The Veggie Loco Moco: The Water is Great

There is so much going on that is is difficult to find the time or energy to type it all out! Over the past few days we have been diving and swimming and kayaking like crazy. Driving back and forth between the house and town, zooming between appointments that are double scheduled or back to back, and eating when we get enough time to shove food in our mouths is what life has been like. Let me start with last week, last Thursday to be exact.

Our first goal of the day was to swim with dolphins.We had awoken at 5:00am for a two hour drive to beautiful Kealakekua Bay. Upon arriving at the Bay at around 7:30 to see not a dolphin in sight, Kerri and I were convinced by a local kayak rental man, Peter, to rent his kayak for $50 so we could kayak across the bay to the dolphins. Seeing as this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Kerri, and an awesome opportunity for me, we split the price and headed out, my dad's fancy underwater camera carefully clipped to the kayak. (If I lost that, he would basically kill me.) To make a long story short (only half an hour or so of paddling) we made it to the other end of the bay, slipped out of our bright yellow kayak and snorkeled with about two dozen spinner dolphins!

We are halfway across the bay at this point, looking back

towards where we came from.

Look at how beautiful they are!

Proof that I was there . . .

When we got to the other side, it was shallow and as clear as you can imagine.

These cute fish made for a nice picture.

After another confined water diver for Kerri after our snorkel trip of a lifetime, we camped out for the night, and rose to a gorgeous Friday. The other Open Water students who would be completing their course with Kerri soon arrived, excited and ready to jump in. I taught them all of the optional Skin Diver course and then we geared up to get diving! (Don't worry, I'm credentialed, both an SSI and PADI Divemaster.) The day went well, three dives total, with lots of learning piled on. I was quite impressed to watch the students become divers in those last three dives. It was fantastic!

Camping breakfast-- cereal in the bag.

After an uneventful weekend, fast forward to today, when Kerri took her first dive as a certified diver. We saw a cute Day Octopus (sorry, no picture), loads of turtles, and fish galore!

Just hangin' out with our friend the turtle, no big deal.

My dive buddy and I, just cruisin'.

Here are some more pictures, kind of a photo blog of the last couple of weeks. Photos tell stories much faster than anything I can type out. Today we are headed to Volcanoes National Park, can't wait to see what happens there!

Rainbow falls