I woke up bright and early and ready for my four-dive day.  At Jack’s Diving Locker, they label the all-day people as ‘Dive Animal.’  I like that.  I walked to the shop early to scope out their GoPro gear and bought a new underwater housing; my camera started behaving mostly normal again (Why do you put rice with your wet electronics?  To attract an asian person to come fix it.  Is it a racist joke if you’re calling them smart? Probably.  Sorry, I giggled.  But I think I heard it from my Japanese boss).

Anyway, the new housing didn’t fit with my new red filter, so that will be someone’s gift.

Jack’s is a clean, professional dive shop with all the newest gear and gadgets for sale, and I waited there for about an hour before they even considered getting us to the boat; not super efficient.  The boat was nice, though, and I loved the crew.  We went all the way down to Kealakekua Bay at the Capt Cook monument, which took nearly an hour.  We had to go that far to find a place out of the continuing north swell, although the wind was still kicking pretty hard.  The first dive was good, and super cold again, and if you assumed that I had snot in my mask all day you would be correct.  Immersion in cold water for extended periods does not make a runny nose stop.

The fish and reef were about the same as 2 Step, without the cool ray and turtle.  The best part was getting in close to the rocks and watching the waves crash from about 20 feet below.  I had no trouble keeping off the reef, and the fish were happily swaying with the current.  The weirdest part was watching the only couple from the boat, they held hands for the entire dive.  Almost an hour.  And then they held hands during the surface interval.  And again throughout the second dive.  At times I would just stop and watch them instead of the fish, they were fascinating – two skinny, regular-looking white people, maybe in their late 20s.  Glued together, no matter if they had to turn around, or were stuck on the reef, or one was having equipment trouble.  Never let go.  I almost want to say it was romantic and Valentinesy but no, it just seemed pretty inconvenient for the most part.  And a bit ridiculous.

I had left my filter connected to my camera since I tethered it before I realized it would’ t fit the new housing; I had decided to give it to Shanti for helping me arrange my trip.  And I left it somewhere on the sea floor.

We found out between dives that the afternoon and night Manta Ray dives were cancelled due to the weather.  No more ‘Dive Animal.’  The second dive was much like the first, cool, but with lessening visibility and getting rougher.  By the time we were done I couldn’t feel a couple of my fingers.  I never thought diving in Hawaii could be so cold, even with Bill’s extra wetsuit on top of Pablo’s.

On the way home we saw dolphins chasing the boat, and whales breaching here and there.  We stopped a couple times to watch, and most people had never seen a whale up close before.  This was also about the time that we found out that all communications on the island were down.  We didn’t know at the time, but a construction worker grading some land hit a pole which knocked out all phone, internet and cell communication (except TMobile.  Crappiest island service provider was the only one working).  Seems like an important pole like that should be a little more protected.  Besides the couple and me, all the other divers were married guys whose wives were shopping.  Each of them was supposed to call for a ride when they got out of the water.  Each of them was staring at their phones, scratching their heads, wondering what their wives were gonna do when they didn’t call.  And we were almost three hours late because we dove so far away and kept stopping for whales.

When we got back I was able to reschedule my night dives for the next day, even though I was planning on driving north to see some friends.  But I had exactly 18 hours between the end of the night dive and my flight home, and like one diver told me, “If you’re going to give yourself an embolism, the manta dive is the only one worth it.”

And off I went to Humpy’s for a couple post-dive drinks.