Tag #18211 - Adair

About Adair

My wife and I are empty nesters and as such have only nephews and nieces to dote on. But now, some of our nephews and nieces are gitting ready to retire and we now have grand and even greatgrand nephews and nieces. It seems like everyday I get another announcement of a new family member. 

Some of our nephews and nieces have real talent that we are proud of, Adair is one of those talented family members. By the age of 4 Adair was producing refrigerator art for her grandparents, and some of it showed talent beyond her years. So Adair’s grandfather enrolled her in a special art class for a hour once a week. After 2 years Adair’s grandfather showed me this mermaid picture that Adair painted (see additional Images). Because I thought this was exceptional for a 6 year old, and I once saw a real mermaid, I decided to have Adair’s painting on this pathtag.

A Real Mermaid

November 21st 2002 at a dive site called “Mermaid Rock,” in “Pawai Bay” (Mermaid Rock was named after a local lady who likes to sun and swim in the nude around this dive site.) It is a pirate mooring ball (meaning that it is not approved, however it is grandfathered in.) The mooring ball is about 75 meters south of the Bodyglove mooring ball and 100 meters north of the Air Station mooring ball which is just about 500 meters north of the “Old Kona Airport State Park” which is just north of “Kahului Bay”, “Kailua-Kona” Hawaii. We were diving from a boat owned by “Big Island Divers” and operated by Capt. Jim MacIntire, the dive master was Bob Welsh. There was 7 divers total in the water including Bob. This was my first dive of the day and by that time I had already completed 233 dives, since I started diving, I now have over 500 dives under my weight belt.

I was just 28 minutes into my dive at about 60 feet of water when one member of our party signaled that we should look up. I could not make out what he was so excited about but this dive site was known for; Manta Rays, Whitetip Reef Sharks, Whale Sharks, Dolphins and Green Sea Turtles.  A few years ago I even saw a school of 8 Hammerhead Sharks. So up I went, until about 20 feet of water I saw that it was a woman swimming in the nude!  :O) She was just swimming slowly in circles above us. She stayed above us for about 5 minutes (my dive computer defiantly showed a spike in my breathing rate during that time) then sadly she swam off. I wanted to get a photo of her but my wife had the camera and she would not let me have it. Later she said that in her opinion there was nothing up there to take a photo of!!!!  :O(

What this mermaid was doing is swimming in divers bubbles. When a diver exhales he will expel tiny bubbles that go to the surface at about 2 feet per second, and when those tiny bubbles touch bare skin it tickles. Remember she was swimming in the bubbles of 7 divers. Capt. Jim said that she is known to do this quiet often. The divers were Lonnie & Larry, Diane & Lyn, Roger & Patty and of course Bob. 

Another reason this dive was so memorable was Home Depot had its grand opening at 6:oo am that morning! What a improvement for Kona, Wow No more HPM (Haolies Pay More) Building Supply!