I was wandering down the dock one Friday morning, when a friend approached and asked me to go sailing with him later in the day. Already residing aboard a much nicer boat than his, I initially declined. Besides, I was scheduled to work that evening. But he begged. “I met this girl” he began. “She won’t go with just me on board, and everyone else is at work. You’re the only one around. And since you're also a girl, that would probably put her even more at ease about going.”
I let him talk me into chaperoning his date, as long as he promised to get me back in time to go to work.
She was a lovely girl from the Soviet Union, on vacation from doctor school on the mainland. We sailed through the harbor and out into open water, spending a lazy hour or so tacking in the lee of Diamond Head. On the return tack, my friend suggested dropping anchor not far from the break wall, so we could go swimming.
Now, this next part may come as a shock to all you puritanical Americans, but rest assured that a large portion of the world is not as freakazoid about the human body as we are.
There was no question of bathing suits, so we all stripped off. That in no way meant a water orgy was about to begin. It simply meant we were going swimming. My friend, who was part fish anyway, wanted to look for lobsters under some rocks about 30 feet down on the bottom. His plan was that if he found any lobsters, he'd return to the boat to get a sack and some gloves, returning to free dive for the critters. He leapt in wearing nothing but a mask, carrying a scuba tank tucked under one arm, its regulator stuck in his mouth. He wasn't even wearing swim fins. His date just wanted to swim, so she jumped in and began to splash around beside the boat. I wanted to see where lobsters lived, so I strapped a mask on my face before hopping over the side. Swimming on the surface, I began to follow my friend. He glided down to one set of rocks, but came up empty. Rising off the bottom about fifteen feet, he began swimming towards another pile of rocks.
Somehow, probably because we had visions of a yummy lobster lunch dancing in our heads, we missed seeing the dive flag floating on the surface. Intent on spotting lobsters, neither of us saw the group of Japanese tourists, who were taking part in a dive class on the other side of the rocks, until we were right over top of them. There were eight them, outfitted in full wetsuits and dive gear, sitting on the bottom in a circle, performing some exercise assigned by the two dive instructors who were with them.
The Japanese strive to do everything exactly as they’re taught. I could imagine the hours of instruction on the proper use of dive gear; how it can only be done just so. And when it comes to nudity, the Japanese are worse prudes than Americans. I could envision the instructors’ admonitions later, once the class was out of the water and back on the beach. No no no, never, that is not how you do it. Crazy haoles.
The expressions on those ten faces will live in my memory long after I’ve forgotten my name or where I live. The cloud of bubbles around them suddenly increased tenfold, as twenty pairs of eyes went round and huge in shock, all staring upwards at a stark naked man swimming over their heads, holding nothing but a scuba tank, shadowed by a naked woman. I laughed so hard I blew the mask right off my face, inhaling quite a bit of salt water, as my friend swam casually over the stunned group, waving the Hawaiian ‘hi’ sign at them. I followed suit.
What else could we do?
