Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is the story of a little clown fish named Nemo (Alexander Gould) living off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, who is scooped up by a scuba diver and relocated to a fish tank in Sydney. Nemo's father Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his new found friend Dory swim all the way to Sydney to try to rescue Nemo and bring him back to where he belongs.

Dory, an enthusiastic blue tang, is one of the funniest characters in the film. At one point in Marlin and Dory's journey, they meet and are swallowed by a whale. Fortunately, Dory speaks whale so she is able to use their predicament to great advantage. The way Dory 'speaks whale' is by using regular words and pronounce all the vowels looooong and sloooowly.

I had to think about Nemo after coming back from a wonderful trip to Hawaii with my sweetie. Humpback whales choose Hawaii as their winter destination and it was fascinating to see them during our whalewatch cruise or even just from the beach.

The other reason I had to think about Nemo had to do with 'talking whale'. In the Hawaiian language, all vowels are pronounced individually. I mostly think that I am able to do about anything but where my sweetie was able pronounce Hawaiian names such as Haleakala, Wailea, Pu‘u Ula‘ula, Hali‘imaile, Ho‘okipa, and Pi'ikea, seemingly without effort, the most accurate word to describe my own efforts toward pronouncing those words would be 'whale talk': Haaaleeeaaakaaalaaa.

And maybe that's why sweetie and I are such a good match - what I can't do, she can. And visa versa off course :)