Undersea-zures

~I hope you voted yesterday. That's because I hear some restaurants give you a discount if you have one of those "I VOTED!" stickers. I mean, why else would you bother to vote? Republicrats, Democricans, it's all the same to me. (disclaimer: I sent my absentee ballot in a month ago and personally looked up the website of every single candidate. Believe me: absentee is the way to go.)

^ Back to Okinawa. On my first day of diving, I was accompanied by a friendly Austrian couple who were there on vacation. They wanted it to be very clear that they were Austrian, not Australian. The Arnold jokes were, of course, inevitable.

^ The guy in the above picture is Tom, one of the Austrians. Hi, Tom!

^ A few hundred feet away was one of the numerous U.S. military bases on the island. The structures you see above are guide lights for the airfield just beyond the shore.

^ The first day I was there was apparently a very busy day for the air force. Planes constantly flew over us to the landing field, causing a loud roar which necessitated a stop in whatever conversations were being held at the moment. I think the fighter jets were practicing in-flight refueling with the help of large fuel tanker planes, although this took place well out of my sight.

More amusingly, the fighter jets taking off had a habit of igniting their afterburners just above us; you could feel the blast underwater, which caused all the fish to stop moving and vibrate as if they were having seizures.

^ I saw many of these fish, which look like sails to me. I counted red, blue, yellow, and orange varieties. It's hard to make out, but the above fish has yellow stripes along with the usual black and white. For reference, he's about the size of my hand.

^ I have no idea what this is, but it looks cool! The "look but don't touch" rule is very important in this case. since it's easy to accidentally brush up against the floating tendrils. This thing was perhaps one foot in diameter.

^ This brightly-colored fish kept following me around. I think he liked me, because he was always swimming around me, just out of reach. Maybe he was looking for food.

^ As I completed my first day of diving, I was treated to a spectacular Okinawa sunset. I think the above picture speaks for itself. Tomorrow: night diving!
~Oyasumi.