Latest / bit of a Rambler / 082 Ramble On

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082 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and today i'd like to ramble on just for a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: bit about all the dang fish I'm seeing here on Oahu,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: on the different beaches. So I got a tiny, super
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: cheap underwater camera and the pictures are certainly not professional
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: level quality, but for twenty bucks or whatever it was,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I am extremely impressed with the equality of the pictures
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and a little eight gig gues s D card and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I can take hundreds of pictures on it with this
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: little camera and it auto does everything for me, so
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I don't have to do any focus or whatever. Yeah,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: it's working out pretty well. So I have seen way
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: more fish. I didn't know how close the fish would
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: be to shore and the turtles. Yeah, there's so much
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sea life very close to the beaches on Oahu, Like
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: literally within a few feet you'll be able to find
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: tropical reef fish on the coral in all of these
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: beaches around Oahu, on Loni, Kai and Waipahu and Eva
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and all all the beaches. Yeah, there's just fish everywhere here.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: There's fish around an island. So I just wanted to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: talk about some of the cooler ones I've seen and photographed,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and if you're keen on seeing any of those photographs,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: certainly go check out the travel community on Lemmy Crazy
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: People dot online slash c slash travel. That's right, it's updated.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I made a new name. Oh yeah, I've talked about that. Anyway,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the fish, because they're pretty interesting. A
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: very common one that looks like a ghost is called trumpetfish,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and I've seen a few of them, and they're so
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: long that it freaked me out when I saw one
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the first time, But I've seen a few of them
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: now and they're pretty chill. They're called trumpetfish because they
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: have kind of a elongated sea horse head slapped onto
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the body of an eel, but the head is like
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a fifth of their length, so it's this big trumpety
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: looking face, and they're they move real eel like in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: slidey slinky, and they can be gray and translucent. They
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: all of them are actually the ones that I've seen,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: except for the one today that was green, and it
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: was really cool because this was also the first one
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that didn't bolt away or try to escape immediately or
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: shoot right by me. All the other gray ones just
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: zoomed by me and I only got a picture, and
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, WHOA, okay, good thing, Like in my mind,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I got a glimpse at them before they were gone,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and they're already so difficult to see. So it's kind
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of crazy. I've seen them at all, I guess multiple times.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I got a pair of goggles and now I have
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: this underwater camera. But that's all I have. Cost thirty
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: bucks maybe to oh, I guess forty dollars with the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: SD card and now I'm yeah, that's it. And then
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I just go right off the shore and there's all
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: these fish everywhere and turtles. Okay, so the trumpetfish is
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Looks like a little ghost deal big seahorse,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: had big googly eyes, and it's just slinking around along
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the seafloor. I've seen most of them slinking along along
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the sea floor. One flew in front of me like
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: at neck height. And the water on all these shores
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: are pretty not tall, like less than ten feet. For
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: hundreds of feet from the shoreline, it's still ten feet
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: or so from the surface of the water to the sand.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So if you just go out a little bit in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: these beaches after like thirty feet tops. You're already almost
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: at the maximum depth for as far out as I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: have been. Obviously doesn't extend forever, but the sandy floor
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is pretty goes pretty far out there. What else is
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: awesome besides trumpetfish? The turtles. There are so many turts
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: rocking around the beaches here, and I didn't think I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was gonna see one, and then I saw like eight
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in one place. And they are so majestic and when
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you like and they don't seem to mind humans being
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: close to them. You're not supposed to. I think it's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: fifty feet stay fifty feet away from green sea turtles,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and stay one hundred and fifty feet away from monk seals.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And that can be difficult because the waves are crashing
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: all the time, and I've already had turtles swim straight
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: like past me. I'll be like, oh, yeah, he's fifty
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: feet away, and then they'll just zoom right around. They
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: never look like they're moving quickly. It always looks like
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: they're flapping in slow motion. But their movements are efficient
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and they moved pretty far with each flap, and they're
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: very graceful. It's so cool to watch them. They look
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: so cool, especially up close. And I was floating around
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and one zoomed up right under me and spread his
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: wings and didn't like move, and I had my arms
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: out like his fins were, and we just kind of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: floated together for a while, and I was just like,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: oh my god, there's a turtle just hanging out with me.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: He must know I'm here. And he wasn't flapping anywhere.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: He was just had all four like fins out like
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: my limbs were out. And we both just floated as
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the waves moved us together, up and down and forward
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and back, and just floated on in the ocean together.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And it was one of the coolest experiences of my life.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: It was amazing. And in the I don't know a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: few times, half dozen times I've got out. Since then,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I've seen more turtles, and I've seen groups of turtles,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and I noticed that when the waves get rough, they
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: kind of swim down under coral shelves and sort of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: take shelter while the water up is moving around, because again,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: they don't flat very quickly, so while they can move far,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: if the water's really pushing them around, they'll be in
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: some trouble. But when they do need to move they can.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I saw one just zoomed down into one of these
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: coral shelves, and I was wondering, like, well, how did
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: they get under there when the water's going crazy? And
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: then the water was going crazy, and this guy just
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: sort of tucked in its fins and zoomed down and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: swooped into under a coral shelf, and that was awesome
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to see. So there'll be a few of them flowing
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: around near me or swimming around feeding, And then I
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: can look around and there's a few others under the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: coral shelves right off the beach, not how far fifty
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: feet maybe from the sand. I've seen multiple turtles protecting themselves,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: sheltering under these coral shelves, So really close to the beach,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: way closer than I would have thought are all these turts.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And as you can expect, the more touristy areas, there's
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: still a bunch of fish, but there are less fish
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: in the touristy areas where there's tons of people in
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the beach than there are in the less touristy areas.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: So go to any beach, and if you get out
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: onto the beach and there's a whole bunch of people
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of people in the water. Just walk
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: down the beach until there's fewer people. Every beach I've
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: been to pretty much has fewer people if you just
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: walk away for half a mile or something, and then
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you'll have a stretch of beach and if there are
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: no coral reefs around or pieces of coral, you'll still
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: see fish, but it will be hard because they like
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to stay around the rocks and coral for shelter. You know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be in the open area. But yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I've when you're around any coral, there are fish everywhere.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: There are so many. Haven't seen any sharks yet, pretty
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: happy about that. Apparently black tip and white tip sharks
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: are very common in the Islands, but I haven't seen any,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and I bet it would be difficult to see them
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: if they were right there. Other things that are difficult
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to see octopi. I have not found one, and I've
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: been looking, and they're supposed to be very common, and
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I believe they are, but you know, they're octopi, so
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: they're super difficult to spot with their camouflage abilities. But
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep looking. Maybe i'll see one before I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: gotta get to Indonesia. Oh yeah, I decide I'm going
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: to Indonesia. Breaking news, breaking news. Also, did you know
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Indonesia is like right next to Australia, Like the last
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: island of Indonesia, the last main island is an hour flight,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: well maybe two hours, but super close to watch Astralia.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not two hours, it might be just an
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: hour flight. It's right next to Australia. So that was
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting to find out. I always thought Australia was
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: more isolated than that, but I I'm not sure why,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: because I looked at the I looked the maps, and
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I was shocked how close it was to some other islands.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I just didn't I didn't know how close it was
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to Southeast Asia. It's really close. And now it makes sense.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: All of those flight tickets always saw whenever I was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in Thailand or whatever, and I searched explore everywhere on Skyscanner,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and it would always give me one hundred and sixty
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: bucks to Australia. And that's why I went the first time,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: because it was so cheap. But I was always wondering
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: why I was so cheap, because what I remembered is oh,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Australia the most isolated place on the planet, and there's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: nowhere to like. No, Hawaii is like three thousand miles
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: five thousand miles from everything. That's pretty isolated. I mean,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: aside from the other islands. I guess it's close to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: some other island chains, but Australia. Australia's a couple hours
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: from a couple different countries, from a few different countries,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: so it's not as isolated as I thought it was,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: which is very interesting to find out, considering I am
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a world traveler and I forgot what the world looked like.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: That struck me funny. Back to the turtles. What was
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: cool about them? I saw baby turtle. It was swooping
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: around with its family, and it seemed even more interested
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in humans than the rest of them did. The adults
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: were like that one hung out with me, but the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: rest of them sort of just go around and treat
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: me as a piece of coral. But the young one
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: sort of seemed like he was zooming around me and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: trying to like, oh, what's the monkey in the water,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And it was really fun watching him zip around. And
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you can see them from the shore, even the turtles,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: so you could spot them before you go in. Just
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: look for like a brown leathery looking back, like a yeah,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a brown leathery looking oval just bobbing on the surface.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: That is the shell of a turtle. And if you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: watch it for a while, you'll see its head come up.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: They pop their heads up to breathe every now and then.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And I got some great shots of turtles. There's some
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: up already in the lemmy community, but more are definitely coming,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and I recommend checking them out because again, I can't
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: believe how well my crappy little camera is taking these pictures.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I really like how some of these turtles look. They oh,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they look so cool. I'm gonna post a turtle picture
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: quite soon of what And he's like veering right and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: turning around. But you can see the pattern on his
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: skin like that turtle pentagon hexagonal pattern on their fins
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and back. It looks great. Sea green green sea turtles
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: are very cool. They look wise, they look magical, they
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: look serene and just chill as all heck. They are
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a very cool animal and I'm so I feel so
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: fortunate to see them in real life and swim with
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: them and have them treat me so well. It's eh,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it's a different experience. It's very I love being around nature. I,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you know, petted a tiger in a place in Thailand
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: something I don't know, but and I've seen anacondas and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: zoos and like stuff like that. But this was bizarre.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: This was this was different. It really felt like like
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: how I always talk about when I travel get to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a new country, I feel like I'm part of the world.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: That's how it felt swimming with the sea turtles. They
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: saw me and they were like, yeah, you're part of
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: this too, man. And then they just went about their
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: day and I got to sit on the ocean floor
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a couple times and just be with these pretty big
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: honk and sea turtles. I haven't talked about their size,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: but their shells can be longer than my torso pretty easy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Most of them are. They're like a good three and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a half feet long shells. They're big. These turtles get
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: pretty big and they're but they're relaxed, so my brain
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't even freak out. In the beginning, my brain was
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: freaking out every time I saw a turtle. It was like, ah, shark,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and it was like, oh no, it's a turtle, Okay,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it's in that shape is a turtle, and I had
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: to go through that many times, twenty times. But now
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: my brain is just like oval, turtle, oval with fins,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: turtle thing popping out of the water like a diagonal periscope,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: turtle head and brown patch of brown on the surface
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of the ocean. Turtleback, turtle shell, turt shell. So it's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: awesome seeing these things, and it's awesome to feel included
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: in the ocean with them, which totally belongs to them.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And I haven't gone too far out. I did go
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the farthest out I've been yet, which is one hundred
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and fifty two hundred and fifty feet. I went out
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: pretty far today because the water was super calm and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: it was over my head, but it was maybe fifteen
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: feet deep. Yeah, fifteen feet I would say at the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: deepest parts, and most of it was less than ten
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: feet because it varies the seafloor as far as I went,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: so I felt pretty comfortable going pretty far out a
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: few hundred feet, although after I got out there, I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: did turn back because today was bizarre. Today was the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: sun was so strong today. I think there were less
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: fish than I usually see, just because it was so
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: bright that you could see everything. You could see for
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: fifty feet into the distance underwater, and usually you can
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: see I can see like maybe half that at best
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: on any normal sunny Hawaiian day. But when I was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: out there today, it was just so bright that the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: everything felt different. It seemed like everyone in the ocean
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was tired and like kind of going a bit slower
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: because it was so bright underwater, And there were fewer
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: fish because they were just like, well, anything that wants
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to eat me can see me from like one hundred
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: feet away, Like I see crappy under the water. But
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure sharks, or at least well sharks are smelling.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But anyone with Key and I that is able to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: go underwater must be able to see as far as
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: they can possibly see. On days like this, the sun
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was sun was wild. I'll have to post some pictures
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: because I'm underwater. I'm like ten feet down in the water,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: and water stopped, even clear water stops sunlight very quickly.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: But ten feet down it is it is shining off
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of some of this sun bleached coral, just like brilliantly
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: glaring white. It's pretty. It was shocking. It was shocking
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: how bright. It was on the seafloor two hundred feet
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out from the shore or more. I don't know. I
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was pretty out. I checked backed a lot, and I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: had my goggles with me, and the carrent was very stable.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But I will say be careful because different beaches have
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: signs up that say bewhere a riptide, which is all
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, you won't know. It's kind of like
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: an underground river, So you don't know that there's this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: strong current there until you touch it. And once you
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: touch it, it'll pull you from the regular water into
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the underground river underwater river, and that'll pull you down
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and you'll drown. So I am not recommending people go
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: out as far as I did. I went out just
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: based on I know how to swim. I felt comfortable
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in this water. It was not very deep, but at
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, let's say two hundred and fifty feet,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is pretty far. I'm going back in. Also,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: there were people, I will say, there are people surfing
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: farther out than I was, like another one hundred feet
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: past where I was. There were some people. So it's
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: not like definitely you will die if you go out
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: that far. It's just I am no expert on ocean currents,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and I'm no expert on riptides or anything. I wanted
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to swim with some turtles and fish I got to.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to recommend anything I don't really
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: know anything about. I can recommend all this travel stuff,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: medical tourism, healthcare abroad, getting jobs abroad, tickets for the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: next country, how to choose a country. I can recommend
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: all that stuff because I'm very familiar with and I've
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: been living it. I don't know nothing about oceans, so
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not telling everybody to go three hundred feet offshore
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and expect to be fine. Because it's the ocean. Anything
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: can happen. And there could have been sharks where I was.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there were, and I just didn't see them.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So be very careful. Do not take this as a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: recommendation to go that far out, especially if there are
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: signs up. I would never do that if this if
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: there were riptide signs up or anything like that, and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: if I couldn't see the bottom, there's no even if
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the bottom was a little bit deeper than it was,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: because it was only ten feet fifteen at the absolute most,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and that was not common it was usually about ten feet.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I felt comfortable going out that far and swimming in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: very calm water. Other days I didn't go out more
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: than one hundred feet because the water was busier, it
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: was moving faster, and I'm a good swimmer, but I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: don't know how the ocean works. Again, so on those
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: on every other day, I was like, well, nope, I'm
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: going to go out just as far as I'm comfortable
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that I can definitely make it back. But everything is
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: comfort and be aware, stay aware, stay safe. The ocean is.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: The ocean is bigger and stronger, and it's wild. It's wild.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Even just being in ten feet water and knowing I'm
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: connected to the rest of all of the Pacific Ocean
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: is crazy. It's crazy that just yeah, I'm a couple
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: hundred feet out and then for thousands of miles in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: every direction. It's just a giant, alien environment with super
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: strong currents. So it's good to bear the power of
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean in mind when you're in those waters.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Probably the Atlantic you know when you're there too, But yeah,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: this it was. It was pretty cool, pretty cool experience.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So I saw trumpetfish, which were very cool. I saw turtles,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: which were very cool. I saw the Moorish idol, which
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: is this yellowfish white and black stripes. I saw the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: state fish humuhumu nuku nukuapu wa humuhumu nukunukuapua. The Hawaiian
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: state fish apparently means fish with a snout like a pig,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: because it does have big big li does have a
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: big mouth, white lips, and it has a blue stripe
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: down in the middle of it and then some black
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and white stripes. It looks very cool. These fish, they
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: do look very cool there. It's really interesting how they
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: all developed morphologically. Is that what a pattern is morphologically
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: is the shape Esthetically, I guess they have very distinct patterns,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: like all of these different fish, Like one is just
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: white with a black dot in the center, and I'm
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: like why, because why does this humuhuman nukunuku look like that?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And then you got just a dot. I don't know.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I don't have the answer. It's just interesting to think about.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And all of them look differently. The trumpetfish is mostly
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: transparent slash gray with like a slice of greenish down
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the side of it. And apparently they come in different colors.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I think the one I saw today was green ish
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and mostly gray, but the the other ones I saw
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: were all gray, so there are different colors. But I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: want to see one of the like yellow ones or
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: something crazy. I like their big starf starfish seahorse heads. Okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: what else? Did I see? No eels, which I was
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: also thankful for because eels are crazy. What else? You
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: know what? I'm not good at the names of the fish,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: but I remember one for sure, the unicorn fish, because
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: it's named the unicorn fish because it has a big
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: horn sticking out of its head. Now, it's not narwhale sized,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: but the biggest one I saw was about as big
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: as my torso it was like it was much bigger
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: than I expected any of these fish to be, and
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I freaked out when I saw him. It was as
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: big as like the turtle's back a turtleshell, but I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: could see it clearly it was a fish, and I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was like, the only fish that big are sharks. Now
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that's not true at all, but that's what my brain,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: who was completely unfamiliar with fish and like seeing them
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: underwater thought. I was just like, that's got to be
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: a shark, and I was like, well, it's giant and oval,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, it doesn't have a fin, a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: shark fin. That's not a shark probably, and it wasn't.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: But I did notice that had a horn, and that's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: how I saw my first two giant uniform giant unicorn fish.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And I haven't seen any ones that big since, but
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I did see a few every time I go. They
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like to hang out near They're more heidi than other fish.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They're more skittish and sort of hide in the coral
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: that I've seen, and I've seen, yeah, a few more,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: but they've all been I don't know, foot and a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: half something like that. These first two, I don't know,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: A meter doesn't sound crazy to me like they were. Yeah,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: they were huge, but I didn't get a picture with them.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But now I have the camera because I saw these
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: underwater marvels. So maybe I'll get lucky in the next
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: few days and capture one of these titans. The problem
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: is it's difficult to tell the size of anything underwater
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: because you see, like the turtles I'm taking pictures of,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you can see them next to a coral formation and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, I guess that's a whatever. I guess
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that's a big turtle next to the coral formation. But
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: it's really difficult to judge depth because the coral formation
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: can be five feet apart or five feet wide, and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: can look the exact same as one that is like
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty feet wide if you're just from a different angle.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So it's really difficult to see how large a lot
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of these animals are. But I mean, apart from dogs
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and cats, these are the largest wildlife that I've been around,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: certainly since India where cows could walk around, but just
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: wild animals. I mean, yeah, they're fish and turtles, but
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: it's still it's just bizarre being around things some nearly
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: as big as me so close to the shore. So
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, if these guys are within fifty feet
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of the shore, what the heck is out there? And
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: that's why I went like two hundred whatever feet today.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: But I didn't see any bigger ones than those first
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: two unicornfish I saw, and I saw those easily within
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: fifty feet of shore. They were real close. There was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a pair of giant honkers over there, and then I
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: didn't Yeah, there were some swirls of fish and other stuff,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and it felt different after I got one hundred and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: fifty feet away from shore. It felt like things were
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a little more alive and things were a little more wild,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: but I didn't see anything. I feel like there must
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: have been a bunch of OCTOPI I wasn't seeing, and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: other animals weren't I wasn't recognizing. And it definitely felt
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like sharks could just be slipping in and out of
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: all the coral out there or right beyond and sensing
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: my electrical signals. But I didn't see any knock on
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: wood that I don't don't need to see. No sharks,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. I like adventure, and I also
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: like staying alive. Oh there's needlefish. Wait. I still don't
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: know if that's their name. I forgot to look them up.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: They look like tiny needles. They're like a foot long. Okay,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I guess they look like big needles. But that's what
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: they look like, just big needles in the water. And
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: there's hundreds of them extending for I don't know, extending
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: for fifty feet one hundred feet, just in these huge
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: lines going back like three or four thick, and then
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: hundreds deep, shooting from twenty feet offshore one hundred feet back,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just in this giant line, and I guess they're hunting
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: together or something. I don't know, but you can I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: can see four or five of these criss crossing needlefish
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: congregation lines just in all directions. They're everywhere, and they're
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: very tiny and they get out of your way when
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you swim past them. But it's pretty wild to see
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: that many fish. Again, it's just so many fish so
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: close to shore. And they're all near the surface too,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: so there must be something they like that lives near
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the surface that's too tiny for me to see. That
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: they hoover up with their mouths, but they always stay
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: in that long formation like they're all waiting to get
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to work. It's yeah, it's also amazing to see because
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it's hundreds, probably thousands of organisms in these long lines,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: just going about their day while you're swimming around with them. Man,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: it is cool. I do like snorkeling. I guess I'm
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: not using a snorkel, I just use goggles. But is
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that called free diving. I'm free diving. I love it.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I love free diving, and I love using this little
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: underwater camera. I'm seriously considering taking it with me, even
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: though it'll be maybe the most frivolous item in my rucksack.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: It seems sort of worth it to take it. Since
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Southeast Asia and there are
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: beaches all over everywhere there. I'll probably be there long
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: enough to use it at least once more, and then
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I can get rid of it, and then I can
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: give it to uh somebody else and pick one up
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the next year if I need another one, I guess. Yeah,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So those little needlefish are really cool. There's a bunch
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of blackfish that like ticket like to stay in groups.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: There's a bunch of yellow fish with black stripes that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I saw like fifty of them in a group today
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: That was pretty crazy. I couldn't take a picture of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: them though they were in two feet of water. They
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: were in a very shallow water, maybe three feet of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: water at the deepest, and they were just flurrying around,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: like fifty of them in this huge group. And I
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: took pictures. But today the sun was so crazy that
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the glare off of them just blinded my camera, like
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: anything under five feet of depth. I just couldn't get
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: any picture because the sun was so insanely bright today. Yeah,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: but it has been great on who I'm gonna keep
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: going out and see if I can see any new
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: fish or anything, you know, particularly interesting, and I'll keep
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: posting these photos. I got so many great photos of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the green sea turtles, the unicorn fish I just today.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Because the light was so bright, it was difficult for
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of pictures, but for the needlefish, since they're
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: near the surface. I finally got a good picture of
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: one of their lines, one of their huge congregation two
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: tunnels going back into the ocean. So I'll be posting
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a picture of that because I only think it's because
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the sun was so insane today that I was able
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to see them with relief. Usually they're just gray, needle
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: like smudges in the gray, smudgy ocean. But I got
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a couple good pictures of them, so that's going up soon.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: All these pictures are going up. The FISHI look cool.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: If you get a chance, get to Hawaii. It is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: expensive to rent a place here, like two thousand dollars
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: per month. But if you're traveling and you've ever really
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to get to Hawaii, it's not bad. It's not
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a bad decision. You can do it. You can, you know,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: splurge for a month and then go live for two
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month the rest of the year. If
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: you live two hundred dollars a month for eleven months
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: out of the year and one year, or let's say
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty for your housing cost for most
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of the year and one month of the year, you
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: spend two thousand on an apartment in Hawaii, that's less
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: than one hundred extra bucks spread out per month over
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the rest of the year. So yeah, if you're traveling
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and living the normal three hundred bucks a month for rent,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: you can splurge if you really want to go. I
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: will say I sort of prefer Southeast Asia and other
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: beach destinations. The water is clearer, there are fewer tourists
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: in a lot of places. Thailand, for instance, is huge,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and they have so many islands. The Hawaiian Islands have
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a few islands you can go to, and there are
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of people on the islands you can go to,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: so it's pretty It's going to be much more difficult
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to find an isolated part of the beach on the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Hawaiian Islands than if you are on any of the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: island islands in Thailand, or even if you're on the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Thailand mainland actually, except for Puquette, which is insane and
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I don't right if you like beaches, Puquet's not the place.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: They have nice looking sunsets, but the waves are crazy
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and you can't swim or snorkel in the places I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: know of Pouquet. I'm sure there are better places that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know anything about, because, as I have mentioned,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: not an ocean expert. It was great talking about this.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I'm remembering what it felt like to kind of float
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: above that turtle and then slowly flap away when I
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: was done floating there, just floating there, just being with
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a green sea turtle who apparently it was totally cool,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: spread eagling floating in the water with me. That feeling
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: is very special, and I will carry that with me
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to indones Yeah. I don't think I'm near any ocean
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: or any beaches. I mean Yoga Karta in Indonesia, which yeah,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: not really not really next to the shore. The airport's
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: next to the shore. Whatever. I know. People like the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: idea of Hawaii, but if you're doing that for the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: wildlife and like not sun bleached coral and pristine beaches,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of countries you can go to, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you can spend a lot less going to those countries.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: But everyone you know, everyone I meet who travels, wants
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to go to Hawaii. It's just it has that place
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in everybody's So if you do want to go, it
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is possible you can splurge for one month. But if
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you're purely going for the wildlife and the beaches and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, you can do that in
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: plenty of other countries at a much more affordable price
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: point for cleaner beaches and maybe commer waters. Commer beaches,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: certainly less sun bleached and damaged corals, and very cheap
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: bungalows on the beach. I hope you are doing awesome.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I'm doing pretty good. You can talk to me at
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a Bit of a Rambler at gmail dot com or
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: bit of a Rambler on Lemmy. Check out the community
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: post in it if you want to. That's awesome, everybody should.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I want it to be a fun travel community that
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: everyone can talk in. I will talk to you soon,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: hopefully about more fish that I find. I'm hoping I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: find even more stuff. That's it. I just want to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: see more cool stuff, and if not, then I'll talk
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: about probably indoned next because I'm going there in a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: weak ish. I hope your day is going great. Talk
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: to me if you want to have a great day,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: whatever you want.