Category: My Life List

Go on a night dive with Manta Rays in Hawaii? Check.

My mantra about coexisting peacefully with sea creatures goes like this: “I do not look like food to anything underwater. I do not look like food to anything underwater.” Comforting because it’s true. Except that the day before this dive I was bitten by a Humuhumunukunuku’puaa, which is Hawaii’s national fish. It super-bit me and made me bleed, presumably because I was hanging out over its turf. Sorry Humuhumunukunuku’puaa, my bad. And thank you for the reminder that sometimes animals bite you precisely because they don’t recognize you. Thank you for that reminder mere hours before I got in the water with fish the size of houses:

The dive did not go as expected.

I got open-water certified about eight months ago for my birthday, but I haven’t been diving since, so I was eager to get back in the water. A while ago, Liz Stanley posted about her night dive with Manta Rays in Hawaii, and I added it to my Life List without knowing much about it. I booked the dive, and then watched the creepy Skeletor video.

So I was a little hesitant, but by the time I got on the boat I was downright uneasy. Eight months between dives is a long time for a newbie. I didn’t remember much about my equipment, and I was going by myself, so I wouldn’t know my dive buddy. Plus, I’d never been on a night dive, but I’d heard there’s darkness involved. The only thing more vast than the sea is darkness. Everyone knows monsters like to hang out in the dark and in the sea. That’s Monsters 101.

The boat ride was gorgeous and we waited aboard for sunset. We were given dive lights, and told that we would sit on the bottom shining our lights upward, while snorkelers floated above shining their lights down. The mantas swim in large looping arcs in the space between, doing backflips to scoop up the plankton that’s attracted to all that light.

I was introduced to my dive partner, Chris, a few minutes before we jumped in the water. She was an affable Australian, and because I find Australians and their mortality-awareness comforting, I took this as an auspicious sign.

Then the wind picked up.

The water was bashing against the shore and shooting spray into the air when the dive master lined us up. We jumped in to the choppy water, and suffice it to say I was not chill. I was unsure of myself already, and the rough water only made me more anxious. There was a slight drag on my air line, which made my panicky breaths more arduous, and surprise! It was dark.

There was a strong current underwater that I’d never experienced before, sort of like swimming upstream in a river. When we got down to the bottom, we were supposed to settle into a seated position to shine our lights upward, but the current made it tough to stay in one place. The dive master showed us how to hug a rock underwater, but several of us weren’t strong enough to hold on.

I was freaked out, getting knocked around by the current, battling to find a means of staying put without cutting my hands on the rock or bashing my tank into the reef. At one point the dive master approached me a wrote on his slate, “Lay down better.” Pro tip, dive master. I refrained from flashing him the most unequivocal of hand signals. Mostly because I was using my hands to hold on to a rock under which something bitey was surely sequestered.

In the midst of all the struggling, I managed to look up a few times to see the rays swooping through beams of light and the bubbles floating up from our respirators. Those few moments were breathtaking — so alien and peaceful. But after a few minutes the dive master signaled that we should surface because the situation underwater was too rough. He apologized for not being better able to control the sea, then offered us a chance to snorkel, because at this point the surface had calmed.

We climbed back in, and that was when everything went magic. The water was glowing from all the light, and the Mantas were huge swooping shadows cutting through the beams. One of the rays started backflipping, circling closer to me each time he looped upward. I was sure he would touch me, I could feel the water washing against me from his wings and I couldn’t stop laughing.

I laughed every time he approached, and my mask would fill with water. I’d clear the mask just as he was looping up again, and then I’d laugh and my mask would fill.

Gorgeous. Do this, my friends. It will make you happy.

On Your Mark, Get Set…

This post is sponsored by Merrell.

This is me running with my friend Amy. Because, and I never thought I’d type this, running is a thing I’m starting to do. Despite my jock-ular appearance here, I’m doing this furtively. I don’t post my distances on the various social networks, I don’t know my personal best, I avert my eyes when someone passes on the park path.

Someday I’ll raise my chin in smug salute to my fellow marathoners. For now, I’m focused on getting my laces double tied and finding a sports bra that takes all the bounce out of my step.

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while might remember my historical disinterest in exercise. It went a little something like this:

Until the last six months or so, I’ve never understood people who like the gym. I mean I thought they were maybe a different species, in that I could never mate with one. When my weight, and later my health, made it necessary for me to get off the couch, I just… didn’t want to. It ran counter to my self image.

In the last year, I’ve been revisiting a lot of assumptions I’ve made about myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still attracted to myopic men with academic bodies, but lately, I’ve been more open to experiences that conflict with my self image. And athletically, my sense-of-self has always been “picked last at kickball.”

This year, I’d like to be done with that. I’d like to stop thinking of myself as weak, uncoordinated, fundamentally ill-equipped to move through space.

I used to believe athleticism was innate, but now I realize you’re not born sporty any more than you’re born a traveler. It’s an action — you put on your shoes, you get on the plane.

More than anything, I just want to be strong. I want to be able to move furniture by myself, to open the stupid jar. So once in a while I wake up, I put on my sneakers, and I move. And if you ask me to play kickball, I’ll consider it.

But dodgeball? Don’t push me.

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10 Fruits to Try Before You Die

My Taste 1,000 Fruits Project began as part of my Life List, but my mom passed on an interest in botany, so fruit has always intrigued me. Plus, it’s pretty much all I ate as a kid. Here’s a little background on the project from an interview with Bon Apetit:

My childhood home was on a half acre of land in California, and my mom was always planting fruit trees. I’d help her dig and say, ‘Could this tree be mine?’ She always said yes. So all that fresh fruit early on taught me that grocery store varieties of apples and lemons and other fruits were just terrible. Practically inedible, really.

Around the time I was making the list, I was reading Fruit Hunters by Adam Leith Gollner. I found it so inspiring, the idea of people obsessively pursuing new flavors. Once you’re an adult, you have so few opportunities for genuine novelty, to feel something you’ve never felt before, or taste something you’ve never tasted. The book said there were over 1,000 varieties of mango alone, which sounds so mythical doesn’t it?

I started tracking the fruits I was trying in 2009, nerd-style, and on a recent trip to Hawaii, I crossed off my hundredth fruit. Of those, these are the ten you must try if you get a chance. Do it. Put them in your mouth:

1. Mountain Rose Apple
One of the nicest things about trying all this fruit has been the surprises you find under mundane exteriors. Mountain Rose Apples are among my favorite fruits just because they’re so gorgeous. The unusual color makes you think more about the flavor. I love that about food, how eating better focuses everything and makes it easier to stay present. Maybe that’s why some of my happiest memories are of great meals.

2. Chico
This was actually my hundredth fruit, and I’ve never seen one outside of this fruit stand in Hawaii (you?). I described it as eating a baked apple plucked directly from the tree, and that’s the dominant memory. It tastes like fresh brown sugar.

3. Lemon Cucumber
Last year, my sister grew Lemon Cucumbers on her farm. So far, they’re the only kind of cucumbers I crave — very crisp and much less dense than the supermarket variety. Also slightly salty.

4. Feijoa
I tried these for the first time in the backyard of my childhood friend Liz Carter (hi, Liz!). This photo was taken in New York, where my friend Sarah Brown said they smell like a scented plastic babydoll. Feijoas taste a bit like kiwi with a pineapple edge.

5. Kiwiberries

Kiwiberries still seem magic to me. They’re grape-sized Kiwis without the fuzzy exterior, and you can just pop them in your mouth. It doesn’t seem like they should exist.

6. Mangosteen
It used to be that you couldn’t get Mangosteens in the States, but recently the laws have relaxed so it’s not necessary to take a trip to Asia to try one. Click through on that link to see the interior, Mangosteens are gorgeous. The purple outer shell is like a thin layer of carrot over a wide hunk of red pith. The white sections inside taste like juicy, peach-perfumed pineapple candy. The flesh is a lot like a very ripe peach.

7. Passionfruit
Tendrils attached to orange goo with bright green crunchy seeds that pop when you chew them. The goo tastes a little like a perfectly ripe, tart mango, but with more depth of flavor. With the pleasant crunch of the seeds, it reminded me of orange flavored Pop Rocks.

8. Guineps
I tried these in Jamaica where they’re called Guineps and in Puerto Rico where they’re called Quenepas.You smash or bite the outer shell, which cracks open to reveal a jelly-like fruit inside with a large pit. They taste like citrusy peaches. You suck the fruit away from the pit, and the texture is a little like slimy algae. Much of the fruit pulp will stay on the pit. I’d love to freeze a bunch and use them as ice cubes in a tropical drink.

9. Tamarind
Tamarind grows in a hard pod with paste-like brown fruit around its seeds. It doesn’t look particularly appetizing. The fruit is very sour, but not like a lemon, there’s sweetness there too. It tastes almost like Crystal Light powder, but less chemical of course. You suck the fruit away from the seeds.

10. Cherimoya
Cherimoya is one of my favorite new fruits, which is good because you can often find it at fancy grocers in California. Like a cross between a banana and a pineapple with texture a little like a peach. The flesh inside is white with large brown seeds in it. If you see one anywhere, try it.

Lifelist: Taste 1,000 Fruits, No. 100!

Hawaiian Fruit Stand

Thanks to the Kahuku Land Farms Fruit Stand in Hawaii, I’ve officially hit 100 fruits. Milestone! Bam.

I told Mike, our trip lead, how close I was to being centufruitarian, and he went out of his way to find new fruits to try. Thanks to Mike, and the rest of the Hawaii Five Oh team for being so patient and enthusiastic with my quest.

These are the fruits that pushed us past the 100 mark:

No. 99 Cherry Guava

There’s something about bite-sized fruit that just makes me happier. Snacks!


Cherry guavas are such a pretty color, like a sunset. They’re tangy, and the round seeds have a pleasant pop to them when you crunch down.

No. 100! Chico

When I asked the woman at the market what Chicos tasted like, she said, “brown sugar.” She had a bit of an accent, so I thought I’d misunderstood her.

She was exactly right. They’re soft inside, the dominant flavor is brown sugar, and they even seem to have little crunch granules in the flesh.

It was like eating a baked apple plucked directly from the tree.

No. 101 Apple Bananas
No. 102 Ice Cream Bananas

More tiny snack fruits, hooray! These bananas are about as big as my palm, maybe a third of the size of a banana you’d find at the grocery store, and much, much tastier.

The ice cream banana is light and creamy, apt! The apple banana has a pleasant tartness that offsets the sweetness.

Both were fun to eat because you can shove the whole thing in your mouth, and then walk around beating your chest like King Kong. Which I recommend.

No. 103 Mountain Apples

These are a lot like Jamaican Apples, only smaller and tangier.


And this is an Edvard Munch Mountain Apple. Scream all you want, apple.

They’re less dense than a conventional apple, the crunch is more like a really crisp, seedless cucumber. Mmm. Quenchy.

This Friday, we’ll celebrate the century mark with a roundup of my top ten favorite fruits so far. You cannot wait. Fruit nerds, unite!

Taste 1,000 Fruits, No. 97: Mountain Rose Apple

Can’t you almost smell that color?

When I first saw a Mountain Rose Apple, my breath caught. It reminded me of a professor who said that one of the Impressionist painters — I think it was Matisse — brought an apple as a gift when he visited friends. And that’s exactly what these apples are, tokens of affection. The best way to bring something simple and sweet to someone you love.

Taste 1,000 fruits is part of my ongoing Life List project. If you’d like to make a Life List of your own, start with these 10 tips or this exercise.

Lifelist: Go Scuba diving? Check.

Oh, I’m sorry. Is this air tank turning you on? As an open water–certified, international woman of mystery I find people have trouble controlling themselves when my fins are in play.

And if the mere sight of me in Heidi braids gets you hot and bothered, meet Lesta, the world’s dreamiest Dive Master:

I know, right? Lesta, the Internet is ogling you. Do something Dive Master-y.

Yeah. That’s working for us.

As I’ve mentioned, deciding to get certified was spur of the moment. Over the years, I’ve found there’s never enough time to do the things on your Life List if you don’t just shoe horn them in. So when an opportunity arises to check something off, I try to say yes, even if it seems inconvenient at first. (Like, say, you need to arrange child care for a week, buy an international plane ticket, and take several hours of classes in the next eight days, but you’re also hosting a conference two weeks after your return. For example.)

The week before my flight, I studied for my written test.

Then I did a little time in the pool at Bamboo Reef in San Francisco.

When I arrived on the island, I had a universal referral form that let me complete my open water certification there, so Lesta took me and Geri-Ayn out diving where I ran some skill drills.

I practiced putting my equipment together.

I learned how to take my fins off in the water without knocking my teeth against the boat ladder.

And I filled my scuba mask with water over, and over, and over again until the inside of my nose was aflame, and my eyes stung with brine, and I could taste tin in my mouth from the panic. Then instead of lunging for the surface and screaming that Lesta was trying to drown me, I blew the water out of my mask, breathed deeply, and refrained from attacking him while adrenaline coursed through my veins.

Aside from mask clears, scuba diving is one of the most peaceful things I’ve ever done. People at the resort kept asking me what I saw on my dives, and the question still confuses me. I saw the ocean! From underneath! And I was breathing!

The thought of it still makes me feel little.

If you’re ever diving in St. Lucia, I can’t recommend Lesta’s services more highly. He works at Ti Kaye resort and you don’t have to stay there to dive with them, so just give a call and they’ll help you.

More of my posts on Scuba diving:

More photos of my trip
Lifelist: Learning to Scuba Dive
On Fear and Scuba Diving

On Fear and Scuba Diving

I’m not sure how I got here.

As a kid, I refused any activity that could hurt me. I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was nine. I refused to leave the steps of our backyard pool until my big sister essentially insisted that I learn to swim before she’d let me out of the water. At the time I was convinced that she didn’t grasp the concept of drowning. Why couldn’t I just go read on the patio? No one ever died of reading. This might also be true of kickball, but even as an adult I remain dubious.

The first time I tried snorkeling, I hated it. Nothing like inhaling salt water unexpectedly while 300 fish crowd around your face mask and your legs are shredded by coral! Hey sharks, I hear you can smell a drop of blood in the water from a zillion miles away! Come and get it while I’m blinded by these tropical fish!

The second time I snorkeled, I was on the Great Barrier Reef, where I hated snorkeling for eight hours straight. When I turned thirty, I went to Belize and thought I’d finally gotten the hang of it. It was amazing, until our guide unexpectedly chummed the water for sharks. That was one of the first times I decided my overactive risk-o-meter wasn’t useful anymore. As I watched everyone leave the boat for a front-row view of the feeding frenzy, I realized it was time to jump.

Since then, I’ve learned to roll in a kayak, jumped off the top of a redwood tree, and went on a surprisingly adrenal dog sledding adventure. And last week, I got my open water scuba certification.

The more I do these things, the more I realize I just have to shut my eyes and jump. We’re afraid of the unknown, and once it becomes rote it isn’t scary anymore. The process of turning fear into comfort is all about familiarity. This is true of adventures, of travel, and of each other.

Tomorrow, let’s talk about scuba diving. I think you should try it.

Lifelist: Learning to Scuba Dive

Things of which I have been afraid in the last few days:

  • Water filling my snorkel mask, and I drown.
  • Water somehow getting into my air tank, and then I drown.
  • Old-timey sailor sea-zombies pulling me to a watery grave.
  • I resurface too quickly and my lungs explode like a pair of mating puffer fish on a line.
  • Sharks.

Awestruck moments in the last few days:

  • I can breathe underwater.
  • Everything is so blue.
  • CHOOO-KAAAHH… CHOOO-KAAHH… This is what Darth Vader sounds like when he breathes under the motherf***ing water.
  • This is just like a flying dream.
  • I am a bionic turbo-mutant (half woman! half machine!) who defies the laws of physics with my awesome breathing powers!!
  • No one can reach me by phone.

So far, I’ve only practiced in the pool, but right now I’m on a flight to St. Lucia where I’m getting my Open Water Dive Certification for my birthday. I decided to get certified and take the trip about seven days ago, when a girlfriend said, “Do you want to go diving with me in St. Lucia?” And then I said, “Yes.”

For the record, I am also afraid of zombie sharks.

Taste 1,000 Fruits: Lemon Cucumber, Huckleberry

This is part of my Life List project to Taste 1,000 fruits. I’m inching my way toward 100.

This year, my sister Raina started a little farm in Sonoma County and we visited this weekend. There wasn’t enough room in the fridge for all the veggies she sent home with me, so I’ve been putting up sauces and soups and eating too much salad for the last few days.

That photo up top is a lemon cucumber, one about as big as a man’s fist. It’s pretty, but apparently too old to be delicious. You want ones that are whiter and more the size of an apricot. I’m not generally a fan of cucumbers, but these are so crisp and light, not nearly as dense or tough as the supermarket variety. They taste like slightly savory cucumber water.

My sister planted Huckleberries out of curiosity, having never tried them. They have a similar consistency to blueberries, but they’re juicier, tart, and refreshing.

Raina described them as tasting like cucumbers to her, and these did have that aftertaste. I liked the flavor, but there was a richness to it. I didn’t really want more than one. Does anyone know how to prepare these in a way that makes them more appealing? I bet they’d make amazing jam.