Nature sucks big eggs

We're going to the dig site tomorrow for the first time, so I'll know what I'm really up against then. I should be used to the humidity by Tuesday, so hopefully being outside will get easier soon. Right now it feels like walking into a wall as soon as I go out of the air conditioning. Now I know what people are talking about when they describe the heat/humidity in Austin. I grew up in that level of crap weather, so Texas & Hawaii feel normal to me. But Guam's humidity is even higher, believe it or not (I didn't believe it until I got here) so even though it's not actually that hot it feels horrible. It's just sticky and wet outside, like the inside of a greenhouse.

There's a beach right next to campus as it turns out, but it's all rocks and reef so I'm too afraid to go in. Reefs scare the crap out of me, since they're full of poisonous things pretending to be harmless. The thing that really killed my desire to go into the water there is the aquariums. Each dorm building here has an aquarium in the common area that is full of fish people caught at that reef. Apparently they catch them, have them in there for a while, let them go, and catch different ones. The tank in my dorm is full of lion fish. Oh hells no. I thought, okay, well they're bright and obvious so maybe I can deal with that. Then someone took me over to the other dorm and showed me the stone fish.

Imagine, if you will, a rock. A lava rock covered in algae that sits on the bottom of the ocean, with a dusting of sand. Then add poison that will cause you to lose your foot. That is a stone fish. When they pointed it out to me in the aquarium I almost said, where, behind that rock? I thought they were playing a joke on me for a good ten minutes before I saw another fish poke it in the eye and it winced.

So anyway, I'm never going in the ocean again.

I guess that's the trade off you get in the Pacific. Sure, you can go hiking and camping without having to worry about venomous snakes, rabies, skunks, big cats, coyotes, bears, etc. But god help you if you want to go swimming. Not only are there poisonous animals, there are plants around Hawaii that you can't even SEE that will get in your suit and give you a painful rash all over. There are also rip currents that will sweep you away, and caves that will suck you in if you get too close. Oh, and there are giant centipedes that sting. Never before did I think a rattlesnake would look appealing... At least you KNOW when one of those is around.

Was it an African octopus or a European octopus?

Look at this. This shit is bananas.

Octopi have been found to carry around coconuts to hide inside them. Apparently that's part of how they used to catch them around here-- coconut shell on a string.

Makapu'u tide pools

How was my day, you ask?










How was yours?

Promises of photos

Okay so all those photos I promised before I put this thing online will be coming shortly. I mostly haven't taken any photos because I don't want to look like too much of a haole taking photos of everything until I have enough of a tan to claim I'm local. Anywhoo.

I'm going tide pooling with another anthropology major this weekend (could it be I have finally found another outdoorsy type??) which promises lots of photos of, I donno, barnacles and stuff*. I went to the beach finally last weekend and took my camera with the intention of taking new Facebook photos... I'll wait while you laugh. Done yet? No? Okay I can wait...

...

... Alright that's enough. Anyway I decided against it because I went by myself and as the beach was crowded I knew at least half a dozen people would notice me setting a timer and then running away and then running back again. I didn't feel like looking like a loon that particular day, so there are no photos. And I wasn't going to just hold the camera out to get just my face and a smidge of background because this is FACEBOOK, guys, not MYSPACE. Sheesh.

I have temporarily satiated my desire for a full back koi tattoo by getting a tank top from T&C Surf that has an almost identical design on the back. I also got a tank with wings on the back from Papaya but that didn't affect my desire for wing tattoos, so I'll have to come up with something more creative. Like henna.

*Stuff is the technical term for limpets and algae and mussels and starfish and sea urchins and little fishes and crustaceans and a whole assortment of other little sea animals. Would I say I have a plethora of sea animals? ... Yes I would.