Since we moved to Hawaii, Paul has really gotten into Spearfishing. Who says deafness has to be barrier? Paul used his deafness and fluency in ASL with his dive buddies above and under the water. In circumstances like this (read below)… would YOU want to be caught without language under the water? Paul gives a couple of examples in his story below…. but nothing here really needs a detailed explanation.

Haole Tourist Diving/Watching on the North Shore! Not For the Weak
So I was bored yesterday…

Decided to go on a Haole Tourist Dive.

hao·le (hou’lē, -lā)
n. Hawaii
A white person.

tour·ist /ˈtʊərɪst/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[toor-ist]
noun
a person who is traveling, esp. for pleasure.

How often does one get to view these unique creatures outside of a major tourist area? It was difficult to find a boat willing to take me out to the area I wanted to for the purposes I wanted to. They kept saying it was too crazy and dangerous.

But money talks as everybody knows.

A small, leaky inflatable boat owner agreed to take us out when the offering price got high enough.

Three of us ventured forth, all of us armed with under water cameras and a video camcorder.

As the captain steered us miles out to sea, his face was easy to read. He did not like this job and was scared.

I was all smiles though.

After a quick lesson in how to use the military-spec tourniquets in case we were attacked by the haole tourists while in the water…

It was time to hit the water. I was the first overboard, and promptly lost my mask. Everybody on the boat looked at me in concern as I fumbled for my mask and put it back on. Then I looked all around in the water.

WHEW! No haole tourists to be seen! I flashed the okay sign, and indicated “zero” with my hand so the others knew it was safe to enter the water.

A few minutes later after chumming the water with sharks, we found them! Yes, the crazy haole tourists!

Savages the lot of them. No wonder they had to be kept in a metal cage with bullet-proof windows on the sides. They were staring at me with crazed eyes while blubbering on the surface. They also appeared to constantly be trying to break apart the bars as evidenced by how often they held on to the bars and even used their legs on the bars too. See below photo.
I was wary at first, but as I watched their unsuccessful attempts at escaping from their cage, I felt more confident and got a bit closer. I even observed some intelligence in these creatures. They actually took pictures of me taking pictures of them. However, I wrote this off as just imitation after I observed them waving back at me when I waved at them. They’re just like monkeys at the zoo.

See Video clip:

We got bored with those three and we kept looking for other haole tourists. We didn’t find any others, sadly.

How big? Use photo below for size reference.

Aku Tuna (skipjack) – I shot one of these but…

A bunch of sharks promptly charged me and my fish, ripped my fish away without biting me and tore up my shooting line. I couldn’t even try again since they also took my shaft away. Bastards.

I had to settle for hitching free rides on the back of these apex predators each time they cruised by instead of doing more hunting shoulder-to-shoulder.

See Video Clip

We heard from the boat that was chumming and landing the akus that a Great White was just a few blocks away from us. We made a bee-line to the area but didn’t see it. Just more sharks…

Good times. Scary tourists.

-Paul