A day of lots of ups and one down

This is what we woke up to this morning. I wish the picture really caught the colors. A couple turtles poked their heads up as swam by having breakfast.

Next it was off to Whalers Village for the Blue`aina beach clean up and reef clean up. When we got there there was only a couple people there and we set out down the beach both directions. I can't tell you how many cigarette butts I picked up. Not to mention straws, bottle caps and bunch of other things some even unmentionables in the sand and foliage. It was an interesting study in human behavior watching the reactions of others while cleaning. One beach girl was watching me from her rental booth and said, "Oh are you cleaning up the beach? (Big bag of DUH!) She did bend down and grab a cigarette butt and put it in my bag. Then a Beach boy from the Westin came over to grab a couple of lounges when I was cleaning behind them and he saw I had a couple pieces of aluminum tubing from broken lounges that were just thrown into plants. He got a frown on his face and said, "Sorry brah". With any luck that may not happen anymore at least with him. The other interesting thing was we were the only mainlanders on the boat and when we got back from the beach clean up the boat was full and many were multiple return guests. Where were they for the clean up? Things that make you go Hummmmm? They managed to get into the group picture with the garbage when I was still out cleaning. $25 snorkel cruise and a lunch made by Hula Grill.

We went to Mala wharf for the clean up. Karen and I started working our way towards the beach into the shallower water but the vis dropped to zilch and we got out of there. It was weird too that the cloudy area was probably 5+ degrees warmer and you could feel instantly. The only glitch in the whole day was I had given Karen my camera since she can't dive too deep and somewhere my wide angle lens fell off my camera with the adapter. $140 gone. Can't let it ruin the trip but the fish pics won't be as good as I like and no over/under shots I really wanted to take. :-(

I ended up bring up several pieces of fishing line, one with a lure still on it, a beer bottle and a large sheet of some kind of synthetic fabric floating under the wharf. I also grabbed a piece metal from this gal that weighed about 25lbs. I have no idea how she got it all the way she did. She wasn't as big as a minute but she was not going to drop it. But she wasn't going to make it to the boat either. The piece was big enough to take me under unless I kept kicking up as I went back to the boat with it. She was a trooper all right. My wife said she was breathing pretty hard after I took it from her and I can believe it.

The charity this trip was for was a canoe society, I can't remember the Hawaiian name, but they are building an ocean going canoe the sail around the world in 2014 and navigate like the Polynesians did when they came to Hawai`i. The gentleman in the red shirt on the bow in that one shot, Uncle Kimokeo, was from there and told us about it. Quite an amazing group who's main push is to get the keiki's and all Hawaiian's back in touch with their heritage as well as the land and the sea. It was very moving the talk he put on as well as the Hawaiian chants he did.

Then we headed to Kahekili around 1:00 and said hello to some friends. There was some chop so the water wasn't super clear. There wasn't a whole bunch of activity but it was still great. We saw the turtles two of which I would say easily weighed 300+ lbs. They were BIG! That one resting under the ledge, her head was literally the size of a honeydew melon. Saw lots or the regulars. That eel was very photogenic, ie: he put up with me diving down and taking his picture and didn't come out and give me an eel kiss. That pic was from less than a foot away on macro. The nice part of the snorkel I didn't see anyone I needed to educate on reef etiquette. Not sure where the car will take us tomorrow but I will be sure to share.

 Now this the way to end a great day. Didn't see the green flash but oh well. Aloha until tomorrow.