Fear the Crab

Before I put Meeth in my new tank, I had to get some more things. Namely stuff like plants and decorations. I went looking for the peppered otos, too. Turns out not too many stores here even carry the regular otos. However, one store did carry regular otos, and whilst there I also saw pygmy corys. Pygmy corys barely get longer than an inch, and like most corys they are sociable bottom feeders. I bought three pygmy corys, plus some live plants, and two small bridges to decorate the bottom.

The air stone I got is nice, but the valve I bought to regulate the air flow sucks. It’s supposed to let me turn this knob to have more or less air, but it only has on and off. I’ve asked Maile to see if she can get me a better valve when she passes by the pet store today.

After acclimating the pygmy corys, I decided to name them Poppyⁿ, with n=3 in this case. I considered giving everybody an individual name, but since I can’t tell them apart, and they like to school, I chose one name to apply to all of them.

When I got to Maile’s house, I was finally able to observe Meeth in the goldfish tank. I was also able to finally observe how abused he was in there. Meeth would hang out on one end of the tank (left side glass, specifically) and just cruise. Meanwhile, the big fat goldfish would waddle-swim from one end to the other, and in their never-ending quest for more stupidity would try to swim through Meeth. Maile says that in the beginning Meeth would get pushed around, but at that time he had learned to keep an eye out for the lumbering oafs. Still, it must not be very calming to have to do 3-point turns every 10 seconds.

I felt so terrible that I left Maile’s house early, with Meeth. I acclimated him, and now he seems okay. He spent the first hour swimming around the tank, trying to discern his surroundings, I guess. Meanwhile, Poppy³ would occasionally check Meeth out, but for the most part stayed in a corner Meeth wasn’t exploring.

Towards the end of the night, all the fishies seemed tolerant of each other. It’s still early, though, so I’ll have to continue to observe them to make sure everything’s cool. I might need another plant to give these guys a greater sense of security

Looks like I will have custody of Meeth, one of Maile’s angelfish. Apparently he (or she, I can never tell) has taken to bullying Kylie around, so Maile had to separate them to prevent all-around miserableness. But while Kylie seems better, Meeth is not having the good times in the other tank, so Maile is experiencing pangs of guilt. She somehow got me to agree to take care of Meeth at my house, and I now have a 2.5 gallon tank sitting on my desk. So far there’s only water and gravel in there, and today I plan to go somewhere that sells live plants (must remember the broad leaved plants). I may also try to pick up some peppered otocinclus, maybe two, for the algae eating. I think I’ll need an air stone, too.

I was reading some articles online, and I never knew there was so much to be involved in having an aquarium. Granted, most of the articles concerned themselves with long-term care and breeding of various fish, but all write volumes about water balance and proper conditions and other little tidbits to take care of. It’s rather overwhelming to the beginner.

As far as the peppered otos go, it shouldn’t be too hard to take care of them (provided the stores around here have ’em). They eat algae, and will scrape it off the glass or the plants. If it seems like my tank is algae-free, I can put cooked veggies like zucchini or something for them to eat.

The angelfish can eat the flake food, with the occasional live morsels for variety.

The big question is whether or not I want to breed these fish, or just shell out the monies for new fish everytime one reaches the end of its aquatic life.

Today was the horseback crater ride. We had to check into the ranch headquarters by 0915, and since it was a two hour drive from the airport, we left at 0700 without eating breakfast. We ended up arriving way early, like at 0830, and that was even after stopping to call for directions because we thought we had passed the headquarters (turned out that we were just down the road). Continued up the slope, stopping off at the small visitor’s center about halfway up. All during the drive it was nice and sunny, rather cool, so we felt we were in for a nice ride.

Then we got up to the top, and the cloud cover was so thick that everything was just a blur. There was a continual drizzle of rain surrounding us, and as we talked to the guide it seemed as though the ride was going to be canceled. However, the weather cleared a bit, so we all mounted up and took off.

Going down the slope, the scenery was picturesque. The landscape inside the crater is like being in another world, filled with features you don’t normally see on a day-to-day basis. In fact we saw this one flock of birds called chuckers (at least, that’s what the guide called them). Small birds, they run around the crater and glide off of ridges. I guess they’re so used to human activity that they even ran under our horses to get from one side of the trail to the other.

At the bottom of the crater we stopped for lunch, after a two-hour ride. Getting back to ground was rather wobbly, and our knees ached. Every so often during the ride the clouds would roll in and we’d get rained on, but it wasn’t anything bad.

We had spoken too soon, though, as the weather turned worse during the ride up. The clouds fell and the rain and wind came rushing in, making life pretty miserable. Thankfully we were given rain gear before we started the ride, so our clothes weren’t soaked. Much. The wind was so strong that rain came in horizontal, stinging our eyes and cheeks. The clouds were so thick that you couldn’t see the horse in front of you. The horses themselves felt as miserable as us, turning their heads away from the rain and sometimes having to walk sideways to get back up the trail. Maile and I got windburn.

When we got out of the crater, I discovered that the disposable camera we brought had been sitting in a small puddle in my pocket. Water drained out of it when I pulled it out, and we were really worried that the film had been damaged beyond recovery. I decided to try and develop the roll anyway, and hope for the best.

Butt and back sore, we ate dinner at Canoes, and contemplated the prospect of doing more “adventure” the next day, at the lava tube in Hana.

I have to say, though, that I really liked the horseback ride. Yes, the weather sucked, yes it was cold, but I think it would have been worse had it been hot and sunny. The sunburn would not have been bearable. And I felt like I was finally roughing it outdoors. All in all, I wouldn’t trade that ride in for any other.

Maile and I woke up at 0430 to get ready for our trip to Maui. Our flight wasn’t until 0630, but with all the new security measures in place (and the fact that we hadn’t taken a trip in 3 years), we decided it’d be better to be early than late. Arrived at the airport at 0510, so we grabbed some breakfast after we checked in. Still had about an hour to kill.

Landed on Maui around 0715, got the rental car and drove the 45 minutes from the airport to the hotel, the Royal Lahaina Resort. Unfortunately, we couldn’t check in until 1500, so we held our baggage at the concierge and drove back out to visit the Maui Ocean Center.

The MOC was a pleasant experience, and a good start to the vacation. Their indoor reef displays are, apparently, the largest in the nation. There were tons of sea life, and not just limited to the reef, neither. We got to the open sea exhibit where they were holding a shark week event, so the tanks were full of black tips and makos, and lots of rays. Maile got freaked out each time a shark swam out from behind the wall. My favorite exhibit, though, was the jellyfish tank. It looked like a giant lava lamp with florescent colors and a slow current to move the jellyfish along. It was quite surreal, and I wouldn’t mind having something like that in my house.

After the aquarium, we still had hours to kill, so we decided to visit the Maui Winery, which was about a 1-2 hour drive down the scary Kula Highway. People say that the Hana Highway, with its twists and turns, is stressful, but it’s nothing compared to Kula. Kula has its own twists, but what makes the road more nerve-wracking is the hilly terrain, such that as you’re taking a turn you can’t see where the road is going, much less if an oncoming car has crossed the center line. That two-lane road is even more dangerous when the clouds roll down from Haleakala, but thankfully our journey was sunlit.

The Maui Winery was celebrating its 30th anniversary, so there were a lot of tourists and locals. It was so crowded that we couldn’t partake in the tasting of the various wines, and even then, I was doubtful of my ability to drive that damn highway with just a smidgen of alcohol in my system. We wanted to take the tour through the grounds, but because of the anniversary celebration, all the winemakers and cellar masters were there to conduct. And they were a long-winded bunch. Standing in the sun listening to the various planting of grapes and all sorts of technical details was too much for us. Top it off with a bunch of wine geeks asking all kinds of questions and the tour just dragged. Maile and I left after the third stop; we didn’t even get to the cellar. We did buy some pineapple wine before we left, for gifts.

By the time we left the winery and drove the rest of the afternoon to the hotel, our room was ready. We checked in and promptly fell asleep.

Later in the evening we visited Crystal and her two children, Justin and Skye. Skye was rather shy, but she was only 5. Justin, 13, used to be like that when he was 5, too.

On Saturday Maile and I went to Sea Life Park. The last time I went there I was a little kid in elementary school. I honestly can’t tell if it’s changed much, since I don’t remember anything of my last trip (except for the big three-story reef tank near the entrance). For starters, I don’t recall sea lions being so noisy. I think it’s because they have public feedings, where the crowd can pay $2 for a tray of fish to feed the sea lions. So my guess is that whenever there are people by the fence, the sea lions all make their feed-me noises.

We watched the dolphins practice for their show, doing minor jumps and poking their heads out to see when they were supposed to perform. At least, that’s what it looked like.

There wasn’t much else of interest, though we ate shave ice until our mouths were numb and our brains were non-functional. I fell asleep on the drive back.

We’re taking walkies more often now, and using places like my neighborhood and the elementary school near Maile’s house. They’re quiet places, but not so quiet that we couldn’t call for help if need be.

Maile made me a beaded necklace. Well, it’s only got 7 beads, but it’s on a hemp braid topped off with one of those.. crap, I forgot the name of the clasp. It’s basically a hoop and a stick-type thing. Anyway, I think it’s über cool. It was Maile’s first attempt at beadwork, and the success of it is inspiration for more. When I get my camera back from Richard, I plan to take a picture and post it.

Today I’m going to eat at Red Lobster. It’s a far cry from the new diet (oh, sorry, alternate food lifestyle), but we’re going to meet up with James and Mary, so it’s for a good cause.