Tako Poke

Tags

deep sea creatures, Fish, Hawaii, hawaii kai, He'e, Honolulu Marathon, local grocery store, Oahu, Octopus, Pacific Ocean, scuba diving, seafood section, Tako, tako poke

Octopus (or Tako) or He'e). Photo taken in 1980)

When Ms. Mar said she was going to tell me a story about making taco, my mouth started watering. I’m always ready for a good beef, chicken or fish taco. But then she said, “no, not taco . . . tako.” What the heck is tako? Well, I was about to find out.

Scuba – Conclusion

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I relax on Ms. Mar’s lap for the conclusion to the story, Ms. Mar has to preface the story a little. She said that the reason she took charge of the compass is that Mr. C has a hard time with directions and she was afraid he would direct them out to sea.  In Hawaii, directions aren’t given by using North, South, East, West . . . they use landmarks as directions. Mauka would be toward the mountains; makai would be toward the ocean; Diamond Head is toward Diamond Head; Ewa towards Ewa. It was hard to see these landmarks underwater, so Ms. Mar took over the controls.

And the story continues . . .

Dive Log Book

As they swam into the abyss, Ms. Mar was confident she had read the compass right and were heading in the right direction. Mr. C was being towed by her as he was preparing his “I told you so” speech. He was not quite so confident of Ms. Mar’s leadership and direction. As the minutes passed by and they hadn’t reached the other side, little strands of doubt started going through Ms. Mar.

Suddenly, a large shadow started looming overhead. Mr. C’s first thought was a shark. But the closer they got, the bigger the shadow became until they realized they had reached the other side.

As they crawled up to the beach they found the flag almost in front of them. The marines were scattered and one group got lost. We think they ended up in Japan.  Ms. Mar and Mr. C walked away with the highest score for underwater navigation. With sport diving certificate in hand, they were ready to face the ocean on their own . . .

Diver's Club Patch

Stay tuned for more adventures.

Tux

Scuba Part II – Sport Diving

Tags

Haleiwa, Haleiwa Trench, Hawaii, Oahu, Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Reef Fish, scuba diving, Sport Diving, Turtle

Reef Fish

The Haleiwa Trench on the north-shore of Oahu was murky. The 100+ feet trench is the entrance to a boat harbor and is filled with unseen monsters of the deep. We were breathing compressed air and guided by our will to survive. At one atmosphere down, the murkiness only allowed us to see our instruments. Crude sign language was our sole means of communicating as our senses were reduced only to hearing our air exchange from our regulators. Images of “Jaw’s” played on my face mask as we swam deeper into the black Trench.

100 Feet Under the Sea . . . (.0003 Leagues Under the Sea)

Tags

Hawaii, NAUI, Oahu, Pacific Ocean, scuba diving

Scuba Patch

It was nap time and I’m usually given a story to munch on. I snuggle on Ms. Mar’s lap and pull the blankie up to my mustache and signal I’m ready with a purrr. She put me on my back and held the back of my head in her palms as she began to search for a tale.

HONOLULU MARATHON . . . 26.2 miles . . . are you pupule!!!!! (part 1)

Tags

adventure, Hawaii, Honolulu Marathon, Honolulu Marathon Clinic, marathon, Oahu, photography, running, warm weather

Ms. Mar loves to tell stories about when she made the adventurous move from a small town in northern Minnesota to a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – Hawaii – way back in 1974. Of course, this was long before I was ever thought of, or my mother was thought of, or her mother . . . you get the gist. I was not yet in existence when this move occurred so I can only tell her stories.

While she intended to stay in Hawaii only for a year until she figured out what she wanted to do “when she grew up,” Ms. Mar ended up staying for 25 years and during that time had many great adventures. Over the next few weeks, I’ll tell you some of her stories.