where did i leave off

Oh, yeah. Tide pools.

I honestly cannot believe that I'm about to post this next photo, but I really want to show you what is in the background, and I apparently completely lack the ability to edit photos during the witching-hour over here in blogland.

First off...try to ignore the hat. Just keep it to 'yerself LOL. It was frickin' hot, my arse was frying on black volcanic rocks, and it felt like the sun was going to singe my scalp off....so I used my bathing suit as a toque. One of my travel companions told me I looked cute, and being that there were no mirrors for miles to confirm that statement, I took a self-portrait to see for myself.
I think I look ridiculous.
But it's the only photo I took that shows the type of terrain one needs to muck through to get to the tidepools we visited.

The tide pools we went to are not the tide pools that you might find in the travel books. I think there are some of those called the Kapoho Tide Pools near Puna (it's a bummer we didn't make it to those...they were actually close to our second lodging and performance venue at Kalani Resort). Instead, we went to some pools closer to Hilo earlier in the week that only the locals seemed to know about. From downtown Hilo, if you take Kamehameha Dr (which turns into Kalanianaole Ave), it dead ends at a dirt parking lot. From the lot there is about a 1/4 mile hike to the pools.

We had to forge maybe 3 or 4 streams, some waist high (even deeper on the way out once the tide came in). We were in a large group, so I gave my pack to one person, had another person do the Save-Me-If-I'm-Falling-Wedgie, and a third person scouted the stream in front of me to warn me of submerged items of caution, like slippery moss and drop offs. There were a few places where the streams got so deep I just gave my crutches to the WedgiePerson and swam. I should mention that the banks of these streams are not actually solid earth, but rather floating reed beds. Whee. Crutch that, baby ;-)

There was another amputee along for this adventure. He's a very fit and active BK (below the knee) amputee and he was primarily wearing his prosthesis. He stayed closer to the lava rocks and away from the reeds, and I think when he absolutely had to cross deep water he was carried over. I think. My focus was pretty zoomed in on my own path.

SO. There was that marshy stuff behind me...and here is what was directly in front of me when I faced in the other direction.

The place was basically stream fed marshland lined with some kind of pine trees, butted right up against lava rock. The pools were slightly brackish. The ocean was a very unusual blue that, of course, the camera did not capture at all. Little fishies and crabs were swimming about. The water was deliciously warm. It was grand.

At the tide pool's ocean facing edge, the spray from the crash of the waves was enormous. And in my opinion, quite dangerous. Not that anyone ever listens to me. The nagging den mother. I mean, c'mon....I'm the one that had to suggest we all fill out emergency forms before touring...you know, medical insurance info, who to call in case of emergency, that kind of unimportant shit. When I suggested the forms, almost the entire company looked at me for a moment like I was nuts. Then I pointed to the vacant space where my leg used to be and said, "You just never can predict when something bizarre is going to happen." And then they all filled out a form.

Sheesh.

Anyhow. Here's my naked dancer friends acting omnipotent and tempting the fates.

I'd have kept snapping photos but it didn't take long for a big wave to take a couple of them down...and they didn't come back up for awhile, either. I was kinda twitching with fear that they'd been swept out to sea (they wisely chose to lay flat until that set of waves completed). So I have no more photos after that. Which is too bad, because I should have snapped a few shots of their backsides once they made it to safer ground. It looked like Pele and Posiedon gave them an ass whoopin'.