Back Home: Under the Sea

Ready to dive! Lau Lau Bay, Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010.

Our friend Mike Stafford took a great series of photos of our dive on Sunday, April 4. He managed to cover the entire dive from beginning to end, which is great because now I can take all my non-diving readers on a dive with me!


Ken and I wading out to our point of entry.


Getting ready to go under. At this point I was probably putting my fins on.


Divers Down! This is Ken and I just after we went under. There's a rope that anchors here that we use to find our way in and out of the entry point. We were maybe 15 feet below the surface here.


Heading off to explore.


Look at all the beautiful corals!


Cruising along. As you descend it is important to keep clearing your ears, otherwise you can suffer excruciating pain from the unequalized air pressure as you try to go deeper (think of how your ears won't "pop" when you fly--it's like that except a hundred times worse). One way to clear your ears is by pinching your nose and blowing gently-that's what you see me doing in this photo. I did have some ear issues on this dive but they all cleared up after a bit.


One of the many gorgeous fish we saw on this dive. There seemed to more varieties of colorful fish than usual on this dive.


Paddling and Hovering: One of the biggest challenges I have as a scuba diver is how quickly I consume air. This picture shows why this is a problem for me. On the right, you see Ken hovering effortlessly. On the left, you see me paddling away to keep from sinking--you can tell by my feet. All that paddling makes me breathe harder and thus use more air. Ken and other dive buddies have told me I need to try to get neutrally bouyant so I won't use up so much air, but I didn't realize how much it really was this paddling that was causing the problem until I watched one of Mike's videos from this dive and realized how hard I work at staying bouyant. It's a challenge for me, because even with only four pounds of weight, I sink like a stone.


Checking out a clownfish.


Suspended in deep blue. I love this photo.


This fish looked completly gargantuan when we first spotted it.


The fish seemed to get smaller as we got closer, but as you can see it's still pretty big!


Another big fish.


Back on land.


The drive home. That's Managaha Island in the distance.


Enjoying a fresh coconut post-dive back at the Piersons. From L to R, Me, Tasi the dog, Crystal, Ken's Mom Gloria, and baby Shylah getting some love from Daddy Ken.