5 o’clock is the lazy hour for us. We’ve usually come home after a days
worth of activities, had a cooling dip in the pool, and are ready for
snacks and/or naps. The geckos usually start to tease us with a few
chirps by 6 o’clock, signaling time to make dinner. Tonight is chicken
and mango salad with papaya dressing. We’ve got leftover to get
through.
Today we went back to our snorkeling spot at kapoho tidepools. We first
stopped at a cute little diner in downtown hilo for eggs and rice. We
stopped along the way at Lava Tree State Park and strolled a little down
the path. It’s a beautiful park, full of chickens, and we need to go
back on a cool, overcast day or some cool night when we haven’t expended
all our energy on the fish.
Snorkeling was once again awesome but I had trouble finding my way back.
The reef snakes around like a giant maze and its easy to loose your way.
I wound up in some too shallow places and would have to turn around on
the lava rocks like a beached whale with a current insulting me further.
I started to get frustrated and made some bad moves so I’m a little
bruised and cut up but none the worse for wear.
We saw some new stuff today. Lots and lots of adorable white spotted
boxfish, and I saw a huge school of cornetfish and what might have been
a gobie? It was eel-like but too short to be an eel, it darted into the
rocks before I could get a good look at him. I also ran across the
weirdest egg sack. It was a long string of eggs, smaller than chicken
eggs but bigger than robbin eggs. The sacks were sort of reddish orange.
From a distance I swore I was looking at the tentacles of a very large
octopus. When I got up close I realized they were two tubes of eggs,
attached at both ends to the rocks. They were very close to shore. I
have no idea what they could have been but they were strange enough to
make me feel a little uneasy, like momma was just around the bend,
waiting to attack me for messing with her eggs. I thought they might be
turtle eggs but turtles lay in the sand, right?
After snorkeling we went to see where the lava flow hits the water. You
can’t get very close to it right now from the puna side, we just hiked
in a little and saw big billows of steam, but no fireworks. Still
walking around on lava was pretty neat and we got to check one more
thing off ‘the list’. Ice cream was our reward as well as some ice cold
lillikoi drink, my favorite. We drove homeward, stopping at Borders to
pick up new magazines and a reef fish book, and Safeway for more ice
cream and some hawaiian sweet bread.
Tom met his doppleganger at Borders. I went to find him and stand right
next to him was a man wearing the same color hat, same color shirt, and
same color shorts. I mentioned this fact and tom said “yeah, and we’re
holding the same magazine.” The guy was talking Tom’s ear off about
digital studio stuff so I took a photo of the two of them and got lost
in quilting magazines. They have a pretty similar studio setup except
the guy has more high end stuff. He was German and about 20 years older
than tom but he could have been his uncle. I let them talk awhile until
I finally broke up the party and said “sorry, our ice cream is melting.”
With a very straight face the guy asked “but is it analog or digital?”
Tom thought he was asking a question about a piece of equipment “sorry?”
tom said. “The ice cream, analog or digital.” We both laughed out loud.
“Oh, its definitely analog.” And we parted ways. I miss that guy
already. I hope we run into him again. I think he was so excited to have
someone to talk to about music, he wouldn’t let Tom get a word in.