Wrap up

So.. very.. hot.. Apparently the tradwinds shifted to come from the south so the temperature stayed the same but the humidity jumped to around 80% the day we went to the bishop museum. Most of the museum wasn't airconditioned but the planterium was. we spent a lot of time in the planetarium. The museum did have some interesting things but I was disappointed not to see the actual tiki statue that is the model for a fair amount of the little tikis you see in all of the shops. It had a head of human hair and a giant pearl eye. It was said that a priestess of said god could summon the god and have them send a bird out to kill anyone of their choosing. That's a badass tiki. The rest of the day was mostly gift shopping and random puttering around. saw a couple of little shows and tried to make the best of the day but having Hanauma bay yanked out from under us didn't make things go the smoothest. But then there was wednesday.

We finally got to go to Hanauma bay, woke up at 6 and got breakfast to go so we were at the bay by 8:00. The parking lot ended up closing at 8:15 so we got there just in time. It is vastly different than I remember it. Long ago you could bring a bag of frozen peas and trudge down to go snorkeling casting peas about to attract the fish. Not so anymore. There's a manditory orientation video and admittance to the park is strictly controlled. The reason it was closed on tuesday was to give the park its weekly day of rest to regrow. It's a hassle but completely worth it. The fish are back and more abundant, there is actually coral, and the slight bother keeps most of the really sloppy tourists away. We ended up snorkling in the inner reef for about 2 hours, took a little break, then had some fun.

Hanauma bay has several breakwaters. there's the inner reef where almost all of the snorkelers stay and then the outer reef where most of the divers go. Braving chest scraping coral (we found out later there's a channel cut through the reef) we got into the outer area where the water drops off to about 30 feet and it was just incredible. While the fish were perhaps less abundant - at least less evenly distributed - we saw entire schools of black and yellow striped angel fish munching on algea, some clorinet fish, sadly no sea turtles but enough parrot fish to make up for it. Not content with mearly ripping open my ankle while surfing I decided I needed to stretch an ear drum and did a little skin diving to the bottom of the reef.

For those not schooled in diving depths, every 30 feet or so (about 10 meters) the pressure of the water increases one atmosphere - basically adding about 14 pounds per square inch crushing every surface of your body. When you dive with a tank you can equialize the pressure in your body - in your ears for example - because you have preasurized air to draw on. Not so much when just holding your breath. So a quick furious dive down, blinding pain, a snatch at an old shell and I shot back to the surface. I've got the old shell. I made sure it was 1) dead, 2) isolated and 3) clean of algea so there was no impact on the reef. The rest of the day I spent walking around with everything sounding like I still had water in my ears. It was so cool :).

We finished off our last night in waikiki with a successful purchase for me and a hula show. The show was actually a hula schools first public performance and they were quite good. The instructors nephew was the only boy in the group but in addition to learning to wave his arms and wiggle his hips he'd apparently learned how to mac on the ladies since all of the little girls kept smiling at him. For myself, I finally found my own tiki. I wanted something original and hand carved and we finally managed to find an artist in the "international market". It's actually two. Mo'hau and Ei'hai I've decided to name them. And for those who would mock the names, beware - I learned how tikis are summoned as well. And you thought one bird would mess you up...

On a closing note that's only slightly related but still fun. I've apparently still got "it". Though admittedly sometimes it would be handy to be able to turn "it" off. Like when the female store clerk who playfully pats you on the ass is older than your grandmother. *shudder*.