Mano (Hawaiian for "shark")

I think my husband's aumakua is the mano. Why do I think this?

My husband, my brother, my father, and I went fishing yesterday for some bonding time. We were heading out of the harbor by six thirty am, and the sunrise over the mountain was just beautiful!



Unfortunately, it was pretty choppy out there, and I don't consider myself a landlubber, but I wasn't feeling too hot. We had caught a lot of live bait at about 11 in the morning, and had them out in the water, so we were going incredibly slow and the rocking had lulled my husband and me to sleep.



All of the sudden, my father woke me up with a yell,"Chucker!" I shot up and yelled back to confirm, "Chucker?" with is another term for a spearfish. He shook his head, and said, "No, Shark!"

Now, any fisherman knows, sharks are bad news. Sharks don't die. Remember, they are surivivers from the Dinosour Age. It takes a lot to kill them. We had a shark once that we shot six times in the head, and had out of the water for 3 hours (they are fish, not mammels), and it still snapped at someone as we strung it up to weigh it.

And before you shoot it 10 times in the head, you have to pull it inot the boat, which is akin to being in a small room with a tiger. Thy flip all around (they are 200 lbs of muscle) with their mouths open full of razor sharp teeth, destroying everything and hurting everyone who doesn't have the luxury of hidding up in the tower while the deckhand and captain deal with the dangerous animal.

I wasn't happy with "shark" but before we could real in the bait, it was hooked!

Hubby sat in the anglers chair and began to real. My only consolation was that the sharp teeth would pass over the line and probably cut itself loose withint the next 30 seconds.



5 minutes of the fight went by, 10 minutes, and soon, we saw the large brown animal about 10 yrds from the boat. It was still on the line!



Despite myself, I was getting excited, and I began snapping photos. Hubby had fought the shark (we could see it was a whitetip) all the way to the transom, ane we could now see he was hooked in the corner of his mouth, so his teeth counldn't cut the line short!




When we brought him too the side of the boat (Brett the deckhand was the unlucky one who had to get closest to it and hold it for pictures) the whitetip freaked out and began thrashing. His teeth cut the line, and he was gone in two seconds! Besides an 15 lbs Otado (skipjack) the day was quiet, but the shark was worth it!





So why do I think a mano is his aumakua? What mano would allow himself to get thank close to the boat for any other reason? It is the only logical explaination in my book.

Okay, surfed again with Paul this afternoon.

I promise to come up with a new subject for my blogs soon, but today, I got the crap kicked out of me by mother nature. She dominated me. But, this was the best surfing day we have had since we learned!

Started my new job and it is cold calling and sales. Makes me miss the CRM software I had at my old job because I am tyring to keep track of everything on excel and it sucks.

I have a couple minor projects that I am working on as well:
-A side business (let you know when the website goes live)
- a book/documentary. Not sure which yet, as I am mired in all the research about Hawaii's history, but I will let you know once I have a clearer vision in my head.

Gonna go up the mountainside for some of my mother's chicken soup and to finally pick up my kitties. My father has been keeping them at the house in the mountains because our apartement isn't ready for them yet(whatever that means).

honu and high tide

Paul and I went surfing this morning before work (I have a new job!). At 6:30 am, the sun hadn't come up yet, but the ocean was as warm as bathwater.



Although it was high tide, Paul and I went out anyway. Although there is more water between us and the coral that threatens to scratch me to bits when I fall off, the waves sucked. Moved too slow, and they didn't crest, so there was nothing.

We tried for an hour and a half and completely failed to catch anything (it was the waves, not us or the new boards from Costco!)

When we came in, there were honu (sea turtles) EVERYWHERE. Seems like the hightide gives them access to rocks and places they don't have access to usually, so we had to detour around them to get in. I took a couple shots.







We are going to try again around 4:30 during low tide, hope the coral doesn't scar me up:)

I just love this photo . . .

tough day in paradise

Really tough day today.

I went to Hapuna beach (see below)


And then, I played frisbee.

And then, I swam.

And then, I took a nap on the beach.

And then I had a glass of chardonay and ate pork loin with macadamia nuts.

Don't know if I will be able to handle Sunday.

Surfer Girl

So I had ahi last night and the night before. Not doing too well in getting rid of the mercury running through my veins. I did, however, buy multivitimens last night, so that is one step toward healthiness.

Yesterday I went surfing with Paul. I sucked, but I had a great time. I caught several wave bymyself, and I stood up. Today I hurt everywhere, however. Not only are my arms sore (I almsot had to ask for help taking my sweater off over my head), but my stomach muscles are soo sore. I mean, not just the typical muscles, like after you have done situps, but muscles that I didn't even know existed!

It was a blast, though, and I think next week my brother and I are going to go to Costco and buy a surfboard. There are many things you can get at Costco in Hawaii that you can't get at Costco's on the mainland, such as:

- five gallon containers of soy sauce
- ridiculous amounts of teriyaki flavored seaweed
- giant jars of lomi lomi salmon
- bulk containers of chopsticks (300 pairs to a box)

My husband and I are going to unpack all our boxes today. Hopefully that will work out the lactic acid in my arms and shoulders.

We are also going to open up our wedding gifts. I have been avoiding doing that because of the requirement of writing thank you notes, but two weeks after the wedding, and it is time. Will have a list of the coolest (and maybe the uncoolest?) wedding gifts up tomorrow.

Almost lunch here, gonna try to avoid eating ahi.

Deep Sea Fishing

Paul and Dad just caught a 300 lb Pac Blue Marlin. Very high in mercury.

My brother is pretty snazzy at making videos. He shot this with a video off a digital camera (the music is pretty cool too).