Today was pack-up day from the vacation rental and time to move back in to Waikiki for the remainder of the trip.  We bid farewell to Tish the owner and headed into town with a full vehicle.  Once again we ate at Zippy’s Diner prior to scuba and once again we had the same waitress.  She noted that Jodie was looking a bit more perky this time around.

At the boat launch, we met with our scuba class and found bags of gear with our names on them.  I was named “Jodie 2″.  After a short on-land lesson we piled onto the boat and headed out into the ocean.  Given the prep we went through, it was clear that this was going to be a bit more serious than what I had thought would be a shallow “better than snorkeling” adventure.  No, they were going over some very real life-threatening scenarios, how to communicate, and how to not get dead.

When we arrived at the first dive site, they tied the boat to a dive line that was anchored at the bottom.  We went in one by one, and the non-certified divers (including us) each had to demonstrate their skills about five feet down.  How to clear your mask, how to clear water from the regulator, how to find your regulator when it falls out, how to take someone else’s emergency backup, etc.  My mask was a bit leaky (I think my face is a bit abnormal) so I spent a good chunk of the first dive clearing water from my eyes.  Jodie had a minor freak-out during the skill training, but the instructor brought her up to the surface and talked her down.  She was fine after that.  We then followed the dive line down to the bottom of the ocean, which was about forty feet deep.  The instructor gave us a thirty-minute tour of the reef in that area, and we saw just a ton of fish.  The water was saturated with these tiny little sea slugs, they were literally everywhere in the water.  The dive instructors weren’t sure what they were, but they see them about once a year.  If you pop one (either by flicking it or by random chance) they explode into a small cloud of purple dye.  At the end of our first dive, one of the other people who was actually getting tested for his certification ran out of air.  He completely freaked out (as would I) and the instructor had to try to calm him down at forty feet below, while getting him to take a hit off of his air tank.  That ended our first dive a bit early.

The second dive went more smoothly.  We knew more what we were doing, and they got me another mask that fit better.  This dive site was near some underground craters, and there were several sea turtles who called this home.  I got lots of pictures on this dive, but it was with an old-timey disposable 35mm camera so we’ll have to wait to see if they turned out or not.  We saw a few turtles of different sizes, including one turtle who was sleeping in a crevice.  Again, lots of interesting fish of different shapes and colours.  After about thirty minutes on the bottom, we came back up to the boat.  I wished that we could stay out longer, but alas we had no more air.

After diving, we met with the wedding group again for one last dinner together and said our goodbyes.  The majority were flying back on Saturday night, and we would be staying for another couple of days until Monday afternoon.

After dinner, we went for a walk in Waikiki.  At the international market, I mentioned to Jodie that I’d like to go back to the hotel to use the washroom but she convinced me to use the public toilet there in the market.  Fair enough, so I went down a hallway to a small bathroom.  Inside I could see three large scary-looking guys who gave me a bit of a glare.  It was a tiny bathroom, with one sink, one urinal, and a toilet stall.  At this point it was too late to turn back, so I mustered up my confidence and said “umm, I just need to go to the bathroom”, and they moved aside to let me in.  The room was full of smoke, and in the stall behind me was the following dialog, “It’s good stuff, taste it.  Yeah, I got two more grams.  Now if you like it, you’re going to buy it right?  Yeah…”.  Fairly nervous about the situation at this point, I forced myself to use the urinal mostly for show.  I washed my hands and got out of there, the dealer in his bathroom stall office finally noticing me and shouting “Hey, who’s out there?”.  I walked quickly and confidently back out to the market, got Jodie, and went back to the hotel where we decided to stay for the rest of the night.  I didn’t particularly want these guys seeing me on the street and deciding maybe it was a bad idea to not rough me up.

So we stayed in, rented a movie “Forgetting Sarah Silverman” which we soon discovered was set in Hawaii, and took place at Turtle Bay Resort.  They filmed a major scene sitting in the very table where we ate dinner, and the entire movie used sites where we had just visited.  It was a fun movie, and even more fun because of the setting.  In one scene, the protagonist walks by a group getting married on the beach and says “A Hawaiian wedding, oh how original!”