You know, a month ago when I made the decision to leave Hawaii and return to Tucson, I was very happy with that decision. Now I am a bit conflicted. I spent a year in Hawaii trying to find community, but Honolulu is very cliquish and I never really found a community of very compatible folks. Well right after I made that decision, I met the social butterfly, paddler and swimmer Ellen who has quite a community of very nice and interesting friends. So I’ve spent the last week having great fun swimming and socializing with some really fun, nice people including Cosmopolitan’s most eligible bachelor in California and numerous paddler and triathlete babes with big muscles.
Ellen is a nurse practitioner in the Navy and she is being deployed to Kuwait for six months. She leaves tomorrow, so today she and I went for a goodbye swim from Kaimana to Duke’s. We went way out to deep, clear blue water and we were bucking a pretty stiff current. Way out there, far from the chaos of Waikiki, a bale of at least four big green sea turtles swam up to Ellen and me. We stopped and floated with the current. The turtles swam right up to us, maybe within three or four feet, males and females, healthy with no fibropapilloma. One big female floated at the surface right next to me for a few minutes. I kept my head below the surface watching her watch me. Every time she raised her head to breathe, I raised my head to breathe. Of course, I had to breathe quite a bit more frequently than she did. The turtles eventually dove to the bottom at 40 feet or so and slipped under the reef to snooze. Ellen and I were only able to dive down 15 feet or so because we were wearing swim goggles that we could not equalize at depth. It was a pretty magical goodbye swim, the honu bidding Ellen aloha.
We finished our swim and hit the hot tub at Duke’s, then went out for a Thai lunch. (You know, leaving the corporate environment was the best thing I ever did.)
I wish I had a small underwater digital camera that I could carry in my swim suit to document these experiences.
So, to Ellen, I bid aloha. I hope your travels are safe and rewarding. Shalom. Salaam Alaikum. Peace be with you. Namaste.
As I typed, iTunes set to shuffle, the song that played = Regret by New Order. Spooky.
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