Taking a look back at 2017, here are some new experiences for me...
New Places Visited
Hawaii (Big Island) - Kona, Hilo, Volcano National Park - visited pretty much the entire island.
Doylestown, PA - nice quaint little town where my sister lives
Local Parks - Leesylvania State Park, Elanore C. Lawrence Park
New Activities
Indoor Skydiving (iFly)
Whitewater Kayaking
Paint Night
New Foods
Hawaiin foods - poke (yum!), lau lau (yum!), poi (blech)
Fruits - Rambutan (yum), Longan (yum), Cherimoya (yum-yum)
Meats - tongue (meh)
Thanks to MikeB for recommend this idea for a post.
I recently visited Hawaii (Big Island) on a vacation. Normally, when I travel, I get great pictures that capture the experience. This trip was different, because some of the best experiences were underwater. After reading a bit about how difficult it is to capture good underwater pictures, I decided not to even try.
One of the most enjoyable things I did was take the Night Manta Ray Experience trip with an outfitter called Sea Quest at Keauhou Bay near Kona. The way it works is that you take a short boat trip out to the spot, which was ultimately not that far, say ~100 meters, from a rocky shoreline adjacent to the Sheraton Kona Resort that we stayed at. The guides jump out of the boat and set up a floating platform with huge bright lights illuminating the dark sea below. The guests then hold onto the platform and float on the surface of the ocean using snorkel gear to view below. The manta rays come to feed on plankton that are attracted to the light.
Our first sighting of a manta ray was exhilarating. The beautiful monstrous creature swam straight up out of the darkness of the depths with mouth wide open to catch all the plankton it could. If not foretold that manta rays are harmless, my first instinct would have been to swim away from an approaching sea creature with a greater than 10 foot wingspan weighing more than 1000 pounds. At the last second, the manta ray turned flat and upside-down and glided inches from our faces to skim up the plankton near the surface. The rays have specialized nerve cells on their skin giving them
the ability to sense electrical fields and they seemed to use that to glide close, but not touch us as we watched them. We were also given strict instructions not to touch them as to not disrupt the protective slime coating on their skin.
According to the guides, the manta rays learn the behavior of swimming in loops near the tour lights to feed on the plankton. They observe that young rays don't quite grasp the approach at first. It is not a natural behavior since they can normally feed on plankton on the surface continuously during the day.
Since I didn't have a camera with me, I can't share video of my experience, here is a video from YouTube:
The commercial space industry will suffer a massive setback
The Dow Jones Industrial Average will break 21,000 in 2017.
A movie will be announce featuring a CGI version of a famous deceased actor as a leading role. Grand Moff Tarkin was just a start.
There will be direct proof of the existence of Planet 9.
I will post at least three posts on this blog (more of a resolution than a prediction)
Let's see how I did in 2016...
Russia will make headlines as a military moves rocks the world.
Russia launched intensive air strikes of Aleppo that prompted tens of thousands of Syrians to flee and claimed more than 1,700 civilian causalities, according to some reports.
Unusual weather patterns will cause chaos in the US, leading to dozens of deaths.
Ding. Ding. 2016 was the deadliest hurricane season since 2005. Hurricane Matthew, a Category 5 hurricane, is attributed with 1659 deaths
Marco Rubio will win the Republican primary nomination for US president.
I WAS SO VERY WRONG.
Fidel Castro will die.
Ding. Ding. Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016. He was 90 years old.
I own a Nerf football. I do crossword puzzles with a pen. I want to see the Aurora (Northern Lights). I recycle. I believe people need to accept more personal responsibility for the things that happen in their lives.
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