Naialani

A Person from my workplace told me of a spot on the North Shore where there were "MASSIVE" turtles. This weekend i went looking for them.I know I wasn't at the right spot exactly because the turtles I saw were NOT massive. Some of them were big, but not massive. I always enter the Ocean with great respect and this weekend she taught me a lesson I really need to get into my head! The current on the North Shore was winter strong as it has been for the last 2 months now. This turtle was big and he had wedged himself under this rock to rest without the current moving him elsewhere. When i dove down to get this picture, this big guy was not happy. HE came straight out at me, his neck at an angle to give me a good hard bite. The rock he was wedge under is a cleaning station for turtles. The turtles pull up next to the rock and let small fish clean the algae off of them. Its an amazing thing to see nature working together. The turtles started biting each other for choice real ...

Just yesterday I was running up and down the shoreline of the Bay, Yelling frantically at my youngest child to "GET OUT OF THE WATER! ". The waves of the Bay take no prisoners and I feared the waves would snatch his small frame from me in an instant as only the Ocean can. As the year 2009 comes to an end, I now watch my youngest soon to be 20, ride the same waves with glee. His frame no longer small but strong and muscular, a body of a young man raised around the Ocean. He doesn't ride with me to the beach often but when he does I always marvel at his love of the water. I remember the day I was swimming out to meet the dolphins. I hear a laugh behind me, I turn and see my youngest right behind me, his eyes shining with the sound of the dolphins in his ears, his face a carbon copy of mine. I realized immediately that my love of the Ocean will live on and on and on... He is an island guy............

STAY SAFE!! LIVE, LOVE and LAUGH! I LOVE you guys!! I am an island gal....

Kukaniloko... The Birthplace of the ALi'i (royalty) If you google Kukaniloko you can find out all kinds of information about this spot. THIS is WHAT really gets me. When you are here,the first thing you notice is the Quiet. There is NOT a SOUND going on back here, other than the trees blowing in the wind. Is the peace back here the reason the ancient Hawaiians chose this spot to give birth to Kings and Queens or is this spot so quiet because of the labor and delivery that went on here? Can you imagine giving birth to a child on a rock? Can you imagine coming here and having to ask WHICH rock your wife was at? Some things about progress are SO Much better! LOLOL I am an island gal...

The poor color BLUE.. for so many years it has been used in sentences, song titles,even the "something old and something blue" ritual for a wedding. We say ,"I'm feeling BLUE" which really means im sad, im lonely.. im just not feeling right. If you click on the picture of the last turtle it will enlarge.. There is NOTHING like that blue... I think i will Have to change my vocabulary.. There is NOTHING Blue about the oceans color Blue!

Barbers Point, the southern tip of the island of Oahu. A big commercial luau(hawaiian feast) is held out here. The Coast Guard has a light house and communication towers out here. The water is shallow and runs over reefs that USED to grow TONS of Seaweed... I remember my parents bringing me here as a child.. The shore was filled with local people picking seaweed The shore is no longer lined with Seaweed(hawaiian word for seaweed is LIMU) like it was when I was a child... BUT as soon as i got out of my car and walked to the shore, there was ONE thing I remembered from my childhood.... THE SMELL !!! I had to smile... it smells like fresh fish here... the odor so strong , that your first thought is WHHHEEWWWW.It is the smell of the ocean and i think it has to do with the shallow reef that goes on for miles here. LOL.. A older hawaiian man with a fishing net over his shoulder and I were the only ones on the beach! its funny how SMELL can jar your mind... I remember the purple a...

She was missing a flipper... He was bigger... Mr and Mrs? I dont know.. but these two reminded me how HARD life in the open ocean can be.... They stayed side by side swimming , checking things out. They really are not that much different from us are they? (click on pic for larger view) I am an island gal.......

I love my little camera. LOL shes not high end but i carry her everywhere with me. The housing that holds the camera needed new O rings, those are the rubber pieces that keep the water out of her. I had to go to Honolulu for those. Honolulu is only 20- 25 miles away. IT TOOK ME 2 HOURS to go those miles.. ONE WAY! Seriously, our inability to work together to solve Oahus traffic problem,to work out a solution for the good of all of us is simply....... DISGUSTING.

MY beloved Bay ... closed... her waters raging! I was there Monday... but Tuesday.. no i just could not fight the crowds! MEGA Lifeguards on duty.. This is Kerry. he is as smooth as butter.. he has been a lifeguard for along time...LOL he wouldn't want to hear that ..LOL Cameras that cost a small fortune dot the shore line to get pictures like this. These are from the Associated Press... They held the Eddie Aikau surf meet... When summer comes the water will lay flat, crystal clear, because these waves have cleared the waters.Dolphins once again will enter the Bay to play in those crystal waters. I love mother nature..

Ive made up my mind.. I wont do it again. Join the masses of people on the North Shore for a BIG wave event. I was exhausted ! The waves were huge and the Ocean magnificent... but the THOUSANDS of people who showed up overwhelmed me. Im afraid its just one of the pitfalls of being IN the water so much... Life on land with tens of thousands of people is a WHOLE lot different than being in the Ocean with thousands of fish! LOLOL . Crazy is a word reserved for the human race! I am an island gal....

I have been swimming the waters of the Bay for over 40 years. As a child I remember walking thru the bushes of the bay, stepping out onto the sand, and seeing a guy a little older than I surfing the waves. His name was Eddie.. Eddie AIKAU. He became a lifeguard at the Bay and later he became a crewman on the Hawaiian sailing vessel HOKULEIA. Eddie lost his life 31 years ago when he tried to swim for help after the HOKULEIA overturned sailing in deep waters, miles away from the islands. There was a ceremony honoring Eddie this week and the HOKULEIA came to the Bay in honor of Eddie. I parked my car,and did my usual hurried walk to the shoreline, impatient to see the water I love so dearly. I stepped onto the sand, looked out at the ocean and my legs went weak. There she sat the BEAUTIFUL outrigger canoe HOKULEIA. Our ancestors came to the islands on vessels like this one and to see one of these vessels sitting at the mouth of the Bay was breathtaking! Eddie loved big waves and this week...

The subject of JOY has been a really hard subject for me to get out in words.I guess its because living with joy is an ongoing everyday growing experience for me and I feel I have a ways to go yet. Since my beloved North Shore is raging I have had to go west. I am new to the waters of the west so the many DIVERS that use KAHE point on the west side of the island are a welcome sight for me. It means I am not alone out there in new waters. They sit or swim deep on the bottom and usually wave as I go by. It was no different on my first dolphin day at Kahe point. Divers dotted the waters underneath me and i felt a sense of relief knowing they were there. Dolphins are fast, graceful and very very lithe swimmers! So their presence among us was instantaneous. As the pod of 50 or so dolphins swam around us, the divers below me one by one came to the surface, threw their air mouthpieces out of their mouths and let out various WHOOPS, YEEEHAAWS, HOLY SMOKES,WOWWEEES IN mega loud tones! It had a ...