Back when my hair was blond

The excitement from recent days is that I ran into an old friend. Whom I haven't seen in over 10 years.

Back from when my hair was blond...pretend blond. Sounds better than bottle blond, right?

I wish I were a statistician. I keep trying to figure the odds that we ran into each other. I went to Foodland Farms earlier than usual, having worked out earlier. 

She "just happened" to be working with a colleague near the front door. I'll tell ya: when I saw her, my mouth dropped open and stayed open!!! She has many clients, so I think the odds were astronomical that she was there when I was there. After all, we had been on Kauai for years, just recently moved back to Oahu.

And always good news: not only is she happily married now, but has two cutie-patootie kids. Oh yeah. Very nice. We exchanged happy info and will keep in touch, now that we live on the same island.

OK, so the second banner event: I saw 4 octopuses!

If you've been reading my posts recently, you'll probably remember I've been seeing one octopus, most days. So 4 was a great event for me.

Here's what they looked like:

The octopus "waked up" and rested further out of its den:

Deep in its den:

 I love the bumps they can create on their skin:

You can see suckers and also the eye.

 This is how I first saw #1:

I don't think it was really awake at that point!

#2 stayed in its den. This was an older octopus and more in tune with staying hidden: But you can see its eye (on the left) and the siphon with the cool aqua color they have.

 The photo below is after it blew water at me! I got it on video (look on youtube for octopigirl7). I laughed.

I just love how many ways they have to tell us to go away....

I had just flipped around after seeing #2, when I spied #3!

 A little one. Oh so cute. (Don't eat octopus.)

I'm working on subliminal messages (octopus are friends, not food.)

 You can see its eye and siphon. (Octopus can make their skin bumpy..can you?!)

 (Hawaiian octopuses live only about 2 years....why you want to cut that life short?)

 It took a long time of me snapping photos before it turned a bit browner.

 Here's the "bit browner" aspect.

But it mostly seemed not really to mind me being close-ish. As long as I wasn't too close.

 And when I curved around to see if it would peek at me, it did.

This is how I first saw it, hiding in its rock.

It was hard to pull myself away from this one; I love the little ones. I love the big ones, too, but the little ones are just starting out in their little 8-legged lives.

 This one was a total bonus. Had I been moving faster, I would never have spotted it. And it stayed down in its den. And kept watching me. (There aren't a lot of octopuses, so one shouldn't eat them and deplete the numbers.)

 And peeking at me!

 Still peeking.

 This is how I first saw it. Then it sank down.

It really is hard to swim away, when you just know they're going to start doing jumping jacks as soon as the camera is gone. But really, you can't stay all day. It gets cold when you stay this stationary for long.

Very happy with all the octopuses today. What a natural high!

And it all started with morning nice colors:

You can see the island across the bay. Maybe Maui?

Palm tree for Alex 

 Crashing waves in front of pink.

I love how the pink catches on the underside of the clouds.

 Sun about to come up.

There it is.

 Everything catches fire.

Nice colors and waves smashing across the bay.

This is the sky with Venus in the upper part.

 More waves, before the sun lit things up.

And after with more pink.

 I didn't go outside the fringing reef today. Guess why?

And the other cool things I saw. (Do people still say cool? Maybe phat is more in?)

 Two 4 spots and a convict. And below, the 4 spot near coral.

 Abudefduf.

And another one.

 Humu close up. The Picasso humu, that is.

 Below, the Female Bird Wrasse. If they would sit still, I could get a really nice photo. Smile.

Various Bluefin Trevally

And one fishing with a goat fish.

 This Humu wanted a good look at me. 

 Apparently I bored it, as it swam away.

 Gold eye Kole.

And a Lizard Fish for Alex! I was about to zoom in, when it zoomed off.

 Needle fish.

 Ornate Butterfly. Note the eye concealed on a line of black.

A lovely big Parrot fish.

 Peacock Grouper

Pink Parrot (I'm sure there's a scientific name for it, but I already had to look one thing up for this post...that's my limit. ha.)

 A very nice small tang, with dorsal fin raised.

 And a big Bluefin Trevally blew threw, scaring the fishes.

I thought this busted up Turban shell was interesting. Kinda looks like a skull. Maybe I'm watching too many CSI-ish shows.

 And yay! Thanks to Mr. John P. Hoover's book, Hawai'i's Sea Creatures, I found out this is a Ringed Sap-Sucking Slug. Try saying that a few times, quickly. I almost missed the i.d., as the ones I saw had enough bottom sand on their hides that it was hard to tell what they were.

You can see the rings of its name in this photo.

 White Spotted Surgeon

A wrasse that I will hopefully i.d. someday... Hey, I'm retired! I am very busy.

And that's the happenings for today. A very nice way to spend 2 hours. I even outlasted those folks who went outside the reef. I also discovered that I won the "Came the farthest to swim" prize. The current record is 35 miles. But totally worth it. And thanks for reading. Tell your friends.