Trying The New Underwater Camera Mount

It's been vexing that I go diving and take pictures of everyone and everything else. There isn't any evidence that I'm actually there... So with that challenge, I set out to create a camera mount that I could carry with me and use to take different kinds of pictures - including self-portraits.

DeAnna gave me a nifty new kind of camera mount for Christmas called a "Monster Pod". It consists of a cloth cover, a camera screw and a big blob of "Silly Putty" . You are supposed to stick the mount to anything and you have an instant "tripod". The application of the idea was not so useful though. After a few sticky episodes where grime got into the silly putty and the goop stuck to hot rocks and wouldn't come off, I set the Monster Pod aside. Fortunately, I didn't throw it away!

I decided to completely clean out the Monster Pod from it's gooey Silly Putty and stitch in a one-pound bag of lead shot. The hope was that it would be heavy enough to keep the camera on the bottom and not let any currents move it around. The result is this nifty-looking setup that I can pocket with me.

So I had this thing all ready to go earlier in the week but weather wasn't all that great for diving on Saturday. Fortunately, Sunday dawned beautiful on the West side, so I headed back to Electric Beach and took a very relaxing hour-long dive (along with 50 or so other divers). Here are the results!

I have many pictures of flippers or where I never even made it into the frame. The 10 second timer is OK on land, but it's a quite difficult to swim away from the camera and get into the frame before the camera goes off!



The area has a lot of fish because of the warm water from the electric plant discharge. It also attracts a lot of spearfishermen! They snorkel and dive down to catch fish. They also drag their fish around with them which makes me nervous about attracting sharks.

The discharge pipes are about 15 feet across and they spew warm water out into the ocean with impressive force. Where the pipes discharge, there are masses of fish. The water is almost always clear and the currents light at this beach so it's very easy to find scuba divers from sun-up to sun-down.

You can see that the pipes are oriented upwards a little, so it's incumbent on the diver NOT to get into the current or you can be swept upward to the surface. Not good for decompression (the bends). I stayed well clear and got a fair picture to boot!

The coral here is quite prolific and pretty. It makes for a nice portrait frame. I took this picture several times before success because I had to start the camera and swim around to the other side of the rock and up behind the coral before the camera took the picture. I used up a lot of air to get this picture!

This is the best self-portrait I got out of about 50 pictures. It's about 20 feet down with white sand surrounded by coral. Like I said, swimming around to get in the frame is much more difficult than I thought it would be but I'm happy with the new underwater camera mount!

It was a good weekend to get out and relieve some stress. This week will be very busy with several visitors from Accenture. I'm looking forward to visiting... and next weekend! :-)

Three Hours of Hiking!

Saturday and the weather is not good for Scuba Diving (too much surf and it's quite windy). So I grabbed my walking stick, a backpack with some water and a PBJ and headed out to the north shore and Ka'ena Point. We've hiked the road to Ka'ena Point many times. It is a long hike along the desolate shoreline mostly inhabited by 4-wheelers and day-long fishing parties. Today was no different! It's usually dry and hot when the rest of the island is rainy and wet.

I did a lot of hiking along the shoreline and rocks down by the waves. I am fascinated by the power of the ocean. I've certainly seen my share of ocean waves! Still, I can't get enough. I will miss walking by the sea when I leave.


The tide was low and though the surf was up, it wasn't really high so it was easy to explore some interesting places near the water. When the tide is up, this place get swaves careening through the rocks to crash up on the rubble seen here.


There are plenty of places where people set up a camp for the day and go fishing. It looks like fun: chilling out with friends and family while watching the fishing poles. They often bring BBQ grills and have a 12 hour cookout! In a place like this, swimming in the ocean is problematic with the surf, rocks and currents.

Ka'ena Point is the most Western end of O'ahu and is thus bristling with old military infrastructure. I thought an old switchback road up the mountains looked like a good hike, so I started up!




The road quickly went from road to trail and shortly after that into a toe path. But it was still a nice trail to follow up and up along the face of the mountain with increasingly fabulous views!




My goal was to make it to the top of the ridge, but about 2/3rds of the way up, the trail disappeared into the underbrush. The only way up that I could see was a climb through a rip-rap field of unstable rocks. So I stopped to take in the view and take a picture before heading back down.

Some of the trail eeeks along the edge of the old road along a cliff edge. From here, I could see the entire coastline all the way back to the set of the TV show "Lost"! The wind was constant and strong which made the heat of the day a non-factor.



Of course, with all that natural beauty, it is often the human activity that provides comic relief for the day!

What's A Boy To Do?

I had an appointment at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki... I arrived about 45 minutes early... so what's a boy to do?



...work under the nearest banyon tree of course!




I'm such a working nerd...

Winding Down

I have about 6 weeks left on this assignment in Hawaii. These last few months have been focused on the transition from consultant-lead support to local support and ultimately, sustainability. I wish I had several more months, but it will all be over the first week of May. After that, I will return to Virginia and see where my next assignment will be.

It's a lot of work during the week but I'm also trying hard to maximize my weekends as well. Mostly, that means I'm doing my best to go Scuba Diving as often as I can. Weather this time of year often conspires against the scuba diver, but I have managed to get in at least one dive.

This past weekend, I went diving with my buddies at Hickam Air Force Base on Saturday. We went a mile or so off of Pearl Harbor down about 60 feet to a very nice coral reef with lots of fish. After the first dive though, the waves had gotten pretty large. The forecast has said 2-4 feet waves, but everyone was joking that the weather service had gone metric (2-4 meters)! Several people were seasick, so we returned to port after one dive.

Sunday, no one wanted to go diving, so I left my stuff at home and took a drive along the shoreline looking for hiking opportunities. When I arrived at Shark's Cove, I found many people diving and snorkeling. The water was smooth and very clear! I struggled with the thought to drive home and get my gear because it was already afternoon, but I decided to go for it, so I drove all the way home, dumped my gear into the car and returned.

There were still many people diving, so I just kind of joined-in along side a group. I had a wonderful 62 minute dive before driving back home around 5:00pm. So I risk providing another series of boring underwater pictures (I haven't figured out how to take pictures of myself while scuba diving yet).

At about 60 ft down, everything pretty much looks blue. The camera can only do a limited amount of color correction. Still, you can see the yellow on this fish. The coral reef is in the background as well as more fish. If you look closely, you can see some of my diving buddies behind the fish.

A large lobster trap was wedged under a rock outcropping. No lobsters, but you can see a large coral tree on top! Someone did see a small lobster - about 2 inches long. I call them crawdads...




This is as close as I can get to a self-portrait while diving. I'll keep working on it! Hopefully you can see that I am smiling because Shark's Cove is such a great diving site! Shark's cove doesn't get much deeper than 40 ft deep, so the 'blueness' is a little less pronounced.

There are many rocks and lava tubes and caves at Shark's Cove. Many have a "skylight" which makes for great pictures like this. I explored many caves from the outside because I didn't have a dedicated buddy for this dive (remember, I was just following along some other people's dive).

Needle fish are sometimes hard to see, but they are curious fish. If you swim slowly and let the current move you, they will often let you let very close. This picture was taken about 18 inches away. You can see his iridescent blue stripes down the length of his body.


It's not unusual to see schools of fish at Shark's Cove. Here, a long, large school of fish make their way to another rock to search for food. I sometimes find myself surrounded by fish who seem to consider me a moving shelter when they swim around.


So there you have it, another weekend in Hawaii. I will miss the access to stuff like this - of course, there are many new adventures awaiting me when I leave!

Solo Adventures

Now that DeAnna is in Virginia, I'm out here by myself. I try to keep scuba diving when it's possible. The weather this winter has actually been rather miserable. Rainy, cloudy, windy and cool (I'd say cold, but most of my mainland friends would laugh). The last two times I went scuba diving, the water temperature was 70 degrees. That is actually quite cold water! This weekend, it was overcast and raining as well, so after diving twice, my body temperature was low and I enjoyed a hot shower!

My camera doesn't go deeper than about 15 feet, so I don't get any neat pictures of my dives. However, I have begun to take my camera and little tripod on other 'above water' adventures.

The other weekend, I took a walk on Kailua Beach. I found the house that President Obama stayed at over Christmas. This is what it looks like from the beach. It has "Keep Out" signs on all the palm trees.

I put my camera tripod on my walking stick. That comes in very handy when there's nothing but sand. It also means that I can stick it into the sand to make a picture in the water!


This weekend, I took a hike along the cliffs of Makapuu point. Normally, I hike up the road and then descend to the lava shelves at the water, but this way, I was able to enjoy the rough waves and wild water up close. I enjoyed being "off the grid", away from my computer and work.

The hike was along the water's edge. Sometimes I had to climb along the cliffs in order to stay safely above the water. My goal was to hike along the shore to the Dragon's Nostrils, but found that I couldn't get there without getting right down to the water, so I turned around.

After backtracking a while, I decided to climb straight up the cliff to the trail. There were several whales off shore, the raging ocean, strong breezes and wonderful views of the eastern shore - a great way to wrap up the weekend!




It's awfully quiet by myself. Time to reflect. Time to work and finish up my contract in Hawaii. While I remain, I hope to take advantage of everything Oahu has to offer!