Hawaii Diarii, Day 4, Part 1

As the Hon. Governor of California once said during America's first encounter with an alien species, "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

As I say, if there are no injuries, it's not an adventure.

That's right. Today was snorkeling day. Am I glad "Shark Cove" doesn't really have sharks.

• The day began with a near disaster - I went with two people I've never met, Lloyd and Lisa, from AAJA, and there was some miscommunication over where to meet. I took "the lobby" to mean in the lobby. They went out to where the cars pull up outside, under an overhang with a sitting area. So they left without me. Fortunately, they hadn't gotten very far by the time I got around to calling - hey, for once I was early, I figured they're allowed to be late - and they came back.

• First stop was this local donut-kind of shack. Sweets. My cream puff kind of local donut exploded. Icky.

• Then it was the long, sort of wrong way drive to Turtle Bay, where I donned my brand-new snorkel gear and promptly fell over. But once I sort of got the hang of it, and stopped drinking ocean water, I spotted a couple of fish. The mask was OK, the snorkel was OK once I figured it out, but the flippers gave me fits. And then I whacked myself in the nose, jostled my mask, and got a nostril full of seawater.

• We sat on the beach a bit, and then went on to Shark Cove. This is all along the "famous" North Shore, by the way.

• Shark Cove was cool, except you have to climb down a rocky hill to get there, and I have yet to master the art of walking in flipflops. I almost fell over in the parking lot, so I took them off for the walk. Then I had to clamber over the rocks, sans flippers - left those freakin' things on shore - and then I had some serious fun. There were lots of little fish, and I chased them around and stuff.

• But right when I was coming back, I almost ran into another snorkeler - you're looking down, which is a detriment when you're not used to it, since you don't see what's in front of you exactly. Heck, I'm still getting used to being able to see underwater. Anyway, dodging this other snorkeler, I rolled, swept my arm back to swim, and slashed myself open on a rock. Fortunately, it's more of a scrape than a cut, so I stopped bleeding, eventually. Probably going to get billed for that hotel towel, though.

• I also got sunburned. Too little sunscreen. My face, nice and brown. Arms, nice and brown. My nose, nice and red. Shoulders, nice and red. Tongue, completely blue. But we'll get to that.

• On the way back, we stopped at this famous shaved-ice place, Morimoto's or some such, and I went with the blue raspberry shaved ice. Very refreshing. Turned my tongue and lips blue, which is always the joy of blue raspberry ice.

Then it was back to the hotel, where I'm writing this at 2 p.m. local, pondering what to do about food, since all I've had today was two donut thingys and some shaved ice. But my shoulders are starting to itch, and I almost fell asleep in the car on the way back, so a nap sounds nice, too. Perhaps a nap, and then dinner. Then I've got to do some HorrorTalk stuff, and the convention starts for me tomorrow morning.

I should mention, both Lloyd and Lisa are very cool, and from the Bay Area, so I even got to talk a little Raiders football. Funny thing was, we ran into another snorkeler from the Bay Area, and he recognized Lloyd (who's a TV guy).

My evening update probably depends on if I actually do anything interesting other than eat dinner. I've got a movie and a bunch of special features to watch later, plus a review to write and another one to edit. But first, I'm thinking Royal Steak and Seafood over at the shopping mall. Their ad is oftly enticing, and I walk past it every time I leave the hotel.

p.s. Yes, I'm a sucker for repetitious ads. The eighth time I walked past the tattoo parlor near the sports bar and BBQ place, I finally caved in and got one.

p.p.s Just kidding, Mom. Breath.

On to the next part!