The next journey: More and more

First of all I would like to start with this:

Number 16, check!
Haha, cryptic I know but some will understand..

This last week has been super busy. I went from one amazing weekend all the way to the next.
During the week I did a shit tonne (common American saying for a lot) of homework and study with very limited sleeping hours. I had two more days of my internship. This was fun. One of the days included some very geeky science lab work which required a lot of concentration so the time literally flew by. The other day however was four hours of gutting and filleting fish to be processed... This was cool, kinda brought back days at Te Ngaere Bay in the Colebrookes back yard, but also was really gross. Some of the fish had started to rot before they were frozen back in June, so the stink was absolutely sick. I vomited in my mouth a little bit, but swallowed it down cause I didn't want to be the new girl who couldn't handle the jandle! Anyway, I got better at filleting and at holding my breathe in one day so I'm not complaining..
I also spent 2 nights at Marions for dinner. The first was to meet Kaniela, her youngest son who just returned from his voyage on the kaisei, the one I may be going on next summer (N. hemisphere summer). http://www.projectkaisei.org/
He is really cool and we talked a lot about NZ cause he did his degree in Otago. He's pretty cute too. So I went there on Wednesday night also, not to see him, but because Keppa and I went diving. Marion introduced me to this Hawaiian man she knows, Doc Pheffer, who dives almost everyday. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to dive with this guy so I went along not knowing what to expect. It was about 4:30pm, we jumped in his boat, jetted out to the ocean and stopped about half a mile off Waikiki beach. I found this really odd as there was no reef and it didn't look like the best dive spot. He is quite old and grumpy and started yelling at us to get to the edge of the boat and look for "the big white ball thing" beneath the surface. I had no idea what he meant so pretended to be hard at work looking. Turns out Keppa spotted it and it was a large buoy attached to a hidden ship wreck. So cool! So we quickly geared up. Now when I say gear I don't mean the usual buoyancy compensator kind of gear... This was something called a Hawaiian back pack which was a homemade metal contraption to hold the tank, a weight belt, one regulator and a dive computer. It was way cool and felt like I had nothing on me which is not what normal diving feels like. Anyway, the dive was the best yet! Huge ship, millions of bright fish, a big scary eel, and Doc speared us an Uku to take back to Marion for her dinner. He was a great man, a little creepy though. He invited me back again and seemed very keen to teach me more about the Hawaiian marine life, even saying he'd bring some text books next time I came out. Another stroke of luck and an amazing connection thanks to my Hanai Mom!
Friday rolled on pretty quickly and it was time to go camping with Julia and some of her friends. I got picked up from my dorm and drove out with the girls to a beautiful camping spot on the North Shore. We had a blast with great food, beer, music, swimming, volleyball and mega relaxing in the hammock contraption that the guys set up (photos to follow). It was lovely. There was also a small Island just off the beach which we swam to and chilled on for the afternoon. Got home on the Saturday avo and we decided to party, as you do in college, and got yet another warning about the noise coming from our room...Woops! It was a cool night, great people to hang with and some funny stories for Claire the next morning! Sunday was an awesome lazy Sunday. We drove out to a beach called Lanikai (only breaing down twice on the way in my friend Derek's car) which is on the east coast where. We played with a ball, built sand castles and relaxed before stopping at some lookouts on the way home.
So that was a pretty eventful week. Here are some photos, unfortunately none from diving as I need to save up and buy a camera with a housing.