| Index | Wendell's notes Monday morning, we awoke at 7:30 AM and enjoyed breakfast on the lanai, listening to the exotic birds of Kauai and the white noise of the surf rolling into the beach 100 yards away. After breakfast, we headed into Poipu for some shopping - an obligatory trip to Hilo Hatties for some retina-searingly bright Hawaiian shirts followed by a trip to Fish Express. Fish Express features a bewildering array of Poki, a Hawaiian delicacy, which consists of small bits of sushi marinated and then served up in a bowl. Tako Poki, for example, can be either octopus tentacle chunks or, for the less adventurous, thin slices, marinated and served in a bowl. Sean and Tracy dived in to several bowls of the stuff, earning the nickname "Poki Breath" for the remainder of the afternoon. Poki, combined with an after-lunch Robusto, earned Sean the nickname "Gojira Breath." He enjoyed this greatly, as he would occasionally find small objects, breathe on them and/or pretend to stomp them out of existence while singing "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult. After lunch, we retired to the condo, packed our gear and went out on the afternoon dive boat with Demo Dave. The boat had two other couples on it, so we brought the total to 7 people. We dove off of Poipu Beach - two dives that afternoon. Sean's first dive went well and his second dive was excellent - he stuck very close to me and his air consumption matched mine almost exactly. During the surface interval Dave kept us entertained with lots of stories of his adventures in Southeast Asia in the '70s. Most of the women on the boat got really disturbed by his stories of Olangapo City and we suspect that they won't be back tomorrow. While Sean and Wendell were SCUBA diving, Tracy was on the surface snorkeling, looking down at them and having a wonderful time. She spotted several Sea Turtles while on the surface. Sean and Wendell caught glimpses of white tipped reef sharks under the reef - they were waiting for it to get darker before coming in closer to shore and feeding on the abundant surfers. We chatted with Demo Dave after our dive and Dave decided that Tracy should come along with us on Tuesday's dive. Dave will be working with Tracy on Tuesday morning teaching her the skills she'll need for diving (mask clearing, regulator retrieval, shared air ascent, cutting your opponent's air hose with your dive knife, etc.) and she'll join us for a trip on Tuesday afternoon's dive boat. Sean and I have signed up for two of Dave's specialty courses - Underwater Knife Fighting and Underwater Demolitions. We asked Demo Dave how he could "fly out the harvest at night" and dive during the day without getting bent in the airplane. He explained that he only flies a few hundred feet above the surface, thus eliminating the possibility of getting bent. We had dinner at Brennecke's restaurant, a Kauai tradition. The food was OK, the beach view was excellent.
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