Jacques Coustea Has a Mother

Jacques Coustea has a mother. She has a very important role. She trails Jacques in his underwater odyssey ensuring his safety. It is a dangerous and taxing role. Dangerous because she must always be on the alert for Jacques’ flipper getting her in the face, and if she should ever, ever accidentally finds herself above Jacques when he is finished diving and trying to surface, well let us just say the results could be catastrophic. Taxing because often she loses track of Jacques and has to surface and frantically look for signs of his snorkel or his flippers flailing at the surface as he begins a dive then she must swim blindly and frantically towards him lest he vanish from sight quickly again.
She also has a very important role corralling and gently flushing unwieldy sea creatures towards his lens. Often while swimming happily behind him she will spot exquisite sea creatures herself like a octopus or even her favorite fish – a darling tiny little fish with polkadots that looks like someone has pressed their lips to the fish and blown it up like a tiny balloon. By the time she has surfaced and screamed for Jacques to return she has churned up the water so frantically that there is no visibility and the creature has disappeared and Jacques really wonders what she is up to. Luckily sea turtles are not offended by her antics and stay patiently there and wait for Jacques to reach them with his trusty lens.
We found our turtles at our trusted beach again. All is well. It was a hot and sunny day and the water was quite clear, except for where the turtles were living.
Joop picked a branch off the orange tree and the orange blossoms smell amazingly like gardenias. It has even been sunny in
Waimea.
We'll probably beach it again, getting up the reserves to actually tackle the planned trips. We might be having Harmen's family over tomorrow for dinner. If they come (and this is a big if) I am trying to imagine a menu whereby I won't be a slave and can still beach it. I want to get an earlier start to the day today. Once again it is hard to drag the boys from their computers.