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I am surfer; hear me roar
Jul. 4th, 2006 12:46 amNo, seriously. Today I learned to surf (along with 2/3 of the rest of the wedding people). It was fantastically fun! Now I understand why Hedda loves it so much; I just wonder what took me so long. I got about 3 or 4 really good runs out of 7 or 8, which is not great, but definitely not bad. So, I want to keep doing it when we get home. Who wants to surf with me? If you don't know how, that's fine -- we can suck together!
And also this morning while snorkeling I may have seen a shark. (Either that, or a really huge fish.) Obviously I am here & unharmed, but it made me paranoid for the rest of the morning, & so I took refuge among the big rocks near the shore (I had been swimming fairly far out, away from the big rocks, so it was basically open water, maybe 10 feet deep; there were some small rocks below me, and I was diving down to look at the little fish who lived there & I saw a really big tail fin, moving away from me, at the very edge of my sphere of visibility, which was maybe 15 feet since the water was silty today). I actually ended up finding myself at the reef I found yesterday, which was much farther out than I intended to swim, and I kind of hightailed it back to shore after that, and then it was time to leave so we left. (Dad and JP got scared when I said I thought I saw a shark (this was directly after the sighting & swimming my ass back to shore in a hurry), and so they had gotten out long before & thought I was crazy for continuing to swim.) I really just love to look at the fish, though. (Before we went to that beach, I tried to snorkel behind our condo, because there are rocks there & therefore fish that live in rocks, but it was really murky, and I couldn't see my legs in chest-deep water so I got really nervous & chickened out, like I do when I try to snorkel at home. For snorkeling to work for me, I have to be able to see things, preferably fish; I get uneasy when there's nothing but water around me and empty sand below me, but I'm fine amongst rocks & coral & most importantly fish.) I'm kind of the snorkler-extraordinaire in the family, as mum doesn't spend that much time in the water, and da & brat are afraid of the rocks, and I'm really the only one willing &/or able to dive down & get all up in the fish's (collective) face (it's also fun to blow all the water out of the snorkel when you surface, like a whale or dolphin's blowhole, which I believe I excel at because of music-related lung capacity). I would love to photograph them someday.
Actually, between beach & surfing, mum and I went to the nearest ABC Store, and I got my hands on a fish book (though I couldn't quite justify buying it, even though I bought the bird book & a dictionary for my collections), and so I learned the names of some of the fish I've seen. Most of the flattish ones have been butterflyfish, and the puffery-shaped things are either boxfish of tobies (I find boxfish more likely). The eel I saw was probably a white-mouthed moray. And the parroty-things we've been seeing all over? Actually reef triggerfish, more famously known as humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the state fish of Hawai'i (or former, or unofficial, or whatever). Which discovery made me feel rather silly.
& more when my brother isn't trying to go to bed I guess.
And also this morning while snorkeling I may have seen a shark. (Either that, or a really huge fish.) Obviously I am here & unharmed, but it made me paranoid for the rest of the morning, & so I took refuge among the big rocks near the shore (I had been swimming fairly far out, away from the big rocks, so it was basically open water, maybe 10 feet deep; there were some small rocks below me, and I was diving down to look at the little fish who lived there & I saw a really big tail fin, moving away from me, at the very edge of my sphere of visibility, which was maybe 15 feet since the water was silty today). I actually ended up finding myself at the reef I found yesterday, which was much farther out than I intended to swim, and I kind of hightailed it back to shore after that, and then it was time to leave so we left. (Dad and JP got scared when I said I thought I saw a shark (this was directly after the sighting & swimming my ass back to shore in a hurry), and so they had gotten out long before & thought I was crazy for continuing to swim.) I really just love to look at the fish, though. (Before we went to that beach, I tried to snorkel behind our condo, because there are rocks there & therefore fish that live in rocks, but it was really murky, and I couldn't see my legs in chest-deep water so I got really nervous & chickened out, like I do when I try to snorkel at home. For snorkeling to work for me, I have to be able to see things, preferably fish; I get uneasy when there's nothing but water around me and empty sand below me, but I'm fine amongst rocks & coral & most importantly fish.) I'm kind of the snorkler-extraordinaire in the family, as mum doesn't spend that much time in the water, and da & brat are afraid of the rocks, and I'm really the only one willing &/or able to dive down & get all up in the fish's (collective) face (it's also fun to blow all the water out of the snorkel when you surface, like a whale or dolphin's blowhole, which I believe I excel at because of music-related lung capacity). I would love to photograph them someday.
Actually, between beach & surfing, mum and I went to the nearest ABC Store, and I got my hands on a fish book (though I couldn't quite justify buying it, even though I bought the bird book & a dictionary for my collections), and so I learned the names of some of the fish I've seen. Most of the flattish ones have been butterflyfish, and the puffery-shaped things are either boxfish of tobies (I find boxfish more likely). The eel I saw was probably a white-mouthed moray. And the parroty-things we've been seeing all over? Actually reef triggerfish, more famously known as humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the state fish of Hawai'i (or former, or unofficial, or whatever). Which discovery made me feel rather silly.
& more when my brother isn't trying to go to bed I guess.
