations a lot. I have two Hawaiian music ones programmed in as backups.
I was really tired last night, so now I'm two days behind again! But we're planning to slack on the diving today, so hopefully I can catch up.
Oh, and here's a picture from Monday, of me in front of Judy's roadside fruit stand. (I'm all cold and wet from our Miloli'i dive!) Most lockbox fruit stands are just a single table, not a long stretchy setup like this exceptionally big one.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
As Hawi Turns is the king of hats and Thai outfits! Persimmon is still further downhill, though. I only bought one card and it was a repeat of the birthday card I got last year. This time I'm going to use it on the originally intended recipient. Dean got a cool hat at As Hawi Turns. It has a lot of character, like him. I got a 50% off polka-dotted dress that's super comfortable, and wore it immediately, to Dara's!
Posted at 4:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The Kope/Tropical Dreams ice cream place actually had a different brand of coffee as their Kona brew this time. Every other time I've been there it's been Cornwell. This time it was Organic Kona Rainforest, and it was excellent. We also got two scoops of ice cream each this time (one each was mac nut, of course). I told Dean to try Tahitian vanilla because last time I asked the store lady which were the best flavors and she said t.v. and mac nut. I got coffee ice cream as my second flav, and it was serviceable but the Tahitian was amazing. Almost as good as mac nut. I was really jealous of Dean, but he made up for last time by being super generous with his Tahitian vanilla and feeding me tons of it!
It's 82° today, vs. 72° previously.
We snailed at the Shops at Mauni Lani (here I am in my just-bought dress) to kill time before Dara's, and I found another great hat for Dean and a beautiful 25% off silk tropical shirt for him, too. (It looks really good on him, is insanely soft, and I am crazy about it!) The whole reason we went in that shop in the first place was to buy a second uni dish for me so I can have one here and one at home, but it had the best Dean items!
Amazing deals here--so much really nice stuff is significantly marked down, and there's no one in the shops. Sad for the economy, but it's still pretty nice! :-/ Dara's Pt. 2 was really good, although Mr. Dara wasn't there.
Will post about Puako dive soon!
We got some papayas at the fruit stand near Kohala Divers, and a guy was grilling up huli chicken in a big trailer (the flat open kind), raking the coals and billowing smoke. It smelled so good, and I'm not even a chicken fan. I want to EAT it. I couldn't see the actual chicken but I could vividly picture what it might look like.
Posted at 3:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 10:30:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
10:30 - Wow! Look how clear it is! Actual, real sun! Not just a ten minute hole in the clouds--a genuine sunny day!
11:30 - Approaching Puako! It's actually not windy up here today! Cute! My fav road ever. (Ugh, it's so downhill! Tons of huge new mansions overshadowing the cute bungalows!)
11:50 - !!! There's an old blue VW van parked next to our Jeep, with people having sex in it. Not that we can see them, but it's rocking/bouncing just like in a movie!
Ideal Puako conditions today. Still, sunny, not too rough. Turquoise blue and beautiful.
2:35 - That was the best Puako dive I can remember! + ♥sun♥!! Now my hair's red.
[Edit: We took our traditional Puako Portraits before the dive, all suited up in our gear. Here's me in my dive outfit--front view and side view--and Dean in his (side view only because he was frowning too much in the front view one and looked bummed, even though he wasn't!) (also, the horizon is really crooked in this photo because my skills with the underwater camera are on the low end.) A fellow diver saw us taking the pictures and offered to take one of us together, so here's both of us in our matching suits. (We have the same wetsuits and reg/octopus setups, but different BCs, fins, masks, and gloves. And I have a cute little cap, whereas Dean has a hood built into his vest. Dean doesn't have his hood up in these photos; his real getup is scarier!) And here's the spot where we go in.]
Yay for Old A! Will post about Old A dive tomorrow (I hope). Dean (BID Dean, not Dean Dean) told us Four Mile was closed down today because of the surge, and Josh said Crescent kicked his tail this morning. But Old A was fine and we had a great dive! Found out from Sara that she's 1/2 Japanese, 1/4 Chinese, and 1/4 Hawaiian. That's cool.
Posted at 12:08:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I keep getting compliments on my t-shirts (and today on my Roxy beater) every time I go to Big, but I bought them all here (except my Milo in Maine shirt)!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tomorrow's Plan
Posted at 8:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean - get up early for phone conference
Laura - hair wash
Breakfast
Drive to Puako and see if it's diveable (Sug or unknown alt as backup)
Hawi, including Persimmon (BEFORE 5:00), Kope/Tropical Dreams ice cream place, Mother's (Dean), As Hawi Turns (Laura)
Dara's part two
Foodland - Neuhaus dark wild strawberry Belgian chocolate
For supper we had 1) one taco each from Taco Del Mar, next to Kona Mountain Coffee (I only need three more punches on my KMC Club Card to get my free cup!). Declaration from Dean: "I officially like Taco Del Mar better than Killer." (!!)
Posted at 7:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
2) Fractal food. (Another Romanesco! It was good! We like Romanesco!) (Here's my photo of our first Romanesco, which I didn't post at the time because I wasn't in picture-editing mode yet.)
3) A couscous salad thing I got at Island Naturals this morning (along with neem soap!) after my student massage. (Which was really good! I made an appointment for next week with the same girl.)
4) Aunt Sarah Cucumbers, but island style. I made them out of locally grown organic Japanese cucumbers, blendered-up bilimbi (instead of vinegar, although I did add a dash of real apple cider vinegar because I found some in the cupboard, even though Aunt Sarah cucumbers use white vinegar), sea salt, and Ohia Lehua honey (I don't have any sugar). It was good! I thought Dean would try one piece, wrinkle up his nose and dis it, but he kept sticking his head in the way when I was trying to eat it, so I had to put the forkfuls into his mouth instead! Usually I put dill in ASCs, but I didn't have any and that wouldn't be island style, anyway.
5) Oh yeah and before that stuff, we slurped down one tangelo each. Maybe I'll make a bananalulo later. [Edit: I did, and they were good! We're addicted to bananalulos! But I only have two lulos left now!] It's cool having a blender! I don't have one at home.
Promised Foods:
Dean - Taco Del Mar taco salad
Laura - Kailua Candy Company cheesecake (flavor of choice!) (edit: the one on the right in the second photo!!)
Tante's! Fresh Fish Sandwich. From the menu: "Fresh fish grilled and basted with garlic butter, served on sesame seed bun with caper tartar sauce." "Our own Capt. Dano brings his freshly caught fish right from his boat to Your plate."
Posted at 1:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
They even had a Garden Burger for Dean! Nice location, right on the water and huge Banyan Court Mall tree. Today's Fresh Fish is ahi, not ono. (I think Dano's sandwich had ono every time I got it.)
No more curly fries (listed on menu, but not available). :-(
It was good, and I wolfed it down (Chuck pronunciation of wolf). Not quite as good as a classic Dano's, but almost. The tartar sauce looked different, but was still good. Having to go to an actual restaurant isn't as convenient as the old International Marketplace stand, though. Didn't see Dano. Also didn't notice much Filipino food on the menu, even though they were voted best Filipino restaurant! The restaurant seemed to be very popular with blues.
I think my theory last year about being allergic to papaya is true, because yesterday I got a rash on the inside of my forearms and on my shins. At first I blamed it on diving, but I've been using this lotion that comes with our place, so I wondered if it had anything to do with that, even though I've been using it for several days and it felt really nice at first. I looked at the label and one of the first ingredients is papaya, so as an experiment before bed I took a bath then put it on my right arm and leg and nothing on the left ones, and in the morning the rash on the right side looked worse and the left side looked somewhat improved. Hmmmmmm. Good thing I got neem at Island Naturals! It's a lot like a cat rash, so hopefully I can cure it with neem. I'm going to try to get some neem soap today, too.
Posted at 9:16:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Since I think I'm sensitive to papaya, I didn't have one to eat this morning. Instead I had an apple-banana and a starfruit, and tried the Otaheite gooseberry (star gooseberry) and the bilimbi (little light green cucumber-shaped starfruit relative).
Otaheite gooseberry: Uuck. It's really sour and astringent with the texture of a waterchestnut! (You're supposed to make jelly and stuff out of these, not eat them straight.)
Bilimbi: Wow. It tastes like vinegar. Juicy, slurpy vinegar. With a slight fruity background. It isn't harsh on the throat like swallowing vinegar. It seems like it would be really tasty in a vinegar application! That's what the Stand Guy said chefs use it for.
After my massage school massage, we're going to Tante's for lunch! That's where Dano moved, but I bet it won't be as good as the old Dano's stand.
uni dish = love love love
Posted at 12:20:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
tangelos = love love love
bananalulo = love love love
For both of us, on the second two.
I also tried the green sapote because it was hard when I bought it Saturday but very ripe today (soft and squishy when squeezed). The inside was dark orange, smooth and creamy, spoonable. Sweet and pretty tasty although I wouldn't want to eat the whole thing.
(Dean bought me the uni dish Sunday on the way to Pahu I'a. I'm going to use it in my bathroom at home, and I'm trying it out here!)
Monday, March 09, 2009
We're watching a Modern Marvels show on ice cream and it says in Japan they have shrimp, snake, wasabi, eel and ox tongue ice creams! Wow. But honestly, even as a weird foods fan, none of those sound very appetizing as ice cream. I mean, I could be wrong, but eel ice cream?? Meat/fish ice cream in general seems like a bad idea.
Posted at 7:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean's doing a big price escalation calculation comparison. Since 2002, Pahu I'a, Royal Thai and O's have all increased about 20%. (O's is based on last year since they're gone now. :-( The actual US inflation rates (based on data from the Consumer Price Index) during this time period has been 22% (2.9% per year). Dean's calculation for the restaurants was that their prices escalated between 2.5 and 3%. So in summary, even though it seems like Pahu's prices have gone up a lot, in reality their escalation is the same as other restaurants on a percentage basis and is roughly the same as the US inflation rate.
Posted at 6:58:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
(Ha! For the same period, Connecticut restaurants (ION, OG, Novaki's, etc.) increased by the same amount.)
Royal Thai waiter: "Welcome back!" (Wow, he remembered us!)
Posted at 5:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
"How hot? Scale of 1 to 4. 5 is Thai Hot." (I guess that's not even an option for a non-Thai.)
Corona with lemon. (No lime. They don't have lime at the Royal Thai Cafe!)
To Dean: "Make sure your beer is full." (Re: hotness of meal?)
Royal Thai was as good as ever!
That was a wonderful dive site, but I'm a tired tigershark now. Not sure why. It's the good sort of tired. Worn out. But it didn't seem like a very hard dive. There was some current, but otherwise ??.
On the drive back, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand (Judy's) with a lockbox, and I got an unidentified fruit. It smells like a peach, but it's small and pointy. Maybe it's just a peach, maybe not. Do they even grow peaches in Hawaii? We also got sugar snap peas and papayas. She had more regular vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, onions, etc.) in addition to the tropical fruit, since it was at a cooler elevation.
We tried twice to stop and see Beth at the South Kona Fruit Stand (way there and way back) but she was never there.
Oh, and TRAGEDY! Dean's wolverine finally bit the dust. He's in denial and keeps wearing it anyway, even though there are shark fin-like vents in the back now.
Note to Selves: Don't drive south on Mamalohoa Highway during choke time (4-6 PM). (We were going north.)
Also: I got an actual phone call, in the car on the way to our dive! It was so weird, I didn't know what to do. Dean had to tell me to answer it. No one ever calls me! (It was the Aloha Massage School lady, confirming my appointment tomorrow.)
Posted at 3:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
That was a great dive! But it's overcast again.
Dive notes:
- Green linckia with four arms! (One's a stump, growing back!) A little bit velvety.
- Lots of fish, including tiny ones.
- Big bulgy-eyed flounder. Dean didn't see it at first even though I was pointing right at it and he was a couple of feet away from it. Good camouflage job!
- A couple feet away from that, a crown-of-thorns I didn't see because I was looking at the flounder! When I picked it up (beautiful view of its flower-like stomach!), it didn't want to let go of my hand and I had a devil of a time getting free. Then when I set it down, it got washed into a large black urchin. Echinoderm fight! Not really, but they did grapple tube feet and spines a little.
- Brighter viz and feels less cold.
- Lots of coral.
- Petted a really pretty black-and-white banded urchin in tribute to the banded urchin that stung me at Ho'okena, thus making me part echinoderm and able to make friends with all fellow echinoderms. :-) It didn't sting me. (I was careful.)
- Big FILEfish in cool sneaky cavey area. :-)
- Nice little round snoozing cave that Dean loved! (With a window!)
- Fun riding the current in.
- While Dean went to the surface to confirm the direction back to the pier, I made friends with a beautiful white collector urchin. Love LOVE.
Wow! We're going to a totally new place. Dean thought it was the same as that "local" place where I got stung by the banded urchin, but I found my entry (2003) in my Palma, and that was Ho'okena and this is Miloli'i! We've never been here before.
Posted at 12:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
First we tried Pebble, but I thought it looked too rough, and Dean thought it might be stirred up underwater, so we're adventuring. We pulled into the Honaunau post office parking lot and looked up shorediving.com on my Palma for an idea.
Lots of lava flows around here.
...
Dean: "Now this is what I'd call rough."
Heh. This spot would be good for surfing...
...
Retraction! The area near the pier is Sug-like, with a Giant Stride entry, little rig-ly PVC pipe ladder (Sug has a real ladder) and everything. The water here is smooth. We're gonna do it!
Sun!!! It's sunny!
Posted at 9:00:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
It's nice and still at Pahu tonight. The palms aren't moving at all. Nice soft sky, pleasant for the eyes. Wet, but only dripping. We saw the torch runner dude lighting the tiki torches and blowing a shell horn to welcome the sunset.
Posted at 6:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It's not very crowded tonight (no inside people). The ocean's so pretty, waves rolling. Dean had his fav beet salad (but they added lettuce, so it wasn't quite as good!) and I tried the heirloom tomatoes with avocado & kukui nut. The avocado was really good, but the tomatoes can't compete with a summer garden tomato in Connecticut! I'm getting miso black cod with ume & shiso for my main dish, and Dean ordered pumpkin ravioli.
Mm, my dish has snow peas with crunchy sea salt. The black cod is delectable.
Ooo... the sour plum & shiso sauce is delicious, but you can't really taste it on the cod, so I had to lick it up straight on my finger. :-)
Okay, vanilla bean crème brulée contest vs. Cafe Routier! Pahu's comes with a mini cinnamon malasada, coffee creamy stuff, and roasted macadamia nuts, but this will be a direct brulée-to-brulée comparison. (I predict Pahu I'a will lose. How can you beat Routier?) Thanks to Dean for allowing this contest to occur (he hates brulée!) (but not crème). (He gave up a Pahu soufflé for this!)
?! It looks nothing like a c.b. Very high crème to brulée ratio. Tons of vanilla beans (glass dish, so you can see them all).
Mmm! The baby malasada was so good! I want a big one from Daylight Donuts!
Dean: "It was the best crème brulée ever, because it's a non-traditional crème brulée. It's a maverick crème brulée. We have a new winner in the crème brulée competition."
Dean even liked the brulée part! Waaah! It was good. The brulée was very thin and didn't need smashing, nor did it stick to your teeth. It's soft and sort of crumbly like brown sugar, and had a layer of toasted macadamia nuts laying on top that sort of joined in with it (but not like a brittle... more like a crumb topping!). Not at all skating-pond like. The crème was super deep (about 3") and creamy (soft) with insane amounts of black vanilla bean specks which you could see through the clear glass dish.
I don't know if this counts!!! So non-traditional. But it was good. We kept saying "mmm!" nonstop.
I don't think I can declare a winner.
P.S. I wore my pashmina (gift from Sara) and I liked it! Good concept.
P.P.S. Despite the incredible miso cod and crème brulée, we think Pahu I'a is slipping a little bit. We've discussed this before. The prices keep getting higher, while the quality very subtly declines. Not that it isn't still the nicest restaurant with the best atmosphere, but we have noticed that overall it's not quite as wonderful as it was when we first started coming.
It's cool and rainy again today (shorts/skirt + sweater/beater weather) and we're hanging around relaxing. Lazy Sunday. It feels kind of naughty not to be diving or driving around somewhere, but it's nice! I made a Kona Mountain coffee using the AeroPress contraption Dean made me get at Kona Mountain, and it was so good that Dean wanted one too, so we made one for him! (!! Since Dean never drinks coffee.) His has a bonus of coconut rum and two packets of sugar, but it's remarkably restrained on the sweetness level, for him. The AeroPress is really cool.
Posted at 3:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Right now we're drinking our coffee on the balcony, and it feels like early morning because it's so dim and humid and still. From where I'm sitting, I can see the clouds hanging low over the Lulo Guy's town, obscuring the tops of the trees. In the other direction, I can stand with my cup resting on the railing, gazing out over the ocean. The ocean and sky are almost the same color today, soft pale bluegray. The palms between here and the ocean are completely motionless in the heavy air. It's raining lightly, but we're not getting wet under the big roof overhang. The rain sounds nice and gentle and relaxing.
When we were out at Peaberry & Gazelle earlier (I had a cream cheese, smoked salmon & capers crêpe, which felt breakfasty, even though it was past lunchtime), it was raining a little harder but it's a warm, calm rain and it feels fine to get a little wet. It's not blustery like in New England. You know what else is cool here? You don't have to let the water run to warm it up enough to wash your hands. It comes out room temperature, not cold.
My very favorite thing about Hawaii is the air, and I notice it immediately. It feels so good on your skin. It's the perfect humidity, so your skin feels soft and happy, not dry like at home. But it's not unpleasantly humid either, like Maryland in summer, or Florida or somewhere like that. It's just nice. Comfortable. My skin and hair are crazy about Hawaii.
Posted at 10:25:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
We tried the calamonsie on papaya and it was really good!! It's a huge tease that I only bought one. I hope the Mangosteen Stand guy has more next Saturday. It's sour like a lime (you wouldn't want to eat it straight) but has a totally different taste, sort of like a kumquat but yummier and juicier. It goes really well with papaya, like how lime does. They are both good combos, depending on which your tongue is in the mood for.
Also, Poha jam is the best jam ever!!!! It's quince-level good. We opened our jar and had some on our Orwell muffins.
P.S. I like eating the calamonsie after it's all squeezed! The peel is sweet and edible and the inside scraps are yummy!
