{"id":2240,"date":"2011-11-09T08:46:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T15:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2011-11-09T08:59:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T15:59:28","slug":"sometimes-you-got-to-go-through-hell-before-you-get-to-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/?p=2240","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes you got to go through Hell before you get to Heaven…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"turtle.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another 4am morning.<\/p>\n

I got up this morning and made a pot of coffee while Lester snored away. \u00a0One of the patio doors was barely cracked open and I could hear this high wind coming from outside. \u00a0It sounded like I was in the middle of a hurricane. \u00a0Looking out at the courtyard you can see the trees bending in t<\/p>\n

before we left California I checked the weather forecast and it said each day was going to be windy with showers. \u00a0It also said it was going to be 83 degrees. So far we have had the winds, no showers and it’s been a lot warmer than I thought it was going to be.
\nOn the news yesterday morning the weather woman said, “Grab your jacket before you leave!”
\nAfter our 2nd shore dive yesterday and we were driving home in our wet clothes, windows down I had to laugh…yeah, this is coat weather.
\nI finally opened the patio door, expecting the high winds to be cold. \u00a0Nope, warm. I love Maui.<\/p>\n

We had a change of plans yesterday because the boat fix didn’t work. \u00a0We ended driving to the other part of Maui and doing a beach dive. \u00a0Both of us have dove this part of the island. 15 years ago I did this dive and I got my ass kicked by the coral reef when I went up to high and got caught in the surf. \u00a0This time I stayed low and only came up when I wanted to go into a cave or through an arch.
\nThe first dive was amazing. It made up for the shit dive we did on Monday to the boat. \u00a0 It takes awhile to get back in the swing of Scuba. The technical side of it is easy, it’s the relaxing and enjoying the view that gets forgotten when making sure all the technical stuff is taken care of.
\nThe first dive we saw the whole\u00a0spectrum\u00a0of fish. \u00a0My favorite are always the bright yellow fish, but this time I was\u00a0enamored\u00a0by this tye dye looking fish. \u00a0This little guy was enormous and was spitting out rock and sand endlessly. He was a comedy act to watch.<\/p>\n

After that dive we drug our asses back up the beach and washed off and headed to get food. \u00a0Is 10:30 am to early for rum? \u00a0We got back to the condo after the best lunch and I laid down while Lester download the pictures. \u00a0Within minutes I was out. \u00a0He gave me a whopping 25 minute nap before waking me up and telling me that the clouds were dark where we were going to do our second dive and we needed to get moving to beat the storm.
\nIt was dark and the beach we were going to dive from was choppy so we decided to do the same dive we had done earlier that morning.
\nThis time we saw turtles, eels, trumpet fish and this amazing arch. \u00a0The snorkelers had told us they saw a couple reef sharks in a cave and my goal was to find those sharks to get in close to get a picture. \u00a0I located the cave they said they saw it in and I went in very slow, stopping my bubbles so I could focus in each direction. \u00a0Just as I was about into the dark part of the cave, a yellow fish darted out from behind some coral and scared the living shit out of me. I screamed and did this sissy ass back swim. \u00a0Turning around I looked for Lester, hoping he didn’t see me have that freak out moment. \u00a0Nope, he saw something shiny and wasn’t paying attention. \u00a0I decided that if I was going shark hunting, I better make sure that Lester is there to make sure he can get a picture of the shark that is likely going to take off my arm.<\/p>\n

At about 1500 lbs of air it was time to turn around, I made my way up and over this reef and it opened up into this pocket of amazingness. \u00a0The big yellow fish that had been leading the way to this slice of heaven didn’t steer me wrong. \u00a0I made my way through this coral arch and out into another pocket with a cave.
\nI turned around again to watch Lester come through the arch and I smiled.
\nThis is my dive buddy now. This is the person I trust with my life with.<\/p>\n

With that thought, I promise to take him more seriously when he’s pointing out that he’s running out of air in his tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Another 4am morning. I got up this morning and made a pot of coffee while Lester snored away. \u00a0One of the patio doors was barely cracked open and I could hear this high wind coming from outside. \u00a0It sounded like I was in the middle of a hurricane. \u00a0Looking out at the courtyard you can see the trees bending in t before we left California I checked the weather forecast and it said each day was going to be windy with showers. \u00a0It also said it was going to be 83 degrees. So far we have had the winds, no showers and it’s been a lot warmer than I thought it was going to be. On the news yesterday morning the weather woman said, “Grab your jacket before you leave!” After our 2nd shore dive yesterday and we were driving home in our wet clothes, windows down I had to laugh…yeah, this is coat weather. I finally opened the patio door, expecting the high winds to be cold. \u00a0Nope, warm. I love Maui. We had a change of plans yesterday because the boat fix didn’t work. \u00a0We ended driving to the other part of Maui and doing a beach dive. \u00a0Both of us have dove this part of the island. 15 years ago I did this dive and I got my ass kicked by the coral reef when I went up to high and got caught in the surf. \u00a0This time I stayed low and only came up when I wanted to go into a cave or through an arch. The first dive was amazing. It made up for the shit dive we did on Monday to the boat. \u00a0 It takes awhile to get back in the swing of Scuba. The technical side of it is easy, it’s the relaxing and enjoying the view that gets forgotten when making sure all the technical stuff is taken care of. The first dive we saw the whole\u00a0spectrum\u00a0of fish. \u00a0My favorite are always the bright yellow fish, but this time I was\u00a0enamored\u00a0by this tye dye looking fish. \u00a0This little guy was enormous and was spitting out rock and sand endlessly. He was a comedy act to watch. After that dive we drug our asses back up the beach and washed off and headed to get food. \u00a0Is 10:30 am to early for rum? \u00a0We got back to the condo after the best lunch and I laid down while Lester download the pictures. \u00a0Within minutes I was out. \u00a0He gave me a whopping 25 minute nap before waking me up and telling me that the clouds were dark where we were going to do our second dive and we needed to get moving to beat the storm. It was dark and the beach we were going to dive from was choppy so we decided to do the same dive we had done earlier that morning. This time we saw turtles, eels, trumpet fish and this amazing arch. \u00a0The snorkelers had told us they saw a couple reef sharks in a cave and my goal was to find those sharks to get in close to get a picture. \u00a0I located the cave they said they saw it in and I went in very slow, stopping my bubbles so I could focus in each direction. \u00a0Just as I was about into the dark part of the cave, a yellow fish darted out from behind some coral and scared the living shit out of me. I screamed and did this sissy ass back swim. \u00a0Turning around I looked for Lester, hoping he didn’t see me have that freak out moment. \u00a0Nope, he saw something shiny and wasn’t paying attention. \u00a0I decided that if I was going shark hunting, I better make sure that Lester is there to make sure he can get a picture of the shark that is likely going to take off my arm. At about 1500 lbs of air it was time to turn around, I made my way up and over this reef and it opened up into this pocket of amazingness. \u00a0The big yellow fish that had been leading the way to this slice of heaven didn’t steer me wrong. \u00a0I made my way through this coral arch and out into another pocket with a cave. I turned around again to watch Lester come through the arch and I smiled. This is my dive buddy now. This is the person I trust with my life with. With that thought, I promise to take him more seriously when he’s pointing out that he’s running out of air in his tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/randomandodd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}