Naialani

Summer is around the corner!!!!! The water is calming down and warming up. Keeping up with this guy yesterday was a workout. I thought turtles were slow???

Warren my fiance' was fishing as usual on his day off, when he saw a dark shape in the water he thought was a shark. The dark shaped popped its head out of the water and Warren almost fell off the rock he was standing on. It was a Hawaiian Monk Seal, coming into shore to sunbath !! These guys are federally protected by the US government because they are on the endangered species list. They are hardly seen and spend most of their lives alone hence the name Monk Seal. Warren was delighted and you can hear it in his voice. !!

The water you see here is fresh water. The amazing thing about it is.... IT sits right on the edge of the ocean !! During the summer the ocean calms down, the big waves leave and this pool fills with pure fresh water. As kids we used to rinse off the salt water after our summer swims. Its freezing cold and tastes AMAZING. The water bubbles up from deep artisian wells, and flows with sparkling wonder from under the lava rocks onto the sand!!! If we truly believe that there is an order to the universe then we can count on the fact that in our lives the sweetest things can come from the most unexpected places !!

I took 100 pictures of turtles underwater yesterday. 99 of those were pictures with the head of the turtle cut off. I am not giving up though, its just this new camera is making me crazy !!!!

I read somewhere awhile back that many many years ago the King of Spain gave King Kamehameha a gift of a horse. After a while Kamehameha sent the King of Spain a message saying," This horse is not so good, it eats more than it works!!" BUT the horse was here on the island to stay. I was on the way home from the beach and I saw a whole bunch of horse trailers at a local ranch , so i stopped . It was High School kids rodeo. These kids where good. I'm sure King Kamehameha would of been impressed !!!

My last post i showed my fiance Warren saving a turtle. How Warren came to have a camera with him goes like this: Warren comes from a L O N G line of fishermen. His family goes back generations making their living from the ocean. He's good at it, he's been taught well. I opened my freezer one day and was JOLTED to the realization that my freezer was FULL of fish, all of them caught on a pole by either Warren or my son Jaren. Now some of these fish had been in my freezer for quite a while. I dont know why but that JOLT included the thought in my brain that "if these fish were STILL swimming they would be HUGE". The thought continued with, "this is SENSELESS!!!!" I proceeded to make an announcement.... "In the future, in this house we will NO longer store fish. We will PUT BACK all that we catch !!! We are not hungry, we do not need to TAKE from the ocean ." Warren looked at me with disbelief, I said, "Yup ,here's the camera ,carry it with y...

I blog about my days off, when im not working, im off to the ocean. I missed a day on my last string of days off. Saturday the 14th I stayed home.... This is why...the bay i always blog about was having a wild day.... i am an island gal...................... right click on my music player, click on the stop.... music will stop!!

Something was up at the Bay today. the first picture shows the lifeguards having a mini meeting around and on their ATV. the guy standing with his hands on his waist? thats Mark . he has been a guard since we were in high school. He is the boss now and he deserves it, he is one of the best. I think what happened is, this group of people in the second picture came to the beach at least 100 of them and brought their own lifeguard!! I can't figure why unless they thought there were no guards there at the bay. The next picture shows the guard stand from in the water. Now these guards at the bay are some of the best on the planet. I have watched them rescue surfers in 25 foot surf. I guess this group of people didnot know that if your life is in danger these guys got your back !! The last picture is a photo taken by pro photographer Scott Bass, it shows a 25 foot wave at the bay, those guys on the jet ski? those are the lifeguards!!! LOL They sometimes blow my mind with how fearless t...

After days and days of No sun and cold rain the sun finally broke thru today !!!!!! The north shore seemed extra bright and warm. I stuck my head out of the water and took this Welcome back Mr .SUN !!!!!

I saw on the Travel channel yesterday that this beach, Sunset beach is sexist beach #12. I wonder who comes up with these things?? Fly by the seat of your pants, over the top, pulled under by the current, swim for your life beach is what i as a local would call it ... LOL ...in fact the only locals your gonna see out there are on a surfboard or a bodyboard. Now there are ALOT of girls that are ON the beach attracted to the locals that are on the boards out there. MAYBE thats what they mean... lol.. well I am NOT gonna go around taking pictures of bikinis !!! Im just NOT gonna do it !! I am an island gal......

Okay, its Friday the 13th during a Full Moon!!!! I think i will focus on ALL the GOOD that is out there today !!! Sunset Beach......................................> Hanauma Bay...........................> Waimea Bay..................................> Waianae Mountain Range..........>

The clouds over the Bay tell the whole story. The sun has hidden its face again. Now if you are an ocean person, rain means nothing. You'r gonna get wet anyway ,so it really isnt a big deal. But there is something about the absence of the sun that makes everything seems lifeless and dull. After a couple days of no sun I find myself smilling less and generally feeling yucky. The warmth of the sun, is a blessing I often overlook. How nice then it is to have the rainy days, the cold days,the lifeless days, to remind us of just how beautiful our sunfilled world really is!!!

Mr Turtle.... permanent Bay resident !!! he swims back and forth across the bay. He is beautiful, big,and lol... arrogant!!! I swam up to him one day, put my arm around him, he stopped dead cold, turned his whole body towards me and looked at me like HEYYYY, dont you know in Hawaii you are NOT supposed to TOUCH the turtles !!! LOL that was the last time i tried that !!! Sorry about the quality of the pics,I took these with my 10 dollar disposable. This summer i hope i will get better ones with my new camera !! Hope Mr. Turtle doest mind !!! lol .. i am an island gal.

After a couple weeks of cruisin other beaches on different sides of the island, I realized i MISSED my beloved North Shore, so I went back there today!!!! I stopped by Pipeline. Pipeline, Pipes,Ehukai, is NOT advertised, if you are a surfer-bodyboarder and you are good then YOU WILL know where this is. It is crazy water!!!! lol... i havent been in the water here since high school, and i remember the last time like it were yesterday. Two men died here that day,it left such a mark on me that i havent been in the water here since. I love the Ocean, she is no respector of persons, she is strong and fierce!!! ....... I am an island girl.

In my quest for greater awareness, i have been asking myself how is it I pass the same things everyday and NOT see them? I do not know what i am so busy thinking about!! When i saw this under the grocery store parking lot light, I thought geeeee that's nice, when did they put that up? i bet you its been there for years!!! LOL ..... I say to myself... Lani , you NEED to LOOK !!!

This is Rod. He was a senior, I a sophmore. I had such a crush on him !!! We recently connected on Facebook. by the looks of things even after ALL these years, he STILL is quite a guy !!! LOL... enough of that!!! I post this because of the picture. Whoever took this picture should be given an award. Thats Diamond Head in the background, it's a picture, that with no words explains how extremely lucky we are to live here.

I hear the outter reefs of Hanauma Bay are still good.... but it was tooo rough for me to get out there , so i was stuck in the inner reefs, which are barren and dying. I hadnt been there in 15 years and i was shocked and saddened. The fish feed off of rocks littered with coral dust, barren of color. I am saddened, i have noticed that many of Oahus inner reefs are sick or dying. God bless our Planet, we are going need it.

If you are a visitor to Oahu, then you are paying 5 dollars to get to this bay. You pay, you watch an outdated movie, you either walk or PAY again .50 cents to ride down , 1 dollar more to ride back up. You are being ripped off. THIS is a DYING Bay !!! my heart breaks that the State of Hawaii does NOT have the balls to close it up and let it heal. Too many visitors, for too many years, has taken a toll. SHUT IT DOWN !!! Sorry about the wind noise, it has been VERY windy for most of the week here on the island.

Is there such a place as "Somewhere between sad and mad? I think i was there today. Coming back from the beach on the south side of Oahu, i took this..... Honolulu........ What have we done??