Gullible's Travels

Saturday, December 28, 2013

NOW You Tell Me!!!

Because I’m going to South Africa in January, I’m boning up on the history of the country—the part from Victoria Falls south.

About 2:30 this morning, I finished reading a book by Martin Dugard called Into Africa , The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone. I didn’t want it to end. I read all the back pages, (except some of the source notes—it was 2:30 a.m. after all) trying to keep the story alive.

Today I did some research on Dugard, the author of the book I’d finished hours before. In the past few years, his name has been linked as the researcher/co-author with Bill O’Reilly of Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and Killing Jesus.

I came across the following:

An adventurer himself, Dugard regularly immerses himself in his research to understand characters and their motivations better…. [He] swam in the tiger shark-infested waters of Hawaii 's Kealakekua Bay to recreate Captain James Cook's death for Farther Than Any Man.*

WHAT? Tiger shark infested waters? How come no one told me about this before???

I've been there several times and never heard about "tiger shark infested waters."

A portion of Kealakekua Bay. The Capt. Cook Monument is straight up from the boat entering the bay. Those huge cliffs in the background were created when a chunk of the lava island broke off a long time ago.

Kealakekua Bay, the site of a monument to Capt. James Cook, was where we did one of our shore entry dives for our Open Water SCUBA certification in 1983. .

No safe swimming pool dives for us. Every dive was in the ocean. The water was rough that day, and cold, which is why some of us are wearing jeans.

That's me with the white flippers getting ready to jump into the
tiger shark infested waters" of Kealakakua Bay.

This dive was all about timing. Jump in when the swell was receding or it would mash you against the lava. When exiting, ride the swell up to the small ledge I'm standing on, swing yourself around, and sit on the ledge. Then stand up and get the hell out of the way before another swells washes you right back into the ocean.

Me holding a pencil urchin.

With butterfly fish.

Another time, a bunch of us went to the bay on this sailboat, owned by our friend Richard.

Who took a nap on the monument to Cook. It's okay--Richard was an explorer, too.

Some of us went in this yellow boat.

On this trip, my husband Ken and I dove to a small patch of sand 105 feet down an almost vertical wall of various corals. We didn't stay long. You use a tremendous amount of air at that depth. I thought the visibility was good, then I realized that if I couldn't see the little fishes until they were at arm's length, I couldn't see the BIG fishes either.

Then a few years ago, I was with my relatives Barb and Diane. We took a commercial catamaran cruise to Kealakekua Bay to snorkel. It's one of the best snorkeling places in Hawaii.

This is Diane jumping off the catamaran into that clear water.

And, just look at that gorgeous hunk of .... uh ....monument over there.

But in all my trips to this lovely place, I’ve never heard of it being infested with tiger sharks. If I had, I certainly wouldn’t have gone into the water!

This is NOT me. This is my friend Grant.

* http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Dugard/e/B000APRHWE

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Captured by Splendor

I recently received a photo Christmas card with a note on the back side asking if I would write a poem that captured the moment as seen in the photo. That woke up the Muse, who has been suspiciously silent lately.

By the next morning, various phrases had coalesced into the following:

Lost in thoughts of the everyday kind,

I travel a vast and untamed land,

Find hardscrabble purchase as a hill I climb

And pause to rest at the crest.

Before me are valleys I’ve yet to explore

And sunlit mountains under snow-white duvet.

Captured by splendor, I am scarcely aware

My thoughts—and my breath—have been stolen away.

I had mentioned to my friend that I found it difficult to write metaphorically, and not until I finished the poem and read it for the umpteenth time did I realize it could be a metaphor for life as a whole, and each line a metaphor for the various stages in life. My Muse works in strange ways.

Photo courtesy of Bob and Karol Libbey