Turtle Pinnacle is absolutely a world-class dive. Are there other places out there where you can get virtually-guaranteed photographs of turtles being cleaned by colorful fish? I was hoping for the canonical “turtle being cleaned by yellow tangs” shot, but yellow tangs usually take off as soon as you get close, leaving only the darker tangs behind for the photo. Maybe next time. :) We did, however, see a hawksbill turtle. While these critters are a dime-a-dozen in West Palm Beach, Watt has only seen two of them locally in his twenty years in Hawaii. The first time he saw one was a year ago, when I was here last time. :)

At 25′, Douglas discovered that his pressure gauge was broken while trying suck in a breath of air — and getting nothing. Luckily, he was already headed towards the surface, so the only effect was that he had to forgo a safety stop. I suppose it could have been worse.

The wind has picked offshore, so we’re taking the afternoon easy. More diving tomorrow! I wish I had more time here. I would like to get out to the lava flow on the other side of the island, but with only one more diving day left, we will probably spend tomorrow in the water, leaving us too tired to get to the other side of the island at night.

In the evening, Douglas, Jim and I met up with the Seapics.com folk (Masa, Tamara, and Sue) to hang out at Huggo’s. It is here that some rare photos of me with a Guinness were taken. :) [see some photos]

Re: the war thing. It was my OWN feeling of helplessness (and the associated guilt) that I was referring to; it seems to be causing mild depression. I know that many people in the States are pro-war. That wasn’t the point.

I still almost literally feel sick everytime I hear or see Bush in the media.