Had an awesome time on this trip. Will definitely miss Honolulu, the weather and the wide variety of possible activities once I get back to the Bay area. Also met some great people along the way that I’ll be keeping in touch with. Can never have too many good friends

Hit Hanauma Bay yesterday with Shaun and Faraaz for some last minute snorkeling and then later on in the evening managed to squeeze in a night dive off magic island and saw a sleeping turtle and lots of other sleeping marine life. Was my first night dive and I was a bit nervous at first..felt weird being out in the ocean in the darkness, but once inside the water all the usual training/thought processes kick in and just feels like another dive. Felt like I was diving inside a cave because of the lack of sunlight from above…was an awesome feeling.  Will post a pic of the sleeping turtle once my divemaster/instructor emails me the pic. Until then here’s some pics from some older dives on the YO-257 shipwreck and horseshoe reef

This pic was taken at the point where the mooring line of the boat was attacked to the buoy of the shipwreck. You can see a chain in the background that we used to guide ourselves down to the wreck. Site was full of schools of yellow butterfly fish as well as other fish. Was my first shipwreck dive so I felt like a lil kid experiencing something out of this world for the first time.

In this pic I’m checking my depth gage. Maximum depth on this dive was 100 feet.

Side view of part of the YO-257 shipwreck

As you can see in the pic above, the YO-257 is thriving as an artificial reef. The ship was bought by the Atlantis Submarine company about 20 years ago for $30,000 and then the company spent around $300,000 making it suitable to use as a artificial reef. Now the site is popular among divers, tourists who visit the site on the Atlantis submarine tour and tons of marine life. In the last 20 years, the Atlantis submarine company has sunk a few more ships (one of these ships is the Seatiger ship I mentioned in a previous post that I also got to dive down to) and aircraft to create more artificial reefs and has worked with groups in Japan and the University of Hawaii on additional artificial reef projects.

Picture above was taken by me on the submarine tour of the same shipwreck that I had dived down to the previous day.

Looks like its time for me to check out and head to the airport. Will post more pics soon and write a bit more. Happy new years everyone!

Been a while since the last entry from Hawaii. Just haven’t had the time (and at times access to the net from laptop - could have used phone but I prefer to use a normal keyboard for long entries :)) to write much and been waiting on some pictures that were taken on some scuba dives I did here on the south of Oahu. Still don’t have the pics (should have em later on today hopefully) so will have to post em next time.

First up…Woooohooo I completed my Advanced PADI scuba certification a few days ago! Got to check out two different shipwreck sites namely the Sea Tiger and the YO-257 sites that . Also did some reef dives (horseshoe reef). Wow what a difference it is diving in Hawaii versus California. Water temperature in California is typically around 53 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celcius) whereas here the water was around 74 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees celcius)!  Then on top of that visibility is much nicer (around 30-40m visibility in hawaii versus 1-2m visibility off the shore of monterey bay in california). Lots of cool tropical fish to see around here along with some sea turtles, some large octopuses, a huge string ray (around 2 metres in width). There was a diver in our group that was complaining because he was comparing the diving here to Thailand and visibility there is much better, but compared to cold water diving in Northern California, the diving here was incredible and I’m glad I took up the chance to complete my advanced certification at such an awesome location.

Also went on a submarine tour that visits the YO-257 shipwreck site. Was excited about seeing the same site twice but this time without being wet, but for some reason didn’t enjoy it even half as much as when I dove down to the site. The submarine just seemed to go by too quickly to get a good look at all the marine life and at the same time there was no feeling of wonder and excitement and a bit of nervousness that I felt jumping off a boat and diving down a 100 feet into the water. It (the submarine tour) felt no different then watching a shipwreck site on tv

Did some hiking and caught some sweet views of the island. Aside from that explored the cuisine of the island, checked out touristy spots like Waikiki beach and also snorkeled off other sites besides Hanauma bay (that I mentioned in my last post).

Cool volcanic formations on the east side of Oahu

View from a hiking trail on the east of Oahu. That island on the right of the pic is Rabbit island (looks more like a turtle then a rabbit to me)

View from the USS Missouri battleship. This is the ship on which Japan surrendered to the US and its allies and ended the WWII.

Thats Diamond Head volanic cone on the right. The city of Honolulu is towards the left of this pic (but not visible).

Now onto the power outage I mentioned in the title of this post - entire island of Oahu lost electricity around 6pm-ish yesterday including the President-elect Obama’s rental property on the east side of the island where he has been vacationing since last week. Wasn’t too bad because I was still connected to the net on the iphone and the 6-7 of us gathered around some candles and made the most of it. Woke up this morning to find that the electricity was still out in this neighborhood (power was restored to the west coast of the island around 6am) so a bunch of us drove to the nearest Safeway store to stock up on food and as soon as we paid for our purchases the power came back on So now I have a bunch of food stocked up that I need to finish in the next few days before we fly back to California.

Enough for today. Will write more once I get the scuba diving pics

Update Jan 6th: Looks like I accidently deleted this entry Can’t remember most of what I wrote here but part of it was about doing a shark cage tour (pic) below. Think I also wrote about some other stuff I was up to during that same time period….too bad the entry is lost now

This post is a bit overdue..almost 2 months overdue! Well better late then never right? 

Hit the middle fork river for some white water rafting this last august a few days before the season ended. Was my 2nd time rafting the middle fork river and the 3rd time going with W.E.T Rafting company. Love those guys over at W.E.T. Their guides are the best on the river IMO and I don’t intend on going with any other companys in the future.

Middle fork river is famous for the Tunnel Chute rapid (the one in the pics below).  River is rated 4+, but the tunnel chute is a 5 I think. Its a 15 foot drop to the bottom and immediately after hitting the bottom, you enter a tunnel that was blasted into the rock by miners back in the days of the California Gold Rush. Last time I rafted here (in july 07), the water was flowing much faster then this year’s trip but it was still a lot of fun. One advantage of doing this rapid more once is on that on subsequent trips you’ll know where the camera man is and you’ll know when to smile!

Unfortunately pics were only taken at this rapid and non of the others that followed, because the river is pretty remote and for the most part not accessible by road. 

Halfway down the tunnel Chute

Waving at the camera man!

Why am I the only one smiling?

The tunnel at the end of this rapid. On the last trip a friend’s head almost got hit by a jutting rock on the left side of the tunnel.

So I signed up for a few personal training sessions at my gym while changing my gym plan…J.P at the 24 Hour Fittness a block from home signed me up with a prepaid plan and now for the same price I would have paid over a 1 year period with my monthly plan, I get 2 years FREE! Well that’s one way to think about it…cost divided among a 3 year period is 1/3 of what I would have paid in 1 year…anyway getting off track.

So today was session #2 with the trainer and he KILLED me…last time I worked out that hard was back in high school when I used to run track and field…..I’m sure if Lin or Regesh reads this they’ll remember how the first training session of the track season was always also so intensive (well mostly because the 3 of us we pushed ourselves harder then the others) we ended up throwing up haha. Haha..good old days! Lin mate you still do that running the 400m for your aussie club team ay? 

By the end of the session just barely had enough energy to drive the 0.2 mile distance between home and the gym. First thought that passed my mind as I hit the shower? -> “I need to sign up for more sessions!”

Have 2 more sessions remaining…looking forward to getting my ass kicked again…what can i say..maybe I have a thing for pain?

What a day!

First up, went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom with Fuzzy. Was supposed to go with two others, but they couldn’t make it minutes before we left San Jose, so it was just the two of us. Been a few years since I’ve been to Six Flags and the rides haven’t changed much and neither has the thrills!
My fav roller coasters in order were:
1) Medusa (pictured below): 150ft tall and reaches speeds of 65mph. When the ride opened in 2000, it featured the tallest vertical loop in the world at 128ft tall. Medusa is the longest roller coaster in Northern California and shares the height record with V2: Vertical Velocity, also located at the park. Check out the video here -> Medusa Video

2) Vertical Velocity: 150ft tall and reaches speeds of up to 70mph. I’ll be honest..the last time I came to this park in 2001 or so I didn’t wanna get on this roller coaster (ended up going coz my sis needed a buddy)…the drop looks crazy. Turns out that the last time I was on it the ride was 186 ft high, but had to be lowered in 2002 to meet city limits (cities have limits on how high roller coasters can be? Who knew?)
Video Here -> Vertical Velocity Video

3) Kong: Starts with a 115 foot lift hill. Followed by that is a 105 foot drop, a heartline loop, sidewinder, and back to back inline twists.

Other rides were on the same level. Also watched some whales and dolphin shows.

OH and to answer the question: What does a Geek scream while on a rollar coaster?

We much to Fuzzy’s annoyance…I was screaming “V=IR” (Voltage = current x resistance) on Medusa and Kong.

Secondly came home to find that my domain was working!! So transfered everything over to this new hosting account and ta-dah…we’re live!

Back at work. Seems dull after going rafting yesterday!

Pics > here

11 miles of fun! Want to try the middle fork american river next with its class 4+ rapids.

Back to work