HereTamaNui

"HereTama Nui - Man with Great Love"

I've always tried NEVER to be a tourist and always a traveler or visitor. Since Hawai'i is my favorite spot in the world, visitor carries a little different connotation than it would in Louisiana. Visitor in Hawai'i is just a kind way of saying tourist and some definitions of traveler relates to Gypsy of which I definitely am not. (I digress)

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, I've been working here on Oahu for several months now and slowly the loveliness of the culture reveals itself. This week, Michelle, the nice lady with whom I work, presented me with a T-shirt from Heretama Nui, a drum and dancing group that she and her significant other (Allen) are members. Heretama Nui is a Tahitian style group that is widely known here and has won contests locally as well as first place at the 2000 Tahiti Fête of San Jose. Allen's mother founded the dancing group years ago and he and his brothers are the drummers. At this point there are at least 100 members of the group. Check out this YouTube video of a practice session. Sorry, I can't find one of their dances or an actual contest.

Scuba Dive at Hawaii Kai / Koko Head

* Click on the photos for a larger view*

After receiving an invitation to dive off Koko Head, I boarded Captain Joe's boat at the Hawaii Kai boat ramp and went out with a dozen or so brave souls for a cave and drift dive. For the first dive, we dropped down to 55 feet to the mouth of Spitting Cave. It goes back a couple of hundred feet and to where you can see the surface. There wasn't a lot of wild life in there but lots of small starfish on the corals.


As we exited the cave, we began a drift dive seeing fish, eels, turtles and various corals. The current was moderate and the idea behind it was that Captain Joe would follow our bubble trails until we surfaced.

After 40 minutes or so, we were nearing the end of our air so we surfaced for about 45 minutes before dropping back down for another drift dive.

One thing different this time was the audible sounds of whales. We had not seen any of them from the boat but under the water, you knew they were there. If you choose, turn up your volume and you can hear the whale songs as well as my regulator. The diver is Katie, one of our diving buddies for that dive.

Also, Dave, another dive buddy found a sea snake. Being from Louisiana and growing up around water moccasins, I've never been all that fond of playing with snakes but didn't have any qualms about watching someone else do it.

If you watched it, you'll see that as Dave got a little personal with the snake, I began to rise away from it. It wasn't intentional but I guess the anticipation of the snake coming out of the coral caused me to take a deep breath therefore I began to rise.

Bye noon, we were back at the harbor and off the boat. It was a very nice day and enjoyed it.