..:sharks cove & waimea bay:..

Brandon and I went to Sharks Cove today. I kept hearing about what a cool place it was to snorkel, so I called Brandon and we took the bus up to Sharks Cove. It's just a couple minutes south of Waimea and like 15 minutes south of North Shore.

[Disclosure... these COOL underwater pictures are not mine... I wish! My friend Robyn, she was there the same day, just left an hour before we got there, so these are some pictures from the go-pro her friend Corbin has!]

We got there and there is a bit of a struggle getting in, cause its all rocky and the waves are trying to kill you, but its fine. We got in, stuck our flippers and masks on and into the blue abyss we swam. We were swimming around checking out all the cool fish. There was this piece of the reef that you could swim down and underneath it and then swim back up through this little hole. Well, I just think I am the shit and can do anything boys can do, so obviously after Brandon did it I said to myself, "yep you got this." And my first attempt I wasn't able to hold my breath long enough, and my second attempt my flipper came off and so that through me off. Third times a charm, right? So I before I went down, I applied my education... I mean, I've been school long enough and am a biology major, I should be able to freaking do this. So I remembered in Physiology for this lab one time, we had to hold our breaths and time how long we could hold them. Then we did it again, but first had to make ourselves hyperventilate for 5 minutes and then hold our breath and time it. We figured out that if you hyperventilate first, you can hold your breath longer because obviously you are pushing pushing more carbon dioxide out and getting more oxygen in. People [even one of my professors] says that it's carbon dioxide that runs your breathing, but they are wrong... they need to go to more schooling, cause it's pressure [which many of my other professors and all the books have said]. This I agree with... and sorry that this has turned into a physiology lesson, but it was super cool to actually apply this to real life. The point of my story? Because pressure runs your breathing, and because obviously going under water means there is more pressure--there was a bigger negative pressure in my lungs then outside of them, so to be able to swim down 15 feet and swim under this reef, I applied my physiological mind and made myself hyperventilate and was able to push the pressure out by plugging my nose once I got down below and pop my ears and then swim through the little hole and swim back up. Like a champ! I did it and was really proud of myself, but obviously was just like, "that was cool," and Brandon goes, "Wow, I'm really impressed. My sister [she's 19] when she was here couldn't do it cause she couldn't figure out how to pop her ears so they wouldn't hurt, you did awesome." I just said thanks, but in my nerdy thinking wanted to say in my sarcastic indifferent attitude, " I'm a biology major and know how to manipulate my body to do what I want it too..."---while obviously rolling my eyes, but didn't.

We swam around a bit more and went pretty far out. We just kept seeing more and more beautiful fish. At one point I was just swimming around and just started singing to the fish, why not? I'm sure they were loving it, hahaha. Next thing I know Brandon is next to me just looking at me in the water laughing! We go above water and he's like, "Is that your little fish tune?" I said, "Yep, sure is!" He started to laugh again, and says, "That just made my entire day. The last time I was here, I saw a sea turtle, maybe if you keep up your singing, we will see one." We both laughed and I reluctantly stuck my head back into the water and started to sing.. No seriously, I did. NOT EVEN 10 SECONDS LATER I SAW A HUGE SEA TURTLE! I was freaking out! I popped my head out of the water and yelled at Brandon to get over to where I was. He came over and was like, no way! I was like, my singing worked! Then another turtle showed up. [The one pictured below was the size of the smaller one we saw, may have even been the same one!] One of them was soooo big, it was amazing, and the other was smaller and we think may have been the big ones baby. It was awesome. We just watched them and swam around with the big one for quite a while. It was so amazing and beautiful. He finally lost us in the crevice of one of the reefs, so we just went on our way.

Brandon went off on his own to do whatever, and I was just swimming around... singing once again. When I saw a HUGE shark. Ok, not huge, it was like 6, 7 feet. So it was big to me. I was like, shut up, this is not real life! It was crazy! It was like 15 feet below me just chilling at the reef. It was light grey and I was like, holy crap I could die right now this is awesome! I was wishing I had a go-pro more then EVER at this point. I would have loved it for the turtle, obviously, but there was a shark 15 feet below me just chilling, like whaaaat? Anyways. Crazy! So then I told Brandon when I saw him and he was like, WHAT? Super jealous. Then we were able to see another one about 10 minutes later just chilling, it was only 4, 4 1/2 feet long and was a dark grey. It swam into this reef thing and Brandon swam down and was following it in and I was of course freaking out.... I mean, obviously I didn't want to freak it out so I was just shaking my head, but he was smart and decided not to swim into the reef, he came back up. Luckily... Anyways. Not too long after that we decided to call it a day.

Well almost. When swimming back in I took off one of my flippers [the girl two doors down let me use her gear] because my foot was hurting so bad. Once I got out I looked at it and had rubbed my skin into a blister! It was stinging! I got a few other cuts and what not from the reef's, but none hurt as bad as my foot. Well obviously I just dumped some clean water on it and sucked it up. We then were just a few minute walk to Waimea, so we hopped over there and went and jumped off the rock jump there. It was about 30 feet as well, about the height of Laie Pointe. However, here the water is clear and the rock is straight down so you are not worried about hitting the rock. We jumped off it and yeah I LOOK STUPID because I was plugging my nose like 20 feet above the water... ANYWAY. I was like, huh??? After I jumped... cause honestly, it was no big deal after the Pointe. There were these college age kids getting up there wanting to jump, but being total sissy-la-la's and we were like, this is nothing!

After jumping we swam around for a bit, and then decided to head back down the mountain. It was such a great day.

Kisses from the sea xoxoxo