Chance of a Lifetime
The Hawaii trip was one of the best times in my life, and all the adventures I had on this trip will always be with me. What made the trip so great was the fact that I only disliked one activity, I had three really memorable moments, and I would only change one thing about the trip.
The only activity I did not find fascinating was the coral zonation lab. My mask kept fogging up, so I had to clean it every five to ten minutes. While I was occupied with that, I was assaulted by the waves. Also, my partner and I were one of the last people to get in so we were running a little behind, and we were unable to collect all of our data before it was time to go. We ended up borrowing our friend’s data to fill in the gaps. Even though we had all the information, the lab itself was still confusing, and I didn’t do very well on it. Maybe if we had a little more time to work on it, and figure it out, we would have done better. Oh well, you can’t change the past.
Everything about the trip was memorable, but a few moments stand out above everything else. One of these moments is the tide pooling lab. I had a blast looking for all of the organisms we had to find, and I had a great partner working with me. We weren’t afraid to walk into some of the deeper pools to collect some of our organisms. As a result, both of us came back with wet shorts on the second day of the lab. We had gone into a pool we thought was sort of shallow to retrieve a sea cucumber, but it turned out that the pool was a little deeper than we thought. My shorts were more than a little soggy for the rest of the morning and didn’t completely dry out till dinner. What really made the tide pooling lab so extraordinary was holding the sea cucumber and finding a pencil urchin. When I picked up the sea cucumber, it spat water out of one end as a defense mechanism. It was pretty funny. Later on, my partner and I found the Pencil urchin, and I had my partner pick it up because his shoes had more traction then mine. The pencil urchin was really cool to hold because the mouth would tickle your palm. All in all it was a great day all together. The other moment that stands out is dyeing my hair. Originally I wanted to dye it blue, but I couldn’t find any blue dye. Instead, I found a reddish purple colour and settled for that. We didn’t dye all of my hair, just put some streaks in it. I personally loved the end result, and I think everyone liked it as well. Last but certainly not least, the most memorable moment I had on the trip was almost drowning at Hapuna. I was walking in from the ocean, when I heard people shouting. I turned around to see what was going on only to find a wave cresting right into my face. I had just enough time to suck in a deep breath and clap my hand over my nose and mouth before I was knocked onto my back. I was almost out of air before I could stand up again. As soon as I was aware of my surroundings once more, I high tailed it back up the beach before another wave could come in. After that I was always weary of the ocean and made sure I was paying attention to the waves whenever we were out in the ocean.
There is only one thing I would have liked to have been different about the trip, and that is I wish my good friend Kenya was there with me. Don’t get me wrong, I had friends on the trip and I made friends there, but it would have been nice to have had one really close friend there to take it all in with me. Some of the more boring moments of the trip would have been less boring if my friend had been there. For example, the long bus or van rides would have gone by much faster if Kenya had been there to be her random and crazy self. She would have been pointing out silly things or making jokes that would have us crying with laughter. Additionally, Kenya would have helped me do my homework at a more reasonable hour instead of waiting till the last minute to finish it. She tends to do her homework before she has fun, and I like to have fun before I do homework. We would have balanced each other out and done our homework at a reasonable time. Even though Kenya was not there, I still had a great time and will always remember how much fun it was.
It’s pretty obvious that I had a great time because I enjoyed every activity but one, three of the activities stood out over the rest, and there was only one thing that could have made the trip better. This trip changed my life forever, and I will never forget the amazing times I had in Hawaii. There is no doubt in the world that I would take this chance of a life time over again in a heartbeat.
