Ta-Taki Falls

When we arrived here last year we heard about Ta-Taki Falls and wanted to give it a try.  We heard from several people that it probably wasn't a good idea with a baby so we sort of put that idea to rest.   After some time here we had a bunch of friends do it with their babies and  toddlers, they told us to go for it.  They said it was doable with a small child as long as you had a baby carrier.  I'm one of those people that can attest to it being completely doable with a child (as long as you have a carrier).   Earlier this year we hiked or rather walked along a trail to a water fall in the Phillippines with Ely and we were able to swim in the Falls there, last year we hiked to another waterfall on Okinawa, another hike that was more along the lines of walking on a trail except this one you weren't allowed to swim in the falls.  On this hike we had heard that you could hike through the river up to the falls. 

When we first arrived we were sort of confused because we had just seen a bunch of teenagers start walking up a paved road with a perfectly good river right next to it.  The reason why I wanted to do this in the dead heat of the summer is to experience walking in the river so Sean, Ely and I started our trek through the river right next to the parking lot.  The first thing we had to do was go through a waist deep area to start.  It was only a few feet of this and the rest wasn't even ankle deep and if Ely wanted to she could have walked it, although she was a little nervous so she insisted that I hold her even though Sean had the carrier on his back.  I carried her in my arms until we came to a big break in the river.  This is where every one else who does their research to hike this river gets in because there is a significant drop between that spot and where everyone else gets in. That wasn't us. It was pretty deep although we found a few rocks to get through to the actual starting point.  Ely went into the carrier here so we could figure things out.  So, Oki friends, follow the road until it comes to a dead end and then get in the river, it will save you a tricky situation.

Once Ely saw that there were children and other people enjoying themselves she wanted to get down and play.  She started enjoying herself more although she occasionally wanted to be held. 

 We forgot bug spray, which is a big mistake on Okinawa.  We weren't bothered so much by mosquitoes but we were chased a couple of times by something that resembled a hornet and another bug that looked like an enormous fly.   One kept running into Sean's head so he ran away from it a few times and Ely thought it was hilarious.  Things to bring for next time: sunscreen, water (we had both), bug spray and water shoes with straps.  Sean wore flip flops and was wishing he had wore his toe shoes, some of the rocks are pretty slick, add an unstable shoe and it makes for a potentially hazardous fall.  Things to leave behind, towels and dry clothes.  I don't know why I packed Ely dry clothes on the way up there, I guess my logic was if she fell asleep in the carrier she would already be dry?  It's a wet hike up and back and nothing changes.  We left our nicer camera at home, I do enjoy getting quality pictures but I think we could only handle taking care of one precious thing and that of course was Ely.  We had my phone in a life proof case but also wrapped in a plastic bag to be safe, the backpack I was wearing did get submerged at least once.  The hike isn't so long that you would need multiple snacks unless you wanted to stay at the falls a while.  

At this point we had to put Ely in her carrier, there were some steep parts that required holding onto a rope in order to get up the rocks.   Pictures just don't do it justice, this spot was so beautiful! 

When we arrived the group of teenagers that went ahead of us were all there enjoying the falls.   Sean saw another trail that led up to the top.  Ely was pretty excited to have a break so Sean went up that spot alone, which from what I hear was probably a good thing because it was a much more difficult hike than the one we all did together.  He said there was another pool to swim in up top.  Here he is, my majestic jungle man.

After Sean came down I went swimming in the deeper pool, it was cold so Ely wasn't interested.  I thought it felt magical after the humid hike up.  I see pictures of things like this and think I just want to swim in it.  It is crazy for me to think that so many of these desires have happened.  I never imagined that I would swim at the base of 2 beautiful waterfalls in the course of one year.  It is nuts that this is about an hour drive from our home and that if we wanted to do this again we probably could.  I love this island.  My only wish is to be out on it exploring more.  

How Scuba Diving Strengthened My Testimony

 I would be doing my Heavenly Father a great disservice if I did not share what a miracle it was that I was able to become scuba certified.  A few weeks ago, I shared my testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ with the Sunday school class Sean and I teach.  I told them that in our moments of weakness and imperfection we can lean on Christ and he will make us strong where we are weak, perfect where we are imperfect.  I always associated this however with trials and with sin.  I'm sort of bummed out that I have not been using it to it's full capacity with other things that I struggle with in my life, I guess you could call those mini trials.  Our society is obsessed with perfection, and I tend to fall right along with it, and when I fall short of perfection I am hard on myself.  Because no one is perfect I tend to be hard on myself quite often.  Throughout this experience I learned that I don't have to be perfect, that if I lean on my Savior, he will help me!

On the first day of scuba class I said my regular morning prayers, but I didn't put as much faith as I should have in my Heavenly Father.  Even though I mentioned it to him asking that he would help me and keep me safe I didn't place my trust solely in him and to be honest I went to class really nervous and kind of terrified.  During my struggles out in the water not once did I remember to call upon him, to ask him for help, or even remember that he loved me and was going to take care of me.  I was just focused on myself, on how badly I was messing up, on how big of a failure I was.  I swallowed a whole bunch of sea water.  On my way home I was really shaky, I went to pick up Ely and went to switch out cars with Sean so I could take ours to the shop.   I decided not to go to the shop and go straight home because I was still feeling really sick.  At home I was scared I was going to pass out so I went to our awesome neighbors house and told her I was really disoriented and talking like a drunk person.  She and her husband were so awesome at dropping what they were doing, they took me to the ER and took care of Ely until we were finished there. I threw up on the way to the ER in front of my neighbor.   They couldn't find anything wrong with me other than chalk it up to dehydration. Talk about having a terrible day.  I cried, a whole bunch.  I think I needed to hit this rock bottom place.  Back tracking a little bit, I had been struggling with different aspects of my testimony for a while, nothing major, but I was having a hard time with a few things.  I remember having a lesson asking the Lord to give us trials because they help us draw nearer to him, and to pray for trials.  I remember thinking (immaturely) "Psh. No thank you, I just moved here with a dog, cat, and baby by myself. I'm good for a while".  After that lesson though I thought about it, and how we were placed here to be tested and to become better.  I would never become better if my life was always easy so I started to pray for trials.  I wouldn't call this day a major trial but it was enough to get me to rely on the Lord again.  

After we came home from the hospital, I asked Sean to give me a priesthood blessing.  I said many of my own personal prayers.  I had my first day again the next day to repeat and I knew that the skills I struggled with so much would not be any easier.  I am the type of person who needs to practice things over and over before I get them.  I didn't have any way to practice any of those skills until I arrived the next day at the class. I also prayed for a different instructor.  Not only was my prayer answered for being able to have a different instructor, my repeat of the first day was completely different from my first attempt.   It was like night and day.

On my repeat day, I was calm and even though I was nervous I was able to work through it.  I noticed a big difference in how not clumsy my hands were.  My body just did what it needed to do.  I remember placing my face in the water without a mask and breathing with the regular in my mouth and being able to do it in a calm fashion.  I wasn't scarred and I didn't feel alone.  That was not me, that was all Heavenly Father.  In the days that followed every time I felt nervous or like it was too much for me to do I would say a prayer and would be able to perform just fine.

At first I thought it was silly to acknowledge this, that so many people just function with simple tasks like getting scuba certified and here I am needed to receive help from The Almighty in order to make it happen.  Then I realized that that was part of my problem.  Even though my issues and weaknesses might not be valid to another person, they are valid to my Heavenly Father.  I need to call on him more, for the big things and the little things.  He makes miracles happen every day, for me being able to do this was a big one!  

Scuba Diving Class Day 2 & 3

Day 2:   My second day was at the seawall, the same location as the first day so naturally I was nervous.  I  knew how to scuba dive but now the trick was doing it in the open water which was daunting.  I didn't realize how afraid I was of the unknown in the ocean until I was faced with having to go out into it.  Before we began our dive we planned our dive, we determined how long and to what depth we would go to.  The girl I met from  the Netherlands told me we would do that so I studied up on it and felt like I did well on that part.  We assembled our gear, did a buddy check and headed out to the water.  I kept telling myself to remain calm.   Things were different this time, I knew what to expect and I was able to get my mask not to fog up and to fit my face better so as we swam to the location where we were going to descend so I wasn't as distracted as the previous time.  We started to descend at the same place we did the first day and as we started I put my thumbs up to go back to the surface.  I told her I was scared and nervous, she told me not to be and that we would be diving at a very shallow depth.  We tried again and I did it, we sank to the bottom of the ocean.  We did skills first, we lost the regulator and retrieved it (mouth piece), cleared our mask, and did the scariest thing, took off our mask and put it back on.   I still hate doing that and doing it in the deep (to me) ocean for the first time was a vulnerable experience.  Once that was done we went and explored, the purpose of this dive was learning to control buoyancy.  We went out into the ocean 2 times this day.  The first time I was pretty nervous and overwhelmed.  The second time I think was my most enjoyable dive out of all of the dives I did in the course.  I'm afraid of heights and when I am up high I don't like to look down, as went went deeper into the ocean it made me nauseous to look up.  I had to keep looking forward, it freaked me out too much to know exactly how deep I was.  This is because you can't just bail, you cannot ascend any faster than 30 feet/min or you risk decompression sickness, damaging your lungs, ears, and nasal cavities.  Knowing this I had troubles being cool with going down into the ocean but eventually became use to it and trusted the information I learned in the academic portion that the odds of something bad happening were very low. The wild life I saw on my first dive I would ease away from it, on my second dive I tried to be more adventurous and get as close to it as my instructor did.  We saw a tiger fish which can be poisonous and an octopus in an opening which was a bit out of my comfort zone, my instructor tried to get me to come closer to get a better view but I wasn't having any of that. We also saw Nemo and several other colorful fish.  I was content with having them around.  She also showed me a Shisa dog (Japanese statue) which was random and a neat find.  After this day, I was so happy I could have cried.  I said many thank you prayers on the way home and couldn't stop smiling.  Even if I did horrible on my 3rd day and didn't pass the course I at least scuba dived on this day and for me that seemed like a huge accomplishment.

Day 3:   My instructor told me we would work on navigation this day.  I was really nervous about this as it was something I couldn't really go home and practice before hand.  There were 2 other young men in my class.  Diving in a larger group is tricky.  I think I kicked one of these guys in the face at least once...... I totally tried verbally apologizing underwater without thinking about it,  The first time Sean took me snorkeling we went to the edge of the coral reef like in Nemo where they referred to it as the "dropoff"  It was really overwhelming the first time to see it just snorkeling.  Well on the dives we did this day we didn't just look at it from the surface we went over it and sank to the ocean floor.  It took me a while to get my ears to equalize.  As we started to descend it felt harder to breathe, I'm not sure if that was my mind playing tricks on me or if it really was harder to do as we began our descent.  It's a bit of multitasking to remember to breathe through your regulator, but plug your nose and try to get your ears to equalize.  When it finally happened we were able to move on. We were the deepest I had been yet, and we had to do all over our skills again.  Loosing and retrieving the regulator was easy, the taking off the mask part was still scary and I'm not sure if that is something I will ever be comfortable with, but it was my lasts time having to prove that I could do it so that felt awesome! The last dive I saw an octopus it was just in a small crevice and I could just see it's eyes, on this dive we saw a full blown octopus creeping along the coral, tentacles and all and then find a place to hide, he was also pretty big, larger than the length of my torso.  We also saw an eel, he looked aggressive to me but everyone else seemed to be really excited about him.  We worked on navigation, so I learned how to use an underwater compass, I swam in one direction and then had to swim in a straight line back the same way that I came.  I didn't do very good the first time and had to try again, the compass takes some time to balance and I wasn't patient with it my first time, my second time I did fine.   I passed navigation on the first dive for this day, on the second dive I needed to watch the dive computer and pay attention to how long we have been underwater and how deep we were going.  This was fairly easy.  On this dive we swam along the side of the coral drop off.  It was really spectacular.  This is going to sound really cliche but it's like a completely different world.  The sea wall was the first place we visited when I arrived on Okinawa and I never imagined that there could be so much beauty under the water.  This was a hard thing for me to do, as you can tell I was a big baby throughout most of this experience but I still loved being able to do it.  I love the ocean and now my wanderlust has increased ten fold because now there are places I want to travel to just to scuba dive there. Oh, and I officially became a certified scuba diver this day!  I will be posting videos of some of the skills required to pass the course at the bottom of this post, things I wish I would have known before signing up that would have given me some idea of what to expect and what I was getting myself into.   

I didn't get any pictures of the actual day, but here is the location we dived.  This was our first day in Okinawa and I never imagined that I would dive here almost exactly a year later.  

Taking the mask off under water and clearing it.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEG-OgH9zmU

Regulator retrieval 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpTv9elXGeo

Rescue Diving (not the best video but you get the idea)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsOT8L3xTyM

There are more skills such as equipment assembly and such, these were the 3 that made me the most nervous.  If I can do it so can you!  If this is something you have been wanting to do go for it!  

     

Scuba Diving Class Day:1

After recital I had a 2 week break from my job.  I decided that I was sick of saying "When I have time I'm going to do X, Y, or Z" and then never doing any of those things.  So I was given time to do something, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.  Sean wasn't able to take leave so a trip was out of the question.   I was rather impulsive and for someone who usually researches the heck out of most things I sort of just went with a scuba diving company that wouldn't make me dive on a Sunday.  I drove down to Reef Encounters one day, handed them my money, signed up for the course and was handed a course book.  I was able to do all of the academic portion online which made me happy at times and at other times frustrated.  Pros to doing it online:  I didn't need to find a babysitter I could just do the class while I watched Ely, I could do it on my own time, I could go at a pace that worked for me.  Cons:  Ely was always around and if she wanted any of my time I usually had to stop what I was doing and entertain her,  I did have the option to email my instructor if I had a question but I didn't because you know, pride, anyways if something confused me I didn't have someone readily available to answer the question and had to figure it out on my own, also I wondered if many of the things I was viewing online would have been easier to see in person like how to assemble equipment and what not.   The nerd inside me decided that I needed to keep learning a part of my life.  I didn't realize how much I miss learning until now.  I need goals, I need more of them in my life these days. I finished the academic portion the night before my first class and was excited, like really excited to start the next day.   

Day one:

As a disclaimer things eventually got better than my first day of scuba diving, my first day was actually terrible.  I look at most everything with a sense of humor now, but the actual day I was a hot mess.  I think I'm going to write a more spiritual post on that later.  Anyways, I was really worried about being late, Ely's sitter lives on a different base than us, the gates are closed and opened at the weirdest times right now, I was mostly really worried about being late.  I also was just really anxious and needed to know what was coming, how long we would take, if we would be granted a lunch break.  I need to know.  Just "show up with a swimming suit" was not enough for me.  Where was my syllabus, itinerary, something?!  So I showed up ten minutes early with all of my snorkeling gear, a lunch, 2 waters,  a towel, my book they gave me and a bag.  The shop was closed but I could see someone setting up in there so for ten minutes I panicked, "Do I go in? Do I stay here?  Am I even allowed to park here?"  I go in at nine, a girl that was going to join me for the class had been in there a while, the guy that was in there seemed kind of pissy and told me I was in fact not allowed to park there and I had to go park down the street.  Cool, so I'm late now.  I park down the street, carry all of my crap with me.  Pissy guy is my instructor.  I sit down and he starts to tell stories of a bunch of people that have the audacity to sign up for the course who can't swim.  Tells some more stories of foreigners that basically screw up the course. More stories of people that don't actually finish the course (wait, that's possible?) Great, I'm going to turn into one of these stories this guy tells.  I'm not one that enjoys learning by throwing others under the bus.  After we have established that we can swim he goes on to review stuff from the course and the girl next to me is a rock star at all of the information and I'm just like, my daughter woke me up at 4 am and I can't think right now. We get our gear and go down to the sea wall.   We go over how to assemble everything, put on our wet suits and all of our gear and sweat up a storm.  Head down to the water, pissy guy insults my fins and says that split fins are for people who "can't fin" right before we go into the water. He's so nice.

He asks us if we can stand in the water, I can't, I'm floating around like an idiot and getting tossed by the waves, but that doesn't seem to matter.   We start to work on the skills that we need.  The first took me a while, breathing through the mouth piece without anything covering the nose and without plugging your nose.   I was being tossed around by the waves and was really distracted by this.  After a while I finally got it, we move onto the next skill, clearing our mask and taking our mask off under water.   I  swallow a bunch of seawater here.  To this day I hate this skill, it's the most vulnerable feeling to take your mask off under water, I come up and freak out and start swimming backwards.  I can now switch Pissy guy's name to Furious guy.  I was swimming just fine, backwards, he is screaming "Stop Swimming backwards!"  Leaps towards me, hits his knee on coral, hugs it, acts like a male soccer player about his injury. Thanks for saving me? He hates me.  I get all the skills we need in order to swim out to a deep part of the ocean and start to go down.  I don't trust this guy, nope, this isn't happening today.  I come back up to the surface and call it quits and almost cry on the way to shore.  I'm sort of relentless about being able to try again, on another day, at a pool.  The nicest thing pissy guy did was arrange for that to happen.  

A note:  If you back out of your scuba class, there is no refund.  If you don't acquire the skills, there is no refund.  They know that at that point in order for you to get certified you are at the mercy of the scuba shop you choose to go with.  They loose nothing if you don't pass, which is why it is so important to find a teacher and a curriculum that matches your learning style.  I should have researched who would have been the best match for me.  I definitely needed a pool first, which some places automatically offer, this place does the ocean first and I'm assuming it's because of it's closeness to their shop location and the fact it's free.  

Day 1, again:  Can I just say coming back to the shop and repeating my first day was a super humbling experience.  The whole night before I was praying for a different instructor, who was more patient and the teacher I needed.  I don't say "better teacher" because I'm sure pissy guy is a great teacher, just not the one for me.   I was actually really embarrassed coming back.  I spent the whole day praying for strength and understanding.  Many many prayers went into that day before that lesson.  I walk in and already introductions are like night and day.  She is warm and kind.  Two young men join my class.  I had already heard this lesson but hers is vastly different than her colleague's, she simply presents the information.  There are no war stories of all of the previous idiots she's taught, no throwing anyone under the bus in order for her lesson to be made more clear, she just teaches us what we need to know.  She tells us that she is taking us to the pool and that the guy I had yesterday was going to finish the lesson.  I die inside a little.   I pray the whole ride over there he doesn't show up and that she can just teach us. When we arrive she pays for our use of the swimming pool, I feel grateful to the shop for letting us do this as they only use the pool if ocean conditions are bad.  First thing she asks us to do is to swim laps.  Something I could do!  I pass that skill. She shows us how to assemble our gear.  I'm so on point today, I don't want to mess up again.  She teaches us all of the skills which were so much easier to get not thrashing around in the waves.  I'm able to do all of them fairly good the first time.  I'm so excited about this.  I know I've said I would write this in a later post, but my success was not me, that was Christ helping me every step of the way.   We do rescue diving and practice equalizing the pressure in our ears.  The sun is starting to go down.  We are done, pissy guy has never shown up.  I didn't screw up this day, unless you count the emergency switched I bumped into in the bathroom while we were changing clothes.  I decided that even if I didn't become certified I really needed to get through that first day for my own self esteem and I did.  I learned so much by being able to have the 2 different teachers.  There are things that I need to remember when teaching beginners dance.  It was good for me to be completely new at something.  I needed reminders of how vulnerable of a feeling that is as I frequently teach new dancers.  

If you are interested in diving, research the different shops first!  I should have researched the teacher I was going to have, if it was going to be ocean or pool first.  Sean is taking a class soon that does their first day in the pool, always.  I'm the type of learner that needed to have the pool first.  After having Andrea I went online to look at the reviews and she had the most positive review out of all of the teachers.  I should have requested her first and saved myself the headache and heart ache of that first day. The second first day was definitely needed in order for me to succeed.  Stay tune for Day 2 & 3!  

Charumi Aquarium 2nd Visit

On my first day of scuba diving class, I met a young woman from the Netherlands who was visiting Okinawa along with several other cities in Japan.  She and another woman were studying Japanese and were both foreign exchange students visiting here.  I offered to give them a ride if they needed it and we decided to go to the Aquarium.  She took these pictures of us while we were there.  I love meeting other foreigners here, people that love to travel and are passionate about learning about other cultures and languages.  I needed this.  I needed to revisit the things that use to bring me so much joy.  I've been feeling rather dull, had sort of given up on learning Japanese and felt like I was old and unable to be passionate about anything and the sad part was I wasn't passionate about the things I use to be passionate about.  I grew up claiming that languages was one of my "things"  and I loved being able to speak Spanish and wanted to travel the world, and spent my high school career and some of my college career studying French.  Some of my best friends I've made to this day were 2 foreign exchange students that visited our high school for a year, one of which we have been to Germany to visit since.  Meeting these two young women rekindled that fire.  I am going to learn Japanese, because I love that part of learning and I remembered having such a sense of accomplishment in my languages courses.  

Photos credit: Verna de Groes

Araha Beach

After a slew of raining days we finally had a run of really hot, sunny days. Last weekend we decided to take advantage of this and visit Araha Beach.  Every time we go to a new beach here I think that it has become my favorite, then we go to a new one and I change my mind again.  I like this one because it's not too far away from where we live, it has life guards, there are food stands close by, lockers, showers, and it seemed family friendly.  The swimming area is encompassed with a net so the likelihood of sea creatures getting into where you swim is low, which is nice during box jellyfish season.  Ely loves the beach and will bolt for the water with or without us.  She is fairly brave and will let us go out to the deeper parts of the water while we hold her.  We have family and friends inquiring about things to do when they come visit....I think this one is a must!  

 Naha in the distance.

Getting excellent use out of our UV tent we received for Christmas from my in laws.  

Pirate Ship Park.  It was too hot to play on the day we went but looks like an incredible option for a future, cooler day.

 The American Village off in the distance.