Scuba Diving in Kauai

On Saturday morning I took a dive with Fathom Five Ocean Quest in Kauai. I arrived at the dock with a woman I'd met the night before, Jody, who suggested the dive. Our dive master Charles was incredibly helpful and friendly, along with the captain Trout, and two other helpful crew members, who had come along just for fun because the dive was under-booked.

The first dive was pretty uneventful. On the way we did see a few dolphins swimming in our wake which I always find exciting. At the site, we went down about 60ft and stayed down for about 30 minutes. We saw mostly fish and a few eels and large urchins. I also saw a weird looking purple skirt-like thing, maybe a nudibranch? But I forgot to ask the dive master. We saw this dude, who is supposedly pretty rare, but I didn't think he was that exciting. At the end, I also saw a very large parrot fish poopin' some sand.

Our surface interval was very pleasant. The wind and waves were supposedly unseasonably calm so we got to ride closer to the shore and look at the pretty beaches. as we were approaching the second dive site I saw what looked like the back of a brown dolphin. I asked one of the crew who said it was probably a sea turtle. Lo and behold, it was indeed. I saw another three more as we were approaching the site, one of which was completely submerged 3 or 4ft, almost directly off the side of the boat.

This dive site was called Sheraton Caverns aka, the Turtle Airport, as the crew told us. As we were descending, I caught site of another sea turtle swimming about 50ft away. The topography of the site was pretty neat. It was made up of several partial lava tubes. It was basically like a canyon with 15ft walls and anywhere from 5-10ft wide. The top of the canyon walls were at about 30ft depth. There were lots of overhangs and even some arches. Here's a pic (that I didn't take) of one of the arches. The turtles liked to hang out and sleep under the overhangs and in little pockets along the canyon walls. We passed several as we went through the canyon.

At one point, I saw something that looked interesting, but the dive master showed me that it was just the old shell of a lobster. But as we were all focused on that, another of the crew members turned to me and her eyes got wide and she pointed over my shoulder. Less than two feet away was a sea turtle, right above my right shoulder! It was between 2 and 3ft long. As if this wasn't exciting enough, I looked ahead to the next arch in the canyon, toward which the dive master was already swimming, and there were two large (maybe 5-6ft) sea turtles looking as though they had been planning to go through on the other side. We all came under the arch to what turned out to be a cul de sac, where the turtles were all swimming around. There were another 3 or 4 turtles hanging out under ledges in the cul de sac that came out for a bit too. There were a few magical moments where it felt like the turtles and divers were all swirling together in this small (maybe 15ft wide?) space.

Best of all: the dive mast caught it on his underwater camera! I'm still waiting to hear from him, but hopefully I'll have the video to post soon!

Geodesic dome cover

I've spent the last week sewing a geodesic dome cover with my mom. It's been so fun and satisfying.  This is the progress I've made so far:

It's 13 triangular-ish "petals" that are 15' long and 5' wide at the base. Their sides are curved, each one is approximately 1/12 of a 60'-circumference semisphere. We added a 13th petal just so we have some wiggle room (better too big than too small). Even so, we may need to add a skirt, because it turns out the dome we're trying to cover isn't a perfect semisphere, but a little bit more, so it's actually 10'7" tall, even though it's a 18' diameter dome.

My mom and I bought the fabric in downtown LA at the Michael Levine Loft. We bought 70 yards for $51. We bought all woven fabrics, no stretch, very supple, some sheer. There were 8 pieces that were more than 5 yards long, 4 that were between 3 and 5, and half a dozen or so more that were less than 3. We sewed together some of the shorter pieces to make them longer than 5 yards, using this tape stuff to cover the rough seams and make them stronger. Then we cut out the 13 fifteen foot petals.

Right now we have sewn 4 panels with 3 petals each, leaving the 13th petal separate. The petals are sewn together using French seams because they're stronger (two seams) and prettier (no raw edges).

The next step is to add the thirty 4' straps for tying the cover onto the dome. These will be placed on the inner seams of the petals in 5 rows, the top two having 2 and 4, and the bottom 3 having 8 each.

We've also cut out some covers for the 30 vertices of the dome to make sure the cover doesn't snag on the bolts.

After we sew on the straps and sew together the panels, we'll leave one seam unsewn to act as a doorway, which we'll open and close with twine and some eyelets (...this is harder to describe than I imagined and I can't find a good image).

Basically, it's going to be (and sort of already is) friggin' rad. Hella wicked awesome.

turntable.fm party

I have an idea. And I'm going to make it happen. A turntable.fm party. Sort of like a DDP...well, more inspired by.

Basically, the next party I throw is going to be DJed by turntable.fm. I'll create a private room on turntable for the party, and have it hooked up to the speakers at the party. Then whoever's at the party, can DJ in the room and select songs they want to hear....well, just like you would in a regular tt.fm room...but we're all actually in the same room. :D This does presume that at least half a dozen or so people at the party will have the tt.fm app, but I think I can make it work.

Points

Zomg I love points. There are some points I keep track of:

turntable.fm: 511 DJ points (just 89 more for new avatar option!)
last.fm: 15,820 plays
first dates: 78
people met from the internet: 57

while I'm scoring, I'll also include some high scores:
bubble spinner: 32k (or so)
entanglement: 620
bouldered: V5
lead clean (outside!): 5.10b

...and probably some I'm forgetting, and some that I'm neglecting to mention (Like my weight, which is like inverse points anyway).

Anyway, one score that I'm itching to increase: my klout. But I won't do it! I refuse! I want to say that it represents everything I hate about Facebook and the direction that social media is taking our society and culture...That's actually probably false. It's probably mostly irrelevant. I guess the point for me is that I'd rather be increasing my influence IRL than exerting energy to inflate my Twitter/Facebook/G+ klout. But oh is it tempting!

Writing

I would really like to start writing. I think writing is a good exercise in and of itself, and also I feel like I have ideas that I'd like to remember...and maybe share. I still haven't decided how public I want to make this...but something tells me when I write a post I'm proud about, I'll tweet it, and that may be that. Or not, my klout ain't so strong, methinks. But I still want it to be public enough for those who are interested.

I've tried before to keep up writing regularly, but it never sticks. Usually the issue is that there's too much of a barrier for writing a post/entry/what have you. So this time, I'm making it easy. Short posts, no editing, not too far from stream of consciousness. I'll be shooting for 200 words or so, ideally at least three posts a week, if not every day. And today I have a feeling I'm going to post a few, just to get some momentum going. The posts will probably start out pretty rough, and maybe eventually I'll hit a groove, and maybe even move to slightly longer posts.

So, here goes!