Hey Y'all – I'm an Island girl – took me a long time to realize it but now I do the fun is just beginning! Staying over here at the Mermaid's Temple by the Sea … Don't forget to check out the pics on Flickr – link is below. Here's my post from yesterday (unedited):
Friday, January 13, 2006
Today was absolutely phenomenal. I slept in until 8:30 am this morning after a late night of working. When Dante woke up at 7:30 or 8 am I set him up with the cartoon “Flipper” on the little DVD player so I could get some more zzzzzs. After I got up, I made a breakfast of fakin' bacon and waffles, fresh papaya and pears. It's the full moon today, I heard someone say. Aha, it registered in my mind. Mmmm mmm. Then we drove down to Honaunau City of Refuge, a sacred spot on the Big Island, to have a swim and let Dante catch little baby fish with his net and bucket out of the tidal pools.
We did that for a while and it started getting HOT and I just wanted to get in the water. I got wet in the tidal pools, then I noticed that Carol Jean had arrived. Minutes after learning that a pod of dolphins were swimming in the little 2-Step bay. About 30 were swimming around with some people out in the water. I was so excited. They were jumping and spinning around. Dante saw them too. Then Carol showed up and told me to get going in the water with her borrowed flippers and mask and snorkel to swim with them. She didn't have to ask twice. I dove right in. The water is now a welcome elixir of medicine “silky diamonds” or “liquid crystal”. Incredible water. So healing. I swam quite a good distance of maybe 400 feet? (it was easy wearing the fins) to where I could see everybody was gathering and following the dolphins around. It was just incredible to see them swimming together underneath the water. There was a mother and adolescent that sort of snuggled as they were undulating and gliding through the water. You never saw anything so graceful. The light penetrated through the water seeming almost as if the rays were coming up from below making me feel like I was literally inside of a crystal. Swimming in a liquid crystal. My heart was surging with happiness and love overflowing as I witnessed the dance of the dolphins. The only spot was annoyance with the gawking snorkelers who were so pushy & not giving the dolphins room to be crowding them. I felt the dolphins did not prefer to be chased around like this. Like some spectacle, rather than living beings. These people did not understand how to just BE – they wanted it all to be like a t.v. show or something. I don't know. I stayed with them for about 5 minutes, then got disgusted with the people chasing them around and not letting them just live and be, so I went back towards shore. On my way I saw 2 honus (sea turtles) gracefully swimming through the water and schools of colorful fish.
Here is the monumental moment – When I got out, I heard happy shrieks and squeals from Dante. He and Carol were sitting on the lava rocks near where the ocean was washing up looking out at the dolphins. I was just aglow with the absolute radiance and brilliance of my own moments in the water. We spotted a little Hawaiian girl Taliah we had met the day before out in the water with her mother. Just then the dolphins swam all around the two of them (shunning the gawkers). Dante saw this and went wild. I think he decided at that point that today would be his day to finally get into the ocean. We'd been trying to get him to go in for days. Carol Jean and I had him in his vest and on a boogie board. It was really sweet. He was super excited when the dolphins swam by us 3 or 4 times! The were leaping into the air and spinning around. More later!