OT-Kona, Hawaii

[boo]

Finally have a few minutes....so posting the Kona pictures I couldn't during the race....that is still just so surreal, being in Hawaii instead of at Irod! My brain was in a different place than my body...
The four of us at the Hilton up in Waikoloa

Hot lava....if you ever get the chance, do this at night!!!

We took sea kayaks across the bay to Capt. Cook's monument (where they beheaded him, BTW)


Mike and I snorkeling at Captain Cooks


Dale and Mike (in yellow) at Place of Refuge dive

One of MANY fabulous EELS we saw everywhere we dove/snorkeled!! I LOVE EELS!!!! This one was at Place of Refuge

[MotorWerk]

That looks like a moray. It can take your finger off.

[tanglefoot]

sorry boo, i dont like eels, scary critters! there are some huge conger eels living in the reef we surf here sometimes, and i can tell you when you walk out and feel something slither away under your feet or under your hand as you paddle out, even a big brave surfer gets a bitt nervy! ive seen fishermen pull out huge mean ones and cut the lines to drop them back in to avoid touching one....ekkk!

[Sady]

That looks like a wonderful trip, Boo. That eel does look like it means business! The lava at night excursion must have been terrific!

[dilli]

Beautiful photo of a moray, Boo! I bet it was almost a spiritual experience watching lava extrude from the bowels of Mother Earth too. Makes an insignificant human remember and respect what an incredibly powerful force and living breathing entity this planet is ..

Eels. *Shudder*
When I was very young (many moons ago ), my family spent many summers in a rental house which was built on a pier next to the Edgartown Yacht Club in Martha's Vineyard. We used to dive off the pier to go swimming in the harbor. There was a long wood ladder at the end of the pier to climb back onto the pier when finished swimming. My older brother loved to torment us younger kids by releasing hundreds of crabs caught in baited traps onto the ladder stairs after we dove off the end of the pier into the water, so we would be forced to stumble through the thick seaweed mats and eel grass to get out of the water ... feeling hundreds of startled eels brushing against our legs while my brother pelted us with gobs of jellyfish. To this day, eels still creep me out and I studiously avoid wading thru eel grass.

In later years, we'd spend summers on my parent's remote property on a small island off the NE coast of Honduras (no roads, electricity, etc). The reefs were fabulous/ spellbinding in beauty .. snorkling/scuba diving/spearfishing were a daily event. I remember how tricky it used to be safely removing and releasing moray, conger and electric eels that were caught in the bait traps.

Will spare you my many scary shark encounter stories. LOL.
Thanks for spurring this trip down memory lane, Boo.

[boo]

Dilli, your post sparked a couple of comments.....it was surreal at the lava.....by all counts there were over 10,000 people out there in the dark with flashlights or headlamps (fewer of those, but of course I'm partial to headlamps) and it was SO quiet, so reverent. The blessing had been earlier in the day, but a large group of Hawaiian women were singing traditional songs a capella at the leading edge of one area.....the active edge was probably at least a mile long. It was like an open-air church service. I'm so glad we went, even tho it was an incredibly lllooooonnnnngggg day. So cool....or hot, as it were. That is a most unique smell, the 'breath of the planet' as new land was being laid down. A few weeks later the crater up top blew and huge chunks hit the Volcano House (which was closed when we were there and was STILL closed, fortunately.)

We've gone night-diving with Manta Rays with this same couple....and our 5 boys (theirs were 20, 17, and 15 and ours were 15 and 13, I think) were snorkeling above us with little glow-sticks on their snorkels. We weren't allowed snorkels to protect the rays as they pass right over your masks and could get cut by extra equipment. Fastest tank I ever used....or at least it seemed fast, altho we were down over 40 minutes. It was so amazing. Mesmerizing......

Our travels seem to have an unintentional 'island' theme.....starting with Hawaii and the Big Island in particular.....Venice in Italy, Mackinac Island in Michigan, Victoria Island in BC, Mont St. Michel in France, Catalina Island off Los Angeles this time last year (before the big fire by a couple of weeks).....an island off of Honduras sounds right up our alley! We come home as lily-white as when we left, we spend so much time in the water! Some people dream that they can fly....I dream I can run really fast.....and breathe underwater!

BTW, hopefully someone in his life tormented your older brother to the same extent!!! I have an irrational phobia of all 8-leggers......because the neighbor kid would pick me up and throw me in the irrigation ditch on top of garden spiders who had spanned the ditch with enormous webs. He was like in high school and I
was in elementary. PERVERT!!! It has given me a phobia I didn't have before, because I have seen home movies of me 'petting' jumping spiders in my hands and playing with any and every insect I could find from the time I was a baby. I know it is probably part of growing up and everyone has a story like it, but it still makes me mad. Maybe it is just the fact of a human changing the odds and not allowing us to deal with nature as it comes......