A Rare Turtle and A Day of Diving at Molokini

Here's a fantastic pic that our own Goofy took at Molokini today. A rare Hawk's Beak Turtle. It's about two and a half feet from head to tail...much smaller than the green sea turtles.

For the last 3 days, Goofy and I have spent almost all our waking hours diving or thinking about diving :)

It's been great!

Monday afternoon, we both completed our Nitrox Certification, and then on Monday evening, we used Nitrox (totally without need, but ya know....) on our night dive.

The night dive was at Ulua Beach (a daytime favorite of Goofy and I - great snorkeling too!). It was totally different at night. Although there were less creatures "out and about", the ones that did show up, were pretty interesting. We saw a yellow head eel - which you don't see during the day much. Vivid yellow head, yellow and black stiped body. We also saw a cool squid. In the beam from our dive lights it was a translucent pink color and more than a bit irritated that we followed it around for a while :)

On Tuesday, we did some buoyancy and navigation dives. We learned to use a compass and natural references to navigate. Very fun, and a good thing to know. We also got some good instruction on how to regulate our buoyancy in the water using our lungs alone - helped a lot in manuevering the very touchy DUI BCD's we have. :) Spent time navigating through hula hoops on a course (without touching anything to the rings)...very fun.

Today, we took a small boat out to Molokini to do some fun diving. On the first dive, we went to 104 feet depth. Interesting that it didn't feel much different at that depth than I feel at 35' or 40'. My wetsuit compressed to the point where I noticed - when ascending - that it was uncompressing (little ridges formed where air started to expand). It was cool...we even did a written test under water and compared it to the time we did the same task on the surface. It's a way to test for nitrogen narcosis. All of us did the test in the same or better time than when we were on the surface.

Grey Reef Shark at Molokini - scarey! The one we saw was about six feet long. Goofy's first reaction? Chase it to get a closer look...lol.

On the second dive, we had a lot more time for sightseeing. We went to the middle reef, and saw (among other things :) a grey reef shark, a BUNCH of fish, AND...can you stand it? TADA! A Hawk's Beak Turtle!!! That's what the pic is of - thanks to Goofy!!! It's a rare species in Hawaii...only one is known to be at Molokini, and there are rumors of a couple of others (although not verified) nearer to the Maui coast.


Here's a Coronet fish. It's about 2' feet long, and really cool. I just hovered over it for about 3 minutes, and it just stayed put. Me looking down at it, it looking up at me. The only reason I left was because I was being left behind in the dive :)

At the end of all of this excitement, Goofy and Magic got their Advanced Open Water Certification! Much fanfare! Can you hear the trumpets?

Tomorrow we are off for some sightseeing and photo ops...and probably some reef where we can do some serious snorkeling with Sis.

Until later...Aloha from the beach at Ka'anapali Maui!

D. T. Fleming Beach

This morning we spent our time at D. T. Fleming beach. It's a fantastic beach on the northwest side of Maui. D. T. Fleming was named "2006 Best Beach in America", and it's obvious why. The beach is beautiful, the snorkeling and swimming are awesome, and there is plenty of room to find a nice place in in the sand to lie around and people watch. Goofy took a few pictures, and I'll post them later on. It got pretty windy as 1pm approached, so it was time to pack up and go back to the resort for some quality pool time. Hey, it's a hard life, but someone has to live it, right? More later!

Here's a stock photo of the beach to give an idea...

The view from our room

One more quick pic...the view from our oceanfront suite...Kaanapali Beach, Maui.

This particular pic is through the living room sliders, but it looks about the same from the sliders in the bedroom :)

Aloha!

By the way...if you click on any of the pictures in the blog, they will often get bigger so you can see them better. Cheers!

A morning at the pool

Hello, dear ones...

Well...we've arrived at our resort in Maui at last! Got a lovely full size SUV and will be having many great adventures...

We've spent the morning today at the pool...it's a beautiful pool, and we've had a lovely morning.

I'll write more later...gotta get some heavy shopping in before dinner. - possibly at the hula grill in Kaanapali :)


Aloha!

Don't hate us because we are travellers

Well...

We are off to do some more diving over the coming holiday week.

Going to the "usual" spot, except we are staying at in a resort up north this time...hopefully, sis will be less bored while goofy and i go do the diving thing. :)

I'll be posting more then about the adventures we have...

Until then, take care and be good!

Cheers!

Magic

Sponge Bob Pictography

A sampling of K's "Sponge Bob" series. Note the use of light, dark, flash...the first image is depicting the fleeting moment between talking and whistling; the second, the "star" within the Star; and the third; well...it is just as obvious as obvious can be, isn't it?

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brava!

Pigs

K's first photo project was looking for and "capturing" some of the pigs hidden around downtown Seattle.

Since we were downtown last night for the premiere of "Young Frankenstein" (awesome, by the way), we decided it would be a good opportunity to get some pig pics.

Here are her perspectives on three of them...and a long shot of two. :)

K's first pics

Our own K is on the road to becoming a photographer.

Yesterday, she learned how to use a digital camera.

The hard part for me was trying to "help" her decide what to take pictures of. I finally told myself, that they are her pictures, her "eye", and she could take as many pictures of sponge bob on the plasma as she saw fit. (It was hard for me though :).

When left to her own, without any help from Mom or aunties, she has a very interesting perspective. Good eye...arty even. I especially love the hands photo (included here). I didn't see her take the pic, don't even know where/what it is for sure, but I think it's one of my faves.

Here are a couple of her first pics..."Jazz Hands", "Pacific Place Skylight", and "Paramount". Let us know what you think!

Open the podbay door...

It was time to call the septic guy out. Loud banging noises from the timer were what did it finally. Almost incessant clicking, whirring, thumping. We wanted him to check to see if something was wrong with the timer/alarm thingy...

Turns out that we hadn't pumped the tanks in a long time (or perhaps ever), so...

He'd asked that we dig up the tank hatches. We thought that we knew right where they are. And we did...for two of them. Apparently, there are three (when you count the pump tank - who knew?).

When he arrived to check things out, he's like "where's the third hatch?"

I'm like..."uhm...what?"

So, we used a big old iron bar and dug around a bit...didn't find it though.

This is where Chris (Gardener) comes in. He'd dug up the other two hatches, took out the plants, that kinda stuff. So we called him back in and said..."the septic guy says the third hatch should be around here."

So Chris dug...and dug...and probably cursed...and dug some more. Until he found the pump...tank. About 3 feet down it was. Frustrated, hot, tired...he went home (after a beer and a couple of cokes).

Now...goofy starts digging around with the big bar. Certain that the hatch has been found...calling Chris...

Arriving a bit less enthusiastically than before...he dug where the bar was...no hatch there tho. Turns out it was about two feet north of where goofy thought it was.

The good news is we found it. Chris and I actually celebrated...beer and staring at the hatch...won't lose it again, I think, as we are going to install homing beacons this time.

August...already

I spent most of my morning cleaning my car :)

It's actually bliss for me, taking the time to wash, wax, clean, organize (yeah, me :)...seeing the difference before my eyes. Relaxing time to think about everything and nothing as the whims come and go. It's a luxury too, as not often is there time to while away a morning...

Can it be a metaphor?

Is cleaning your car, simply another way of spending time to organize your thoughts? Get things aligned (a bit) again? Make lists, cross things off? Prioritize? Center?

Contemplative, cathartic, satisfying....

All of that, probably...but it's also...cleaning the car, on a hot August morning in the 'burbs of Seattle.