Chapter 2: Dinosaurs

    
  Well it’s been about a month and it is just beginning to feel like home here.  Strange how quickly we accept new realities isn’t it?  

In some senses I feel that my world has become considerably smaller, it is an island after all.  I can drive clear to the other side in 2 hrs however I have still not scratched the surface of the exhaustive adventure options.  But more overwhelming than that I feel that I have stepped back in time.  Not far just only about 20 years.  It’s hard not to feel like a child here. The obstacles are so concrete.  "there’s a wave; I need to ride that, there’s a mountain; I need to climb that.”  There is a peace that comes with the simplicity of a physical challenges.  Not in the sense that they are easy tasks but rather that they require all of ones attention.  It’s me and a board vs. the ocean, my mind has no room for anything else.   

      At the same time I spend a considerable amount of my time pensively pondering the self-important “why’s" of the world.  I spend a lot of time looking at the night sky.  It’s is indescribable here, you simply must to see it.  To give you some perspective we are at 19 degrees north of the equator as such we are able to see 100% of the stars in the Northern Hemisphere and 80% of the stars in the lower hemisphere, we are above 40% of atmosphere so the stars literally don’t even twinkle.  I often find myself visiting the Nasa and Keck headquarters in Hilo just to stare at the photos of the Universe.  The Milky Way galaxy is home to 100 billion stars.  Keck just found that each one of those stars on average has from 1 to 10 planets orbiting it.  25% of those planets are earth-like planets… 25,000,000,000 earths… in the MilkyWay… there are roughly 100 billion galaxies.. we are not alone.  It is a struggle to wrap my mind around the implications but it is a wonderful place in thought.  

      There is a certain point at which the intensity of thought becomes overwhelming and I must clear my head so I go to the Keiki pool (Hawaiian for child), a shallow man made tidal pool, to swim laps and let my mind wonder and eventually settle. 

I swim along undisturbed for a time looking at the ocean floor and the micro-colenies on each tiny reef and then BAM DINOSAUR! Six inches from my face there is a giant prehistoric reptilian head.  I curse harshly underwater reeling furiously.  I have almost run head long into a hundred year old sea turtle.  I stand in the shallow water my heart racing.  Looking down at the altogether apathetic creature who only alters its course slightly to avoid my knees, I wonder if it would have taken noticed if I had run into it.  The smell of teriyaki and sound of children playing come wafting through the air to bring me back to the present.  

      "Children" now there’s a thought, I’d like some of those one day, and wouldn’t this be the best place to raise them..  But for now I should find food. It’s lunch time..