i was not born a snork - or - how i survived hawaii

remember the snorks?

it's highly unlikely that you'll even know what this was cause you prolly weren't allowed to watch it when you were a kid. anyways, it was this cartoon in the 80s about these underwater creatures that had a snorkel on top of their heads. they were like snotty teens. they had adventures in the ocean. they even had a pet octopus. think smurfs cartoon, except not quite as many, they weren't all blue, and there was more than one female; and you'll get the idea. unless you weren't allowed to watch the smurfs either!! in which case, this whole conversation is pointless. pointless!!

so i am definitely not a snork. not even a very good pretend snork. with my mask, fins, and snorkel apparatus, i was still very human in the water. i went snorkeling on 5 separate occasions in maui; and each time, i thought i was going to die. i don't swim very well. i've never snorkeled before. there are no lifeguards on the beach. and the ocean can be very, very scary. so the first time i went snorkeling i didn't even have fins. and i went out into the water and had such a panic attack that i thought i was going to drown. i wasn't even in very deep water, but being in the ocean, not being a strong swimmer, and the idea of getting swept away by the tides freaked the hell out of me. and it felt like the time when i was a kid at the beach (I must have been 8 or 9), and got pulled by an undercurrent. and so i panicked. and i splashed and flailed as i did when i was young. the childhood trauma was being relived. the very thought of it set me near-crying, adding my salty tears to an already salty sea. but i made it to shore; yet with a deeper fear of the water.

but i didn't want to be a quitter. i was in hawaii. and dammit, i was gonna see fish underwater. hell, i even bought all my own gear so i wouldn't waste time renting equipment. it would have been such a waste if i hadn't made good use of it, or ANY use of it, for that matter. so after a little bit of land-lovin' my calm was restored and i went back into the water with more determination. i waded in hip-deep, and then shoulder-deep, then kicked up, and pretended to be a dead person floating on top of the waves. then i propelled myself forward, further from the shore, and searched for signs of fish underneath me. the water was very clear and there were a couple of fish swimming near some rocks. there were no great numbers of sea creatures because i didn't swim out away from the beach very far.

i was going along relatively well when water got into my mask. and my snorkel, even though it's prolly the best kind for a novice snorkeller since it doesn't allow anything to pass through the tube if a wave should crash over you, got stopped up - precisely because a wave crashed over me. water got in and it stopped feeding me air. now it's a pretty weird thing to teach your mouth to breathe through a snorkel to begin with, so when i couldn't get air through my mouth, my instinct was to breathe through my nose. but i couldn't get air that way either because i had the mask on! and so i wasn't getting any air! and then deep panic set in. and i didn't know what to do. and i couldn't be calm or think about what i should do because all i wanted at that moment was to breathe. and i didn't want to take the mask off because i thought i would drown. and i didn't want to spit out the tube because that had been providing me air before. so there i was, alternating between my mouth and my nose for a breath of air. and so i started hyperventilating which of course only made things worse. and then i started gasping. i was struggling for air much like someone who is being suffocated. there was nothing i could do to help me calm down. it was one of the most frightening moments of my life. i thought i was going to die. so gripped by fear, i almost became paralyzed. luckily, penquin was nearby
and saw that i was in trouble. i clung to him like a child as he brought me back to shore.

you would think that after all this i would avoid a third attempt. but i'm stubborn. or willful. or optimistic. or maybe just plain dumb. but i so desperately wanted to enjoy snorkelling that i gave it yet another go. besides, third time's a charm, right?

the third time i went in the morning. the water at the beach near the hotel gets a little too rough sometimes, but in the mornings the water is a lot calmer. so i went out at 7am. and it was calmer. i rented fins. and this time i ventured further away from the beach and saw a lot more of everything. i swam over cauliflower corals and the neat tropical fish around them. there were bright yellow ones, shimmering blue ones, painted striped ones, all kinds of crazy fish. then i went further to these lava rocks where there were black spiny sea urchins and red pencil urchins or coral or whatever. but then i got trapped near these rocky caves and started to get a little worried cause i didn't want to swim through them. but i wasn't sure how to get out without doing so. so i swam through these rock caves trying hard not to scrape myself on the rocks or coral underneath. i managed to find my way out and then surfaced and realized how far from the beach i was. and then water got in my mask and i couldn't see. and so i got scared and had to swim back to the safety of the beach. i didn't know where penquin was so i couldn’t tell him i was swimming back. so i went back on my own. a third of the way back i thought i was going to die again. but then i settled down and concentrated on not hyperventilating and swimming back to shore. i eventually made it back. but penquin wasn't there. and i couldn't see him in the water. so i got scared that he was maybe trying to find me. turned out he got worried and panicked because he couldn't find me in the water. he ended up scraping his knee on a black spiky sea urchin. he had the spikes in his knee and in his hand when he came back to the beach. it was pretty sad. luckily the hotel employees sprayed it with vinegar and advised penquin to sit in the hot tub to help the spines dissolve. after that little mishap we decided that we would try a more protected area to snorkel. we drove to this place called ahihi cove, south of where our hotel was located. entering the cove was a little difficult because the terrain is so rocky. but the place is on a marine nature reserve so there are tons of fish! we took photos of all these different fish underwater. it was amazing! like a rainbow held beneath the waves! there was this couple who brought some cheese-in-a-can and were feeding them (even though it's illegal to do any kind of feeding at the reserve) so the fish would swarm around us. that was really cool. at one point i had to take a break, so i went near the rocks, trying not to step on or put my hands on any of the spiky urchins. i hung out until I was ready to leave. when i got out of the water my leg was bleeding. i guess i cut myself on a rock or something. but at least it wasn't urchin spines.

then we went to turtle town in the afternoon because i wanted to swim with some sea turtles. the waves were a lot choppier than at the cove. maybe because it was late in the day and high tide was coming. also the water was really murky from the waves churning the sand underneath us. so i went out and had a hard time because I couldn't see the ocean floor. and when i can't see it makes me scared. so i wasn't having much fun. i had seen a sea turtle head from the distance but then couldn't handle the conditions anymore. so i decided that i would go back to the beach and see if the turtles would poke their heads up like they were before i got in the water. but as i was swimming back i swam over 2 turtles!!! one was small. but the second turtle was this huge guy. and i passed right over him! i thought about holding on to him and swimming with him like that then decided against it (which is a good thing because turtles apparently drown that way). still i was sooooo happy to actually swim with the turtles!! it totally made my day. i love them!! it was worth almost dying again.

the next morning we went with a group to molokini island to get in a last snorkeling trip. we had to wake up and be out and around at 6 in the morning. we boarded this little boat at our hotel’s beach along with about 20 other people. molokini island is a crescent moon shaped rock. i thought there would be a little tiny beach where you could rest. but there wasn't. just a rock island! so this snorkeling experience was a lot different. we had to walk off the ship's ladder right into the ocean. and it was far deeper than the other times i snorkeled. but i felt safer because there was an experienced crew and more people around, also i had a floaty belt, so i was able to snorkel a lot longer without getting scared. and i saw sooo many fish there! i even saw an eel in the rocks! i missed the octopus though. :( and of course no snorkeling trip would be complete without a freak out episode. towards the end of the hour of snorkeling i freaked out a little and pretty much mauled one of the ship crew for safety. it was quite embarrassing. but at least we were able to joke about it later. anyways, it was a lovely time.

the sad thing is that i forgot to take the underwater cameras out of my bags when i was at the airport, so they went through the x-ray machines! i was so bummed out about that. i hope they're still ok. it's all my proof that i actually did all this near-dying!!!