Monday 7/21/05 - Thursday 7/28/05

Today was an amazing day snorkeling.  I went to Ke'e beach; since the sea was a bit rough at Tunnels.  I took Todd's Hawaiian sling (it's his son's who went back home and leant it to me).  For those of you who don't know what this is you need to really get a life and watch Survivor (Season One Repeat currently on OLN Network every night if you are interested)!  It is a long spear with an elastic loop at one end and a 3-pointed gig on the other. You catch the loop in your thumb and pull the spear back. When you let go, the spear shoots forward, hopefully into a fish. I have practiced with it on two other occasions but today I was in the huntress mode!  I was determined I was going to bag at least one fish for dinner.  My goal was hopefully to catch a Papio.  This fish is great because it has a large backbone for easy filleting.  Todd has me hooked as he catches them all the time when he fishes on the cliffs.  I swam out and immediately made my first hit.  Unfortunately the fish didn't know it and swam off.  Hate that when it happens; shark snack.  The second (half an hour later at least) was a bit trickier.  I saw a huge parrot fish.  mmm, mmm, mmm.  These are purported to be quite tasty and definitely prized I've been told by a guy Ralph and I ran into the last trip I made with the sling (I had given up and he played with it for awhile after some helpful spearing tips) and an article I found on the internet.  I had this parrot fish totally cornered when he swam into an opening in the coral.  I came up for a look around (just checking that I'm not out to sea) and thought to myself "I'm the huntress here and I'm going to stalk this sucker".  So, I hung around waiting for him to come out....... he never did.  So, after swimming around for another 30 minutes I finally got out.  Can you believe this.... I wrote a story about NOT catching a dang thing.  Must be a backwards fish story.

Really though the best part of the day was as I was starting over the reef to the beach I saw two HUGE Green Sea Turtles.  These creatures are just amazing.  They just float in the current chomping on the coral (actually the growth on the coral).  I see them often but this place has, by far, the largest.  This is Hal & Karen's favorite beach for snorkeling.  As I was leaving the area of the turtles all of a sudden I was surrounded by little blue fish for as far as I could see.  They were bright blue, long and thin.  They just turned and flashed with a kind of silver flick as they turned about.  It was like being in heaven with them all around.  I was in a cutout of the coral so it was a little deep and very comfortable to swim around in.  I was so tired from my BIG Hunt that I finally left the little fish and slowly made my way to the beach.  To exit the back part of the coral you have to just kind of float along, atop the coral reef, with the current as the water is very shallow until you get near the beach.  The whole hunting thing was exhausting but well worth it; even if I had to eat chicken for dinner.  Maybe next time.  Aloha