Feeding the Fishes

Sunday morning, Taryn and I had planned on waking up at 4:00am as we had a Scuba Diving appointment in Kailua-Kona on the opposite side of the island with Big Island Divers.  Taryn’s research had indicated this would be a 2.5 hour drive and we had to be checked in and on the boat at 8:15.  Fortunately jet lag woke us both up around 3:00am, so getting out the door on time was not difficult. As we rolled into the kitchen, the sound of the falls outside greeted us.  While there was obviously no sunlight yet, a very large full moon hovered above the river casting a pale white light across the trees, shrubs, and running water.

We ate a quick breakfast with this as our back drop, and jumped in the car to start the journey.  Prior to leaving, we were bid farewell, by a small gecko that had snuck into our shared bathroom.

We pulled up the GPS to double check our timing, and to our surprise, it told us we only had approximately 90 minutes of driving ahead of us, almost all of which was along Saddle road. This 2-3 lane road would take us from Hilo on the east side of the island, between the two large mountains: Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, to Kona.  As we embarked on this trip, the same bright full moon was positioned directly ahead of us over the road, and seemed 3 times its usual size, guiding us westward through the early morning.  As we continued to drive, the sun began to rise, and we gradually increased our elevation with every mile travelled.  When we started, the temperature outside was around 70, however it steadily dropped, ultimately hitting a low point of 46 degrees. At the same time, the vegetation around us quickly changed from a lush green rainforest with tropical plants, to a much more barren landscape of brown and yellow brush and only a few scattered trees.  Much of the terrain was made up of black rigid chunks of lava rock, with varying amounts of foliage growing out of it.  The entire central portion of this ride was also devoid of any civilization, rarely a cell phone signal, and also rarely any other traffic (though it was 5:30am on a Sunday morning.)

View from Saddle Road

Along the way we did see a few notable animals--- a small black boar, a whitish owl, which swooped in front of our car (and we almost hit it), and a goat or two.  Throughout a significant portion of the trip, there were signs warning of sheep crossing.  While we did not actually see any sheep, there was a fairly long stretch where the air carried a fairly unpleasant smell.  While I was accused of being the cause of this fragrance, I believe it may have actually been sourced by an abundance of these animals somewhere…

View of the Coast from Just Outside Kona

Once we finally arrived in Kailua-Kona, we tried desperately to find a 24 hour pharmacy to pick up some Sudafed (the REAL stuff: Pseudoephedrine, which is only available behind the pharmacy counter) to open up our sinuses.  (Any congestion while diving can lead to a lot of pain discomfort, and potentially injury.)  While both Taryn and I suffer from allergies, I had taken some before leaving the house, but Taryn had forgotten to grab the pills.  Unfortunately, there are few if any 24 hour pharmacies on this island, and the best we could do was to find one that opened at 8:00am.  So we went and checked in for our dive, stopped at Starbucks, and went and waited for the pharmacy to open so we could grab some Sudafed, and then run to the boat. 

After boarding the boat, we received our orientation, and headed out.  There were 3 groups of divers, and we were placed in the newbie group, since this was my first dive.  Our group had one other person that was also on their first dive, post-certification, and Taryn, who was the veteran with about 10-15 under her belt.  

View from the Boat

Our fish sighting began even before we got in the water, as on the way out to the dive spot, we were able to see a Tiger Shark under the water, and several flying fish.

Once we reached the spot for our dive, we all got into our equipment and began to enter the ocean.  As soon as we jumped into the water, we were surrounded by hundreds of tropical fish, in bright yellows, silvers, and blues, as well as a floor of colorful coral.  Our dive was primarily between 25-50 feet deep. With a fairly flat floor in some places, but then some sections with giant vertical lava rock walls at least 20 feet high in some places.  At one point, or divemaster pointed excitedly off in the distance as a Spotted Eagle Manta Ray, roughly 4 feet across slowly swam by about 75 feet from us.

Some of the other aquatic life that we saw (linked photos courtesy of http://www.ericjsimon.com/hawaiireef/) :

• Black Durgon
• Blue Stripe Butterfly Fish
• Longnose Butterflyish 
• Racoon Butterfly Fish
• Teardrop Butterflyfish
• Threadfin Butterflyfish
• Yellow Stripe Goatfish
• Crown of Thorns
• Moorish Idol
• Parrot Fish
• Hawaiian Sergeant
• Stocky Hawkfish
• Orange Band Surgeonfish
• Convict Tang
• Yellow Tang
• Sailfin Tang
• Triggerfish
• Trumpetfish
• Unicornfish
• Black Sea Urchin
• Red Sea Urchin
• Banded Sea Urchin
• Cleaner Wrasse

After roughly one hour, our tanks reached the point where it was time for us to return to the boat, rest for a bit, and then take our next dive.  As I ascended the latter to the boat, and took off my equipment, I noticed a bit of discomfort in my stomach.  I wasn’t quite sure what it was.  It was somewhere between nausea and the need to hiccup really hard.  As the boat swayed back and forth, it got a little bit more extreme. I talked to Taryn a little about my first dive, and how much I had enjoyed it, but then had to focus on the growing tightness in my stomach.  At one point, I did hiccup, but it was tremendously violent, and unlike any hiccup in the past.  I thought perhaps I might get sick, but then thought, this isn’t usually how I feel when that happens.  I convinced myself it could’nt be that.  I reached into the cooler, and grabbed a ginger ale, hoping it would help settle whatever was going on with my stomach.  As I drank some of this, my stomach lurched a bit more.   Taryn noticed I was not acting quite right, and asked if I was doing OK.  It seemed prudent to not try to speak, so I subtly tapped at my stomach indicating I was feeling a bit queasy.  Taryn then reached into her bag and pulled out some vegan “beef” jerky and offered it to me. I shook my head and gave her the “what the hell are you thinking?!?” look. (I later learned that she though, I simply had a stomach ache and needed to use the facilities.)

WARNING: THE NEXT FEW PARAGRAPHS GET A BIT UGLY…..NOT FOR  THE SQUEAMISH

Those around me began to fade away…but not before I did a quick check to see if anyone else was afflicted with this strange issue.  There had to be a few, this must be normal    Well….no one appeared to be.  It didn’t matter though, because I was about to become “that guy”.  My stomach proceeded to lurch again, and this time it was not a hiccup. I was able to keep things down, but probably didn’t look good. I tried to sneak to the edge of the boat….just in case….well quickly my movements became justified, as I proceeded to throw up over the side. 

Interestingly, I had done some reading ahead of time on what happens if you are SCUBA diving and you vomit while underwater.  Essentially, you need to keep your regulator in your mouth, and vomit into it, as it will be expelled into the water, and you will get air when your bodily involuntarily gasps afterwards.  It is important to keep the regulator in your mouth, so you do not aspirate water, which would be very bad.  I was not in the water now, so this didn’t matter.  However, the other piece of interesting trivia, is that fish are TREMENDOUSLY attracted to human vomit.  And anytime you do this, you provide entertainment for your fellow divers, because it will cause all the fish nearby to swarm around you, to cleanup your leftovers.  In fact it is so remarkable, that divers have a name for throwing up:  “Feeding the fishes”  Well, this proved true, as suddenly dozens of colorful tropical fish where now swarming about in front of me in the water, delighted with the treat I provided.  I continued to feed them a total of 4 times, when things seemed to calm down.  Behind me, my divemaster said to the captiain, “We need to start moving….someone has gotten sick.”  The captiain replied “like turn around and go back sick?”  “I don’t think so she replied…”

Taryn and a Recovering Ryan

After this episode, I went to the top of the boat to get some fresh air, and the divemaster brought me some Bonine to settle my stomach.  I took this and tried to relax for awhile.  This helped, but then it was time to go back down and get ready for the next dive.  As I started to suit up in my wetsuit, I felt it coming again.  The fish received their 5^th, and 6^th feedings.  By this time, all the divers had begun their dive, and my group was in the water waiting for me.  The captain was the only one left on the boat, and he patiently watched and waited while I continued to throw up, ready to help me into my tank when I was ready. 

As I leaned over the side of the boat for the 7^th time, I decided enough was enough.  Before the last drop of vomit hit the water, I turned to the captain and growled in a very raspy voice “Let’s do this.”  He looked a bit surprised, (probably in part due to the very sloppy person in front of him, who now had bodily fluids coming from every mucous generating orifice on his face) and said “What?”  “Lets do this!” I repeated.  He laughed, and VERY quickly got my tank on me, and ushered me into the water.  As soon as I hit the water, everything was fine, and I embarked on my next one hour dive.   

Taryn was Nice Enough to Immortalize my Remains in Photo

Fortunately after the second dive, though I was still a little uneasy, I didn’t repeat the issues from earlier.  We headed back to shore, and found ourselves some lunch, and laughed about the experience.

Initially we had planned on meeting up with Ryan and Amy in Kona after our dives, however, after doing some shopping, checking out the Kona brewery, and stopping by the Kona Coffee tour and shops, they headed back to the house early.

Because we had been diving underwater, we could not immediately return the way we came, as the altitude of that road was too high, and we’d be at risk of getting sick if we went too soon after the dive..  We therefore had to take a much longer route along the northern perimeter of the island.  We used this opportunity however to check out a few other sights, turning a 2.5 hour drive into  a 5 hour drive. 

Along the way however, we  were able to see some stunning lava rock fields, beaches, and the dramatic climate and vegetation changes along the northern coast, going from arid, to cool and misty, and back to tropical again.

Mongoose Drinking From a Puddle

      

One site we spent a bit of time at along the way was the Hamakua Jodo Mission, which is the oldest Buddhist temple on the island, having been built in 1896  The temple was closed and locked, and we could only peer in, but there was a large cemetery behind it that we walked through for 15 minutes.  There were some gravestones, that were very new looking, with dates of death on them from throughout the 1900s, and some in the last couple decades of the 1800s.  There were also many  however that were very aged looking, with only Japanese writing on them.  Some graves were marked with a simple large lava rock.  We couldn’t find anything however to indicate exactly how old the oldest graves were.

Hamakua Jodo Mission Buddhist Temple

At one point, we were looking at a grave from a death in 1936.  The stone had been very recently decorated with fresh flowers.  Taryn made the observation “Look at that, they died almost 80 years ago, and someone is still leaving flowers.  That dedication is a perfect example of how much of American culture has lost the concept of commitment to family. “

After this Taryn and I headed back to the house along various scenic routes that provided breathtaking views of huge, lush gorges of tropical plants and winding corridors underneath a canopy of large trees.  Though we had been sitting in the car for almost 5 hours, neither of us really cared, as the scenery never became boring.

We were the last of the 6 of us to return to the house, and we all shared the days events over some dinner, and headed to bed early.