Early Morning

I seemed to have completely ignored the noises in the morning because I can easily sleep through them now. Today felt brutal waking up at 5:45 am, even with a day off yesterday. I still got to bed pretty late. No matter what I am up rinsing and hanging equipment after the night dives, so I never get in bed before 11. That is not important though. What is important is that I went on my first dive today since I've been here. My topics to cover for the day for my advanced courses were naturalist and photography. The dives were amazing.

Our first dive was at "Crescent Beach," where lots of dolphins where just hanging around. The rest of the boat went towards them, while we stuck with the course of my training. Damn dolphins better come back next time I'm diving. So the other day, my boss asked me if I have ever seen an octopus and held one, so I answered I only ever saw one about 30 ft away in the Caribbean - have always wanted to see another. He promised me I would hold one by the end of my internship. Well, that was easy. I don't know how he does it, but my boss starts kicking and poking and ink splatters brilliantly up in the ocean like a volcano erupting and then there in his hands..well, no other than an octopus. So octo # 1, your time to shine..











okay so ready for the best one, octo on my face. i am now quite infatuated with octopuses. My boss made me take off my glove to feel what it was like, which I thought to myself I already know what it's going to feel like..but they are so ridiculously soft. I mean softer than the softest thing you've ever touched. Softer than behind Moo Shu's ears and softer than Tessa's belly. You would think you finger would just tear right through it. Really cool. But yea, me and octo #1 are models..




Ok. next on the list. I finally met my first turtle here in Hawaii and I was so surprised it was a Hawksbill. I didn't even know they were here, but my boss said they are very uncommon and ever more so because it was a male. You can tell by the long tale. I miss my turtles. It's funny I was reading my study material last night and for the naturalist portion, they have an image of a diver riding a turtle with a big no, and I thought about when I took a ride on my turtle Humphrey. Hey - it was for scientific research. Makes it okay, right? But Hawksbill from today wasn't so close to us..





I really love turtles. Who wants to get a turtle tattoo with me?

Aright - now some lovely fishies. Not really sure which dive these are from, but doesn't matter.












I like this next one cause it's almost a combination of a butt in the face and a smack across the face..
















So, Dive # 2 was awesome. It was at a sight called "Suck em Up," and it did just that. It's a bunch of caves underwater due to something with the volcanoes. The reason it's called "Suck em Up" - when entering the one cave, you got to kick like there's no tomorrow and as soon as your about to give up, it literally sucks you and shoots you out, which is hard to maneuver because it is a sharp left turn, It shot me out so much quicker than I had anticipated, even with the briefing before hand, so I definitely needed my arms in order to go crashing into the side of the cave. I looked up the dive site online and found this video - seriously check it out. That way you can see my sad attempt at trying to explain the crazy thing. Man, it was awesome. Did I mention how sick this internship is??

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1172336926138047142#

So some pictures from the dive..











For some reason my post did not want to let me finish my damn story and pictures..but, another beautiful modeling shot of me. And no, I didn't ask for a picture. He offered. Actually, more like told..






octo # 2..time to shine..or ink




and now awesomely cool, yet painful sea urchins.