Oli Aloha: How Finding Dolphins Is Like Finding True Love

 

 

When a friend of mine gave me recommendations for the Big Island of Hawaii, she said, “Go in the ocean, the ocean is magical!” She was right. That was the best part about our recent visit to the Big Island. I may not connect to the miles and miles of barren lava but I do connect to the sea.

There are two main options of swimming with the dolphins in Hawaii: 1) A Wild Encounter: you can swim with wild ones, taking your chances if you will see any, how many you will see, if they decide to come close, if they decide to interact with you at all. Or, 2) A Captive Interaction: you can swim with dolphins in captivity, where a company puts you in a life vest, and you wade into a pool and the dolphins will come up and give you a kiss if you give them a treat. You get guaranteed time with them and good photos.



The whole thing reminds me of dating. You can take your chances with all the fish in the sea, or you can pay a beauty to give you a kiss. The later choice has the guarantee, just like a kissing booth at a fair, but she kisses you not because she likes you. Not because she thinks you are special, not because you two have a good connection, but because you have something she wants.



I would much rather support companies who do not cage these lovely beings. I would rather take my chances that they find me interesting enough to come close and play. I personally find option 2 heartbreaking.

But I am also not the type who wants to wear a life jacket wading into a ten foot pool. I live and breathe the sea, as these dolphins do. So I wore weights to help me dive deeper with them, the opposite of the life jacket concept. I want the wild experience, to interact deeper. But that’s just who I am. I understand that others want the guarantee, oddly enough at the painful, stifling cost to the incredible being they are paying to see.

All that being said, we lucked out. Tim and I got exactly what we wanted on our dolphin swim: a small boat with an intimate crew of people of like-minds, and dolphins, lots and lots of them. Three different species: bottlenose, spotted and spinner dolphins!

The first dolphins we encountered were bottlenose. A family of nine or ten. They came right up to the boat to check us out and kept pushing at the bow, challenging the boat to go faster, to race. I was thrilled that we had found them after just a few minutes of searching.

“We won’t swim with these dolphins.” Our captain Erika informed us. “It's just…how to put this…they are very forward. They have been known to play with people, to touch and nibble. They might take you by the arm or hand and guide you down to show you something, or ask you to play deeper.”

“So it’s not safe?” The Canadian woman next to me asked.

“It’s not that.” Erika said. “It’s really rare that could happen, and they wouldn’t wish you harm in any way, they just might not understand your boundaries. The spinner dolphins we are looking for tend to be more timid.”

As we accelerated, the dolphins quickly created a V formation behind us surfing the wave created by our boat's hull. They were thrilled! We noticed two babies swimming very close to their mothers.

Between waves rolling through from the swell, Erika gave us a thorough briefing on how to interact. “There will be small windows to jump in and see the dolphins today.” She explained. “When I say standby, you want to get your gear on and get ready and then as soon as I say ’the pool is open’ jump in quickly.”

Erika explained what not to do during our wild dolphin swim. Some things I knew, like obviously, don’t touch them. Other things were more key to dolphin behavior and were new to me like don’t swim with your arms, and keep your fins underwater so there is no surface slapping. When dolphins want to be left alone, they signal each other by slapping their tails on the water. So splashing about trying to get closer to the dolphins is counter productive.

In the wild, it is up to the dolphins if they want to swim with you. They choose if they want to hang out or leave and they're a lot faster than we are. I had put a lot of thought into how to get the dolphins who swam by to stop and play. Should I bring them gifts or toys? Should I dress in loud colors to be more interesting? Man, it's the dating game all over again. First impressions. You want to show up authentically, so they get to know and like you for who you are, right? Loads of makeup flashy clothing and gifts aren't necessarily as valuable as being yourself on a first date. But what would set me apart? How does one find a dolphin, gain its interest and make friends?

The liability waiver had also made me initial that I would not dive down in the water with the dolphins. As this was my exact intent, I clarified with Erika, explaining Tim and I were dive instructors, what our background in the ocean was and explaining we would be smart and safe about it, if allowed to duck under. She understood we would be safe but explained she didn’t trust other boats to be. Overhead hazards were the reasoning behind the waiver‘s rule on diving, not necessarily because it would scare or offend the dolphins. So I agreed to only dive under if there were no other boats in the vicinity.



 

After 20 minutes of going up and down the coast we hadn’t found any spinner dolphins as the waves of the swell lifted and lowered the boat and crashed against the shore. We turned around and headed back and Erika radioed the other Dolphin Discovery boat. She translated the garbled man’s voice back to us.

“Okay guys, so the bottlenose family seems to have slowed down and are more calm now. Because we have not found our spinners yet, we are going to let you swim with these dolphins if you want to.”

There was a long pause. I saw both of the other couples look at each other. In the silence that followed, I grabbed my mask. “Okay.” I looked up at Erika. “I’d love to go in.”

“Awesome.” She brightened and turned the boat around to parallel the dorsal fins in the water as I stepped into my fins.

“Okay Sara, the pool is open.” I dove in but didn‘t see anything but the bottom of our boat. Erika pointed to the direction she last saw them and I started swimming, careful not to use my arms and keep my fins under the water. I got farther and farther from the boat. I was in 200 feet of water and all around me was startling blue. I didn’t see any dolphins, the only thing I could see beneath me were jelly fish. I started to examine my choice, remembering Erika’s first comments about wild bottlenose dolphins, feeling a tightening in my chest.

I’ve never met dolphins underwater, so I had no idea how they would react to me and here I was, heading out alone to try to swim with the most aggressive, or forward type. Awesome.

I laughed at myself and took three deep breaths. I don’t know much about dolphins, but I do know they are incredibly intelligent, that they are playful, that they can feel where you are at emotionally, and they respond to playful energy. Kind of how sharks can smell fear - you exude those pheromones in the water and they pick up on your emotions. Going out alone with any kind of hesitation or fear is really not where I wanted to be. I had to change the place I was at internally if I wanted to get to where I wanted externally. Somehow I had to open my heart.

So I did the first thing that came to mind. I started singing. Over the last few weeks a generous Hawaiian has been teaching me the words to Oli Aloha, a song I adore because the the core of it is love. The gist of the song is this: there is someone you love who you have been longing to see and suddenly they are in front of you and you are overwhelmed with love.  Oli Aloha is in Hawaiian, and a great challenge for me, but I'm drawn to it and that’s the first song I had.  Those who have been snorkeling with children know that you can hear someone talk in a snorkel, and you sure can hear them sing. It changed my energy immediately and although there were still jellyfish, others had hopped off the boat now and were heading my way behind me, and the dolphins were heading my way in front of me. I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t afraid, just excited.

 

 

It’s an incredible rush, having dolphins head straight for you, part and move around you. They are so surreal and swim differently than any other fish I’ve been close to - their tail moves up and down rather than side to side and they have such control in the water - seeming to hover when they slow to check you out. I didn’t know which direction to look, they were on all sides and below me. There was no wild, unpredictable, aggressive energy that might drag someone down. Looking in their eyes as they slowed, there was only love, a smiling rush of affection, something familiar which I recognized to be the exact essence of Oli Aloha.

My videos of them are hilarious, even to me. You see ten dolphins rush past me and as each one comes near, I say “hello friend!” and “hey there.” I’m like a kid greeting friends on the street walking past me, minus the wild waving (thrilled to see them but don‘t want to scare them off). It’s impossible for me not to talk to them when they are feet from me whistling, for they seem so interactive and understanding.

 

 

 

The highlight was when I did dive down. No one in the group had done so yet. I dove and mimicked the dolphin’s swim. I know how silly that looks. I’ve been told and laughed at myself but it was all in good play. A dolphin approached and slowed down, then dove down with me and spun. I had no awareness of how deep I went or what my form looked like. I was just so overwhelmingly honored and happy that one had stopped when he saw me and turned around, leaving his family to come play with me.



Tim and I are already talking about going again; and what to do next time now that we have discovered what works best, how to be noticed, how to be interesting enough to check out. And really, it is just as I thought. I’m different. There is no way I would pay to support the captivity of something so intelligent and gloriously happy. I couldn’t support a company that separates such a being of love from its family in the name of profit. But to be dropped off in the open sea in the line of a flow of hundreds of wild content dolphins, is absolutely priceless. So yeah, I’m different. I get that I’m not like the other tourists floating out there. When it comes to dolphins and love, that’s a good thing. So I’m the one who sings in a different language, sings out loud to the ocean, who doesn’t wear the life jacket, but wears the weights in 200 feet of open ocean. In this case, it worked. How do you get a dolphin to stop and play with you? How has anyone found love? Just be yourself.

 





 

The Magician's Perspective - Behind the Scenes with Christian Heeb

 

I am still scrubbing mud out from beneath my nails from this weekend. Who knew part of the job description for Photographer’s Model would include barefoot hiking -scaling the slippery ledge to climb up to the next waterfall, climbing roots and mudslide forest walls to the higher pools above?  But hey, it’s not all studio work with controllable lighting and backdrops here in Maui. Jungle photography presents some immense challenges, many of them muddy.

 

I had been invited by world renowned photographer Christian Heeb and his lovely wife and assistant Regula months ago to participate in photos for an upcoming Hawaii travel guidebook.
Of course, as a photographer, I was thrilled, and asked a local girl to join us, whom we immediately referred to as “The Hawaiian Beauty” for obvious reasons. In my photos, she is a pretty Hawaiian girl. In Christian's photos, she embodies the essence of why for centuries, sailors didn't want to leave the islands. That is the work of a master.



Christian is a unique person. When we met for the first time at the Banyan tree in Lahaina, I texted the Hawaiian Beauty descriptions so she would know how to find us: “Look for the thin man wearing a little hat with a huge lens or two.” It didn’t take her long to find us, but it did take her several hours to get used to his character. Christian is a Swiss German. In my travels, I have crossed paths with many and it took me ages to understand them. Many Swiss Germans I have met possess a similar dry humor and quick wit. I took everything they said seriously for far too long and missed out on many good giggles this way. (Crystal Coyle, you know the type) In short, the man is hilarious, but says it all with a deceivingly straight face. This made for a very entertaining weekend.

 

It's amazing to watch Christian work. He is creating in the moment, using wind, using light patches, using barking dogs - whatever variables are present to accent the most interesting part of the scene. He jumps fences, stands on tree trunks, lays on his belly to get the right angle.

 

Regula is there beside him, a kind and gentle presence, giving valuable second opinions.  She can see what he is trying to capture and helps guide the light to accent his subject. Regula is the magician's assistant, a rare one who can see the world the way he does and reflect its magic back to the rest of us in his photos.

Setting up the scene, reflecting the light...to get this shot below:

 

 

 

As we rinsed off mud from our hike, he turned this scene....

 

...into this one.

 

 

We traveled all around Maui, chasing the light. Running down paths to catch the sunset, dodging tourists on the beach for a clear shot, tromping through high grass to ancient stands of eucalyptus trees. This grand adventure gave me a good idea what it would have been like if I had chosen this profession. As rewarding as it is being able to present him with my favorite trees, cliffs, waves and bays and critters, it is invigorating and fatiguing at the same time.  And if he asked, I'd be thrilled to do it all again tomorrow.

At one point, along the road to Hana, as we were yet again chasing the light, Christian jumped in the car and handed me his camera in the back seat. It was big and heavy and made me hold my breath in excitement as I set it in my lap. See, as other budding photographers out there may be able to relate, I am one of those girls with lens envy. I see a massive, black, protruding, serious, foot-long lens and it gives me yearnings. I want one too. Looking at Christian's camera, I felt as though the magician had just passed me his wand and said casually, “here, hold this.“ as though he didn’t realize the power it holds.

And then I came to the understanding that just having a camera and a lens like this wouldn’t mean I could take awesome photographs. The magic in Christian’s photos isn’t hiding in his camera, it isn’t in the moment, it’s in him. In how he sees the world, how he gathers the light, the angles he chooses. Perhaps the difference between average people and magicians is that magicians see the magic around us and show it to others. The magic is not a spell, it's something that is always all around us, swirling with possibility if we only had the eyes to see it. In my humble opinion, that’s what a brilliant artist does: they take something ordinary and turn it into something spectacular using what tools they have externally, what the world presents them in the given moment, but most importantly, what lies within them. For example, it is not the writer’s pen that makes the story amazing. An artist could hand me their paint brush, but that doesn’t mean I could recreate a painting like theirs that stirs me within, lifts me up, makes me catch my breath. That remarkable magic comes from within the artist and is reflected in their story, their artwork, or in this case, their photographs. For me, this week has been time spent with a true master, and the magician’s assistant, taking them to places I think are special and watching them create something extraordinary. CH, thank you, it has been an honor.



 



 

We Live On Borrowed Time

“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

Oh, Jimmy Buffet. Now there’s a guy who is living it right. Have you seen him lately? 68, perfectly tan, white hair, crinkly smile lines around his eyes, still silly, witty and all smiles. He’s sold millions of records, has had five books on the best seller list, has his own sail boat, two sea planes including a 1954 Grumman Albatross called “The Hemisphere Dancer“, a jet, and his own restaurant line which sell the largest margaritas on the planet. Awesome.

This week there’s been an underlying theme around me. Two friends of mine have been shocked by the ending of a life close to them. Unexpectedly, people who are close to us can just be gone. Similarly, this week we had a huge rainstorm here in Hawaii, the tail end of a hurricane. I spoke with an Indian family during the rainy day about going diving. Their little girls had made a connection with me and wanted to go out but it was my Friday and I wouldn’t be able to take them before they checked out and left Hawaii. We discussed the options of them diving another day with another guide, and their mother said, “Why not today? I know it’s raining and you said you cancelled your morning dive because conditions were not good out there. Would you go look again, please, just for us? I was thinking, why wait? The girls really like you and they trust you and it just seems like we should do this now. Make it happen.”

So, I went out and although the sky was dark and ominous and the wind was picking up, the fish didn’t know the difference and the water had cleared up some since that morning. Conditions were not perfect and still, the girls went from terrified of the ocean to giggling underwater. We had a gorgeous dive at the end of which my face hurt from smiling so much. The mother was so grateful that her girls could have a positive experience in the ocean before they left. And I pointed out that what she had said that inspired me to just get out there and do it was a good metaphor for life as well. It may not seem like the perfect time, the perfect conditions for what you want to happen but you’ve got to just do it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Life is right now. We should live fully now. The more you put the things you want off, the greater chance they have of never happening. Why wait? Just make it happen. Like Jimmy says, don’t try to live later when you’re dead tired. Live now.

Thinking about death ultimately leads me full circle to think about life. There’s a theory out there about reincarnation that talks bout how we must live every side of existence before our time on the planet is through. That we have to live as the child and as the old man, how we have to know the story of the fisherman and the fish by living them both. Rather or not you believe in reincarnation, its still possible to see the wisdom in this: To see all sides of life as not right or wrong, just as an aspect, a facet of the glittering spark of consciousness. That spark is aglow for different lengths of time for each of us. Jimmy referred to it as living on “borrowed time.” Which the dictionary tells us is a period of uncertainty during which the inevitable consequences of a current situation are postponed or avoided. The inevitable being death, or the inevitable being life? You will live but how? To what degree? There are so many different ways to die, and amongst those, there are so many different ways to live.

What would you do if you knew you has an expiration date coming up? How would you live differently? There are so many ways, to appreciate more and take less for granted, reach out to the people who have improved your journey, who have inspired you and let them know. Spend more quality time with your favorite person. Take more time to breathe in the beauty around you. Wear more comfortable clothing. Watch more sunsets. Feel the wind. Taste the sea. Get lost on purpose. Wander without an agenda just to enjoy where you are. Pet more dogs. Smile at strangers. Put your energy into things that reciprocate - watch less TV. Worry less about limits, eat more cookies. Plant more flowers. Buy yourself flowers. Don’t just listen to the music, get up and dance.

 

Take more risks. Stop putting off what you want and just commit - make it happen. Try those incredible things you’ve always wanted to do but never allowed yourself. It doesn’t have to be skydiving, it is your unique life after all. It could be just trying that odd flavor of ice cream or strange plate on the menu you can’t pronounce.

As many endings as there are, there are also beginnings. Life is full of firsts. Get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel, take charge of the direction of your life. Stop reading your story as written by fate and start writing it. Write the book. Buy the plane. Live on the sailboat for a while. Or just eat more cookies. Whatever it is, realize this won’t all be here forever. Make the most of your borrowed time.

“Now we may have a year, or we may have a lifetime,
No one can be certain what the future will allow,

We live on borrowed time
Yesterday is past, tomorrow seems a million miles away
But I promise you that I'm gonna make love last
By living every moment, every hour, every day.” -Barry Manilow
 

Doppelgangers of Our Previous Selves

Life is a grand adventure. To share it with someone you love is truly a treasure. Along the way of living and learning and morphing, we become different people. The paths we choose change us internally, and sometimes that change blooms externally as well.
Many people in our lives are close to us situationaly - we were once in the same place at the same time and that gave us common ground for a friendship. Others match up on many levels beyond the here and now and are lifelong friends. And yet, we are all on different lines on the map, moving through our lives, making choices that change us. Sometimes the lines take us to the other side of the globe and we never come back to the same place, or when we do it’s a different place because we’ve changed.



One of the biggest and hardest lessons for me this year was that you can’t always take your friends with you. After all, the great constant in life is change. When you live a dynamic life, such as I do, you often change much more rapidly than others you are connected with. It’s not something you can stop. I’ve actually felt it before, thousands of miles from home, under a foreign sky, much closer to the sun on a high elevation trail in India, realizing that I was expanding. That the journey was shaping me, and I knew in that moment I would never be able to return home and fit into the same box again. Not that people are boxes, but relationships and friendships are in a way. Some are based only on the things you have in common at that point in time. As time moves on and you no longer have the day to day in common, when you meet again, you are just two people. Respect may still be there, but the bond has been erased, and the connection has no spark.

Returning to Bend, after living on so many different islands, after becoming a teacher, after having lives in my hands every day, after undergoing such sharp experiences that pierced my heart and it grew back in a different shape, I was grateful to see my friends again. Some were comfortable and sweet and immediately clicked as we laughed together, still finding the same things funny, still able to understand one another mutually. And yet, others lacked that spark. Nothing ignited and the connection starved for something to feed on. We were just two people with a mutual past, and the unconditional respect only shone on my side. Boy, that was hard. But I know, you can’t force it. If someone you love can no longer accept who you’ve morphed into and the choices you’ve made, that’s heartbreaking but it is also part of the journey. Just as I can’t stop expanding because I love someone, they can’t stop judging when who I am has changed.

Overall, it makes me so incredibly grateful that I have the lifelong friends I do, and that Tim and I continue to grow together rather than apart. When Tim and I started dating five years ago, we were very different versions of ourselves than we are now.

 

 



We even physically look different. He looks younger and more handsome, whereas I look increasingly like my Aunt Mildred. Just kidding. My hair is a couple feet longer, and we’ve both lost over 20 pounds. We have new hobbies. We have new priorities. We are doppelgangers of the people we were when we first met 15 years ago. I am no longer Hippie Sara, he is no longer Salesman Tim. I don’t like my eggs the same way any more. But he adapts to that and makes them the way I like them now, rather than trying to get me to eat them the same way I always have. I was a barista, he was a chef. Then he was a roast master and I was a Wholesale Manager. Then we were students together on an island in Indonesia and emerged as dive instructors!

 

 

 

 



While living in Borneo, it seemed that everything about our daily life was different. Instead of making people’s day better through a delicious latte and warm smile, I was giving people a life skill and shaping them into responsible, safe divers. Instead of parking on the side of Bond Street and walking through Drake Park at 1:00 in the afternoon to a coffeehouse, I was suddenly getting up at 6am and catching a boat off a dock in Borneo to commute into a tiny island. I no longer passed people walking their dogs by the river, I passed Muslim women covered from head to toe and men with baskets of fresh fish. My work attire changed from a black shirt and khaki skirt to a swim suit and fins. Life could not be more different than it was. But I was living that reality with my best friend, so while reality changed, important connections remained strong and unaltered.

My mother always used to say that true love was not in looking at each other, but looking forward in the same direction. I guess she was right. This grand dream we have built wouldn't work with just anyone. I have learned that if a relationship is to last, it's important to want the same things, to have the same dreams, the same future together. Our reality has completely shifted but our love has not. We have both grown so much and our priorities have changed but the relationship is still a priority. I’ve always had the unconditional love within me, but rarely been this fortunate to have it in a relationship too.

Tim and I have always communicated clearly so we understand where the other is at internally, and that way, growth never comes as a surprise. We’ve now gone from friends and surf partners to travel buddies.  We learned to Stand Up Paddleboard together on wobbly legs, and then mastered the sport and built and designed our own 10 foot boards. We've been paddle buddies, flying partners, dive buddies, fellow students, supportive co-instructors, business partners and life partners.

So while you can’t always take your friends with you, if you are really lucky, you can take your partner with you. Happy five years, baby.
 

 



2015 Lessons From Being Fully Alive

So. Are you just living or are you alive? This year of being truly alive, I have learned many things. The lessons are incorporated in, like freckles, I wear the lessons naturally and they blend in to who I am. But I find writing them down helps me reflect on where I’ve been and how I got to be who I am. For me, life is about experiences, about connections and about learning. The characters I admire most in movies and books are those that undergo internal growth and are different from who they were in the beginning of the story. Those are the dynamic ones, the memorable ones, different from the dreaming parts of the population who go through their days asleep, every day like the next, every year blending into another, not reaching out to life, no interaction with the world, no new freckles.

Here is my list, this year of being alive, of being 31, of living in Borneo, in Thailand, moving from the Kingdom of Cambodia to the Kingdom of Hawaii. (Life is an adventure, after all!)



I learned something big about being memorable. You have to interact to be remembered.

I learned how to read waves - and when not to go in. The ocean amazes me with how it can change so quickly. Hour to hour it is different, changed by wind, waves, current, rain, light. It can be pure and crystal clear one day, and the next you can see only a few feet in front of your face.  It can be glassy and calm in the morning and have four foot waves in the afternoon. I took these shots from my favorite tree in different conditions to illustrate. I'm learning what its colors mean, what its surface has to tell me. A dark line on the horizon is rain coming. My eyes can now tell which way the current is moving and how fast my divers will too. I can see without getting in, just how clear the water is and if its worth going out. The ocean is different every day and every hour.

 

I have learned that as The Guide I have to stand firmly in my own decisions about the ocean’s conditions. We don’t go if I say it’s no good, not safe, and if the water conditions don‘t match well with my divers abilities. I don’t give the guests the power to choose - as the most experienced in the group, I make the choice. I have learned to be okay with that.
How to read people more effectively. As a guide when I meet my new divers, I am assessing them. Watching closely to see who is comfortable, who is nervous, who I will need to be closest to underwater. I am watching to recognize an issue and resolve it before it becomes a problem. My new job as a different type of dive instructor - from PADI to SNUBA, is more about being safe and having fun. I tell people its just us going out to play in the sea. In order to have fun, you have to be comfortable. In many ways, I’m now in the business of keeping people comfortable in the big blue unknown, in the business of having fun, of doing handstands on the bottom of the ocean, of taking underwater photos, of making memories, of introducing people to how much fun the ocean can be if they just relax and see it through my eyes.

 

A very dear little five year old with freckles that match mine taught me that when I introduce a child to the ocean and it becomes a magical playground, there is a crossover - and the ocean and I become synonomous - they love one, they love them both.

I learned how to read kids - how to know when they need something to make the big picture not so big.  I have to catch it quickly. If they get to a place where the ocean is just too big, they will retreat internally and then they’re done. Time to go back in the beach, even if it has only been two minutes. When they’re done, they’re done. But if I can catch it quick enough and give them a piece of the little picture to draw them out of the ever expanding big picture, then the ocean is still at arm’s length, intractable. Not huge and scary. Sometimes this means handing the child my camera, or a fish ID card we can use to find the names of the fish we meet. Something they can hold. Because you can’t hold the sea, it holds you.  And some kids, if they focus on that too much can become wiped out by it. Life is that way, you have to stay present. Hold on to something that keeps you in the moment or the grandness of infinity and unknown could overwhelm you.

I have learned that everything worth doing is going to have some less than desirable days. It is not a reason to quit. It is a reason to learn and keep going.

It is okay to believe in mermaids. 8 year old Chloe believes I am one. She asked, “Does your tail disappear in the daylight and you swim in the ocean all night long?”

About public transportation - we went 1.5 years without a car - It was freeing not to have one, and strangely freeing to have one as well. Without one, you have to interact more with society, walking on roads, waiting at bus stops, asking acquaintances for a ride. With one, I was shocked at how it really only takes 30 minutes to go to the grocery store for something and not four hours (walking to, waiting for, catching, switching, waiting for, and walking from the bus).

Wholeness. My, how life is different when you can truly wrap your mind and heart around being whole. That who you are is enough. this year I really got that I no longer need some external missing part in order to be happy, to be successful, to be loved, to be accepted. By just being who you are, all that falls into place. Living completely whole is Huge, and yet hard to describe. Only those who have learned the lesson will understand you, the others will just hear you.

How to really excel at sales - and have it not be awkward: believe in what you do, be passionate about what you do and make a personal connection with people. I do that with everyone. Not everyone goes diving with me, but the ones that do go because they relate to me, they see how I am with their kids - never letting them out of my sight.

 



The fidgety kid not listening just needs to be included. Reeling them back in is as easy as saying,“Tommy, I need your help. Come stand up here by me while I lead the class. Come be my assistant. Hold my mask. Make sure everyone understands the points I am presenting, okay?”

A reoccurring lesson this year: You can’t always take your friends with you.

Hardest lesson of the year: Just because you accept someone 100 percent and love them unconditionally, doesn’t mean they will be able to accept you too. And, if someone accepted you before, that isn’t set in stone. People change. And when we grow, sometimes we grow apart.
Even people you love will judge you if you go against something they are passionate about. You can take that personally or just continue loving them. Even if they chose to take the whole thing publicly, on Facebook. hahaha

Some people stay in the same mindset and you grow out of that and no longer fit in.

Vending machines. Hippos. Falling coconuts. New Yorkers. What do these things have in common? Each of them kill more people each year than sharks do. Then why aren’t people wildly afraid of vending machines? Media. Simple as that. I personally stopped subscribing to media as truth years ago. Much to a couple of friends’ dismay. J It’s true, you are ten times more likely to be bitten by someone in New York City than you are a shark. As you can imagine, in my line of work, I meet many who are deathly afraid of sharks. I have learned different ways of talking them down from the ledge and 20 feet under the surface to do handstands with me.

Leaps are good things - even giant ones - if you can trust you will make the other side, you will be okay. As with any change, there's always the possibility that it will be better than it was, better than okay, it'll be awesome!

Less push, More flow. Tim and I started our own business this year working in the ocean as independent contractors. When coming up with a business name, I suggested we manifest. What did we want to draw to us through the business - how could be incorporate that in the name so it would be in writing? We made a great list that included things like “Eagle Rays and Sunny Days, LLC” and chose Living In The Flow, LLC. You know the feeling of being in the flow? When things just go well naturally, what you want just happens and comes together without too much effort, when life keeps telling you that you’re in the right place at the right time. The opposite would be struggle, pushing for things to happen, trying to get around roadblocks and setbacks, putting in a lot of effort and energy to make something happen that keeps falling apart. Are you swimming upstream or going with the flow? I am still trying to be present and aware enough to recognize when I am not on the flow and when I am. This is paying attention on a whole new level. Tim and I made a huge leap from Bangkok, Thailand to Maui, Hawaii with no guarantee that things would work out. But we had faith and it felt right. Upon arriving here, we made strong connections and things just lined up and turned out awesome. It was everything we wanted and more because we were going with the flow. And now we’re living in Maui, doing our dream job and being paid really well for it - living in the flow.

I got married again this year. Before you freak out, let me tell you, it was to the same man! But not necessarily. We change. We are not the same two who started dating five years ago after ten years of friendship.

We are not even the same two who kissed in Vietnam in a boat lit with candlelight last year. We change and evolve but no matter how we change, we can still be ourselves together. Our love grows with us. This is something epically good and I feel like the luckiest girl, still.

You can hide from life, avoid opportunity that is all around you, live in fear. People do this in odd ways. Like those that hide from the sun, cover up over every inch of their bodies, wear 110 sunscreen, and run from the car to the shade of the awning of the grocery store. Don’t get me wrong, Moms out there that are reading this. Yes, I am aware of what too much sun can do to you. I wear sunscreen and a rash guard, but I don’t hide inside from the warm kiss and glow. Freckles are a good thing. I have some from paddle boarding this year with humpback whales. I have some from the morning in the outrigger canoe when I got to swim with and sing to a baby humpback whale. I have some freckles from the sunset walks with my husband counting sea turtles, I have some from sitting on a dock out over the Celebes sea teaching a class of students from China, Spain and Ireland. I have freckles from cartwheels in a swimsuit on a tiny island a mile from the Philippines. I have some from fish I.D. class with two five year old twins. I’ve been through a lot of sun block this year, but I haven’t hid from fun in the sun. I have the sun kisses to prove it. Each is an experience, something I could have chose not to do, or could have let fear hold me back from, but that made my life more interesting, more dynamic. (This whole sun thing is a metaphor, in case you haven’t caught on to that yet.) The sun is opportunity, around us most of our lives, and yet the fears we collect hold us back from interacting with life and receiving opportunities.

 
We believe ourselves into things. You are not alone, unless you believe you are and in doing so alienate yourself. This goes back to my statement about wholeness. I have learned that I never really needed someone, or some thing, or some other circumstance to be successful or be loved or be whole. I just had to believe I was and therefore realize I was already.

This year, I feel found. While moving the rest of our household goods to Maui, I sorted through boxes and boxes of photos. I reflected on how I was a very sad teenager, a rather lost twenty-something. And how, now, more than ever, I feel found. I know myself, I know I am enough. I know what I want, I am where I want to be, living and designing the life I want to lead. I have roots and wings, and yes, freckles, lots of freckles.

 

 



Big Dreams Come True - A Maui Whale Encounter

One thing I have learned about dreams is you have to keep them alive by constantly putting out there what you want. Sure, its fun to make a birthday wish when you blow out the candle, but it's a more powerful wish if you tell others what you want out loud.  That's the trick to manifesting - stating clearly what you want - and the more times the better.  That's why I'm always inviting whales to show up when I'm diving. My divers ask if we will see them and I always say it's possible!

March is high season on Maui for Humpback whales to the point that you can look out at the ocean and within a minute, spot a whale somewhere on the horizon.  And on every single dive I do in the ocean I can hear them singing. It never gets old. I'm always mesmorized by the song.  Of course, I want more. I want to see whales underwater. I've said that statement every day to literally hundreds of people. And the whales get closer and closer.

I recently went out paddling with the Maui Outrigger Paddle Club - you know, those long Hawaiian boats that seat six or seven people with the little outrigger on the side? I see the outrigger paddlers every morning because we share the same put-in for the ocean.  And last week they invited, "Smiley Snuba Sara" to go with them.  Such a beautiful opportunity.

It was amazing. A wonderful workout - as we all had our wooden Kialoa paddles and would paddle fifteen strokes on one side and then switch...for an hour and a half...or about five miles.  My boat had a family from Wisconsin sandwiched between two professional paddlers, Cynthia in front and Kapuna in back. The man behind me had trouble picking up the stroke at first and would splash sea water over my back when he switched sides with the paddle. I immediately gave him a hard time, pretending to be prissy, uptight and upset. "Peter," I'd say, "You know I'm not out here in the ocean to get wet!" or "Seriously Peter, get with the program." Soon we were all laughing and taking bets as to where we'd have to leave Peter if he splashed me one more time.

We got quite close to several pods of whales as they came up to breathe or breached with a full jump out of the water, or descended head first, their black and while tails silently slipping into the sea.  It was an amazing day for it, as there was no wind and the water was like melted glass - like a huge deep lake rather than an ocean of wonders. As we waited for the whales to re-surface to breathe, I marveled at the outrigger's reflection in the soft surface.



We were following are Humpback whales — Megaptera novaeangliae — which translates to "great white wings of New England." They are among the biggest animals on Earth, measuring between 39 and 52 feet in length and weighing 45 tons; and are are easily recognized by their humped dorsal fin and long pectoral fins, which can reach up to one-third their body length, (earning their wings name) - the longest appendages in the animal kingdom.  The whales seemed to tolerate us, not leaving immediately, and because I knew the Humpbacks use Maui for their nursery this time of year, I was worried we'd disturb the mothers here with their babies.

 

Cynthia explained a little. Humpback whales can swim at 15 miles per hour. At top speed, our outrigger craft can travel 6. They know where we are - they can hear us coming from miles away. If they wanted to, they could dive over a hundred feet down and vanish, but they don’t. It they wanted to, they could jump and crack our boat in half, but they don’t. Instead, these mothers patiently let us approach and look, making all this noise, only moving away at slow speeds, only diving for a moment or two, instead of twenty. We approached a mother, her calf and their male escort. We could see their black backs arching out of the water and hear them breathing as water shot out their blow holes. 

 The baby did a little spy hop - kicking his head up out of the water to see us better.

“Oh he’s so tiny!” I exclaimed.

“Sure. Tiny.” Cynthia said. “They weigh a ton a birth and then gain one hundred pounds a day during their stay here.”

“Oh, she’s approaching.” Kapuna said. “There. Under the outrigger. Oh.” Soon we could see a massive head in the deep blue water below us. She moved with just her huge white pectoral fins, not her tail, so she could inch up beside the boat, beneath the outrigger, and then turned so her eye could see us better. I looked down as she looked up and our eyes met. “Hello there.” I said outloud. “Good morning, Momma.” Her baby was tucked under her fin, and he swam up to balance on her nose. The water was crystal clear and in the absence of wind, we could clearly see the curves and features of her chin, the barnacles around her eye, the nobs on the ridges of her front fins.

“Oh. She’s coming up. Okay team, lean to the left and hold on!” Kapuna warned. The mother whale rose closer to the surface until there were just inches between us, and then with one swoosh of her tail, glided forward to the front of the boat.

“Baby on the nose.” Cynthia said. And sure enough, it was the baby we saw rise out of the water first. He immediately took a breath. The water boiled and up came his mother, very aware of the boat. It amazes me how something so large can have such incredible body awareness and grace. You would think whales bump into boats and paddle boards all the time. They don’t.

I asked - “Do you mind if I go in?” It wasn’t premeditated. It just came out of my mouth. I hadn’t joined the outrigger paddling expedition with the expectation of being able to swim with whales. It's just that there we were, and there they were and I had wanted for so long to see them underwater, in their element.

“You mean like out of the boat?”

“Yes.”

Kapuna looked thoughtful. “Uh…no. With the male escort here, the last thing we want to do is make him angry.”

“Oh. Good point.”

“Maybe later tho.”

“If you do go in,” Cynthia told me, “Just hold on to the boat. It’s illegal to swim with whales in Maui. But it’s okay if you are still attached to your craft.” Something in her tone told me that tourists don’t often want to go in with the whales.

Our pod of whales arched up and then dove head first, slowly showing their tails as they descended. The water became glassy and quiet once more. “On the outside.” Kapuna pointed, spotting a new pod of whales surfacing.”Let‘s go, team.” We picked up our paddles and approached.

“Looks like you are gonna get your chance, Miss Sara.” Kapuna said behind me, “Get ready.” My heart lept.

We paddled in sync, approaching the whale. It didn’t leave, but let us come up. We turned to the side so we were just 20 feet from it, and Kapuna said, “Okay, now.” Now or never, right? There was a mask at my feet, so I stood up and stepped in and sank into the deep blue. I could hear them immediately and there they were hovering below me. Three whales. One was just a tiny baby, nestled up next to its mother. They were facing away from me and I could see the white line that runs down their back bone and the white rim around their tails. I could see the barnacles on their heads. I came up for air, gasping “Oh my God!” and immediately sank back down, pushing under the weight of the smooth base of the canoe to hold myself down. The baby sang out a high pitched, “Boop!” sound. Playfully, I mimicked the sound, trying not to blow bubbles, just make the echo in my mouth. “Boop boop.” he said back. “Boop boop” I said in the same high pitch. They weren’t swimming away, they were just hovering there and I marveled at how massive these whales were. I really had no idea before this. I’ve never seen any living thing that size. They were longer than our boat, and it was evident they weighted tons, and yet they seemed completely relaxed. I could hear the people talking on the boat above me. I could hear other whales singing in the distance. “Boop!” I said to the baby once more. “Boop!” he called as they slowly moved their tails and became mere shadows fading into the distance, blending into blue.

Back on the surface, I kicked hard and pulled myself over the rim of the boat, careful not to rock things. Dripping wet and giggling, I pulled off the mask and glared at Peter. “Hey. You got me all wet!” I blamed. He laughed.

“Nice dive, Smiles. Now back to shore.” Kapuna said. “Back to work.”

As the paddlers picked up a racing speed, I tried my best to keep up. Fueled by adrenaline of having a close encounter with such magnificently huge mammals, I was able to match Cynthia’s speed, but only for a few moments. (Whereas, she’s capable of paddling like that for hours.)

Can you guess which one's me?



Three miles later, stepping back on land felt odd as we backed the outrigger on to the beach. I wanted to go back out. I wanted to go for a long swim. I wanted to stand and just watch the ocean, breathing it in, watching it change with the light, with the wind. It is home to me now, more home than our tiny one bedroom studio will ever be. And today I got to meet the seasonal neighbors I’ve wanted to see for so long in their element, in our element.

Closing my eyes, I can still see the white rims of their tails blending into the blue.

Photo Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk