hawaiian rendez-vous

[Slug Toy]

well since i got back yesterday, things have been very fuzzy around the edges. in the past three days, ive gotten about 8 hours of intermittent sleep. bloody babies on the flight home... ten of them. imagine how that went...

so anyways. i DO have some good pictures to share, but not yet. ive got like 100 of them that i have to go through to resize and touch up. that's taking a little while. plus ive got some video, not very interesting, but ive got to fiddle with it too.

for now, im going to give you a day by day break down of what happened while i was gone:

wednesday, april 26:
-left home (vancouver,bc, canada) at 7PM local time
-arrived in kahului, maui at 10PM local time (3 hour time difference, and a 6 hour flight... do the math if you can)
-got the rental car, checked in at hotel (condo actually) in kihei, and went to denny's for a midnight dinner... trailing into the 27th

thursday, april 27:
-finished dinner, and got lost... found my way back to hotel around 2AM maui time
-slept for a while
-up at 9AM thanks to the birds
-explored the area, and drove to lahaina for lunch at a place called cilantro
-more exploring, and dinner at maui thai... very good food, and as spicy as you want
-back in bed by 10PM

friday, april 28:
-up at 8:30AM
-bummed around the pool until lunch
-i was supposed to go out to molokini for some snorkelling, but that got cancelled, so i went up to haleakala (maui's extinct volcano) for the afternoon
-back in time for dinner at a mexican place called fred's, once again, very good food
-bought a priceless opalized ammonite pendant and a somewhat matching necklace for it to go on... $80 american, but its worth way more to people who know what it is
-watched some tv and in bed by 10PM

saturday, april 29:
-up at 4AM... yes 4 in the damn morning
-back to the kahului airport for my flight to hilo on the big island
-caught a charter bus to hawaii volcanoes national park, and spent the day looking at everything
-on the way back, stopped at atsuka orchid farm (famous for their work with hybrids) and at mauna loa macadamia plantation (guess what they had there)
-back at hilo airport at 5:30PM
-interesting flight back to kahului (plane hit some windshear and dropped 20 feet instantly... better than any amusement park ride ever
-back in kahului at 7:30PM, drove back to kihei, and had dinner at a greek bistro

sunday, april 30:
-up at 8AM
-laid around until lunch
-drive to maalea harbor for a cruise to molokini (yup, rescheduled the snorkelling trip for this day)
-saw some turtles and humpback whales on the way
-snorkelled for a while, saw an octopus, and a moray eel
-suffered my first sunburn
-back at the harbor for 5:30PM
-made my own dinner... turkey, potato salade, macaroni salad, and coleslaw... yum
-cant remember when i went to bed... late though

monday, may 1:
-up at 6AM
-out to kihei small boat launch
-took a rafting trip along the south coast of maui (kanaio coast... 218 year old lava flow)
-plenty of awesome stuff, and untouched reefs too, saw more turtles, sharks, manta ray, and a crown of thorns
-another sunburn
-back in time for lunch, or a lack thereof
-afternoon nap, and then dinner at the maui thai again... i got it so spicy i nearly killed myself

tuesday, may 2:
-up at 10AM
-a little shopping
-went to makena state park, and spent a few hours on big beach
-got nice and toasty and sunburned again
-early dinner at moose mcgillycutty's, had some red snapper, and i wont do that again, its like chewing meat with rubber bands in it
-picked up some last minute things like coffee to bring back home, and some candy for the flight
-at the kahului airport by 9:30PM
-in the air at 11:30PM, leading into wednesday

wednesday, may 3:
-arrived home at 8AM local time
-got home at 10AM
-told you guys that i was home
-crashed until 9AM thursday

thursday, may 4:
-up at 9
-off to school
-home at 3:15PM
-dinner and photoshopping
-and this brings me up to this very moment (yes, im watching you all, and i know what you guys did last summer)

so some of this isnt very well explained. you may be asking "what the hell ate all these names, and what are these names anyways?" kihei... kahului... molokini... HAWAII?! huh??? it will all be exlained in further detail, one day per post, with pictures too. patience is key now. just wait, ill have everything in order, slowly but surely. probably tomorrow actually.

one thing i want to ask though is that you guys just leave this thread alone until im done posting everything, and then you can flood the place with comments and questions. shouldnt be too long of a wait though, as i said.

[Slug Toy]

im going down to a buddies house right now. he wants to know how everything went. ill be a few hours. everythings going good though. keep your pants on.

[Slug Toy]

ok, ive got a batch of pictures uploaded and ready to go. tonight (actually this morning) ill cover the 26th and 27th of april.

so as you can see from my not so brief verbal description of the days' events, the 26th itself wasnt very eventful except for the flight. if you can imagine sitting around in a plane for 6 hours, you should have the same amount of excitement as i had. other than that, meh, a boring day.

since the 26th is kind of boring and doesnt take up much room, ill cover the 27th in this post too.

so, i said that i woke up thanks to some birds.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Pidgeon.jpg
here it is. the little bugger that woke me up. its like a tropical pidgeon, but it has a higher pitched, very loud call. its got a blue face and a black tail with a white stripe. the rest is grey. this particular one was looking at me with the dumbest stance ive ever seen... classic pidgeon written all over it.

there were other birds too, but they wouldnt hold still long enough to get a picture.

there was a black bird with brownish-orange tear drop shapes around its eyes. sometimes it sounded like a crow. other times, it would sit around and make a light gurgling sound. other times still, it would sound like a proper song bird.

there was another bird that looked like a mini orange cardinal. this was another loud one, but it had an awesome song. it sound like an automatic camera mixed with a christmas bell.

there were plenty of sparrows, believe it or not. i guess they winter there, or they may be permanent fixtures, and only some migrate. i dont really know. i just know they were there, because i recognized the sound and appearance.

there were other birds that looked similar to a sparrow, but they were brown and yellow. they sounded simiilar to a sparrow too. louder though... much louder.

there were tons of finches. one caught my eye in particular. it was a small fat one that again looked like a sparrow, but the beak was a dead give away. the thing hopped in a way that made it look like its feet were tied together, and it was pretty fast too. very amusing, i had a good laugh every time i saw one hopping around.

and finally, there was one illusive bird that i only saw once, but i cant forget it. it was a small brown one, about the size of a chickadee. the only thing that caught my eye was its tail. it had two feathers that were bright green, and about ten inches long. it was flying when i saw it, so i didnt get a REALLY good look, but what i saw sure stuck with me.

so, on to lunch. i mentioned that i went to a place called cilantro, in a town called lahaina. lahaina is a very touristy town. pedestrian everywhere, and the speed limit is only 10mph!!! cilantro itself is just a little hole in the wall, and the average passer-by would just keep going. im adventurous though, so i took a chance. GREAT food. i had a chicken enchilada and some sort of spicy salad, plus plenty of things with habanero salsa (habanero's happen to be the worlds hottest pepper variety... well the scotch bonnet is, but its in the habanero family). i like my food hot, and cilantro didnt dissapoint. highly recommended if anyone finds themselves in maui and looking for lunch.

the 27th wasnt a very structured day... i was just trying to get used to 35 degrees celcius and 80% humidity. i spent a while at the beach, but the wind came up early that day, and while i took a couple pictures, my legs were quickly burried in sand dunes, literally!!! 25mph winds do that.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Crowd.jpg
here you can see these sand dunes. not huge ones, but they travel just like the larger counterparts. you can also get an idea of the crowds, not that bad, but it is the off season. and that hand and leg on the right... my mom. me and her are the only ones who like hot hot weather, and we're the only ones crazy enough to take the chances we did.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Molokini1.jpg
for the hell of it, i took a picture of molokini (the sunken crater i snorkelled at on sunday). i had the camera zoomed in so the picture is kind of crappy, but it gets the job done. you also get to see a bit of wave action from the ocean. those waves were probably around 4 feet high.

one thing i didnt know about travelling to places close to the equator is that the sun sets early. it was completely dark by 7:30. funky.

while i had the chance, i snapped this.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Sunset.jpg
one of those famous hawaii sunsets. only problem is that the island of lana'i is always in the way, so thats as good as it got the whole time i was there.

so for dinner, we went to maui thai. another little hole in the wall. the saying goes though "big rewards for those who take chances" or something like that. anyways, point being it was great food again. better than anything ive had here in vancouver, which is well known for having some ritzy restaurants. this time, i didnt know that i could choose how spicy i could get it, but i learned that at the end of the meal. this would come in handy later.

and that was the end of the 27th. a bit of tv to kill some of the evening, but not a lot to do.

the sun is now coming up here. ive been going for about 30 hours now, and i need to stop. ill have a couple more days worth posted tomorrow afternoon. until then, use your imagination if you really MUST know everything this instant. and still dont post anything yet, i want to have all the pictures clumped together in a few consecutive posts.

[Slug Toy]

ok, heres my log for the 28th of april.

this was the day that i was originally supposed to be going snorkelling at molokini. there werent enough people though, so it got cancelled. i took a trip up to haleakala instead.

haleakala is maui's volcano. its not active though. the last eruption was 218 years ago. its pretty safe, and well monitored, so you wouldnt get taken by surprise if for some reason it came back to life. anyways, back to the events of the day.

for the morning of the 28th, there wasnt much happening, because we were still waiting to hear word from the company that was to take us to molokini. didnt get the cancellation until lunch. so i had a bite to eat, and was off on a trip up to the volcano, to kill some time.

it was a two hour drive up to the summit, and an elevation change of about 10,000 feet. it went from being about 87 farenheit and clear to 50 and spurratically engulfed in clouds. when i got to the top, the first view you get is this:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/AboveClouds.jpg
i got a gap in the clouds to get a good picture. i was actually above a main layer of cumulus clouds that usually surround the entire volcano. it was a cool sight.

another interesting thing i noticed instantly was the sound. there were no sounds at all, and i mean it. you couldnt even hear people who were maybe 50 feet in front of you. you didnt hear cars. you didnt even hear the wind most of the time, even though it was whipping through at nearly 40mph. it was the strangest thing ive ever experienced. you just feel so alone up there.

so i took a look around me after taking that picture. and what do i see?
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Observatory.jpg
even though the place is covered in clouds all day, its a spectacular view at night. a perfect place for an observatory. not quite as high as the one on mauna loa, but its still plenty high.

i walked over to the visitor center/ranger station, and found this.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/200ftCliff.jpg
i was looking down a 200 foot cliff into the crater. the clouds were coming straight up the cliff at an amazing speed too. very cold there.

so enough of the views, me and my mom set off into the crater. we had to follow the trails closely because the entire area is a state park. it was a bummer, but at least we got to see stuff like this:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Trail.jpg

and this:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/InCrater.jpg
if you tried not to focus on the blue sky and clouds. it really felt like you were wandering around mars. all the brown, orange and rusty colours. i still cant stress how awesome it was. if you were taken up there blindfolded, youd swear you were on mars.

so we had a good walk in the crater. i tried to keep the pace up so i could get to the cinder cones that were strewn around the place, but my mom couldnt handle the cold. we had to turn back, with only a mile to go. if it was a better day, i could have gotten a shot, but instead i couldnt see more than 100 feet in front of me.

we got stuck behind a line of people on the way out. apparently the 10,000 foot altitude leaves you short of breath. i didnt really notice it though.

i saw a few cool things on the drive up, so i kept the camera out for the ride down.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Shrubland.jpg
after getting out of the completely barren crater, you pass through a few different climatic zones on the way. this picture is the first one. its a sub alpine shrubland. its still damn cold and we were still in the cloud, but i got a good enough break to snap the shot.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/PineForest.jpg
the next step down is a high altitude pine forest. yes, they have pine trees on maui. interestingly, some of them seem to behave like arbutus trees, and they shed their bark.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/MauiView.jpg
i thought id throw this picture in too. we had just passed through the pine forests and we got a great view back down onto the island. we were about 1000 feet below the clouds now.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Purple-FlowerTree.jpg
we then passed by a bunch of trees that i couldnt identify. this picture shows the neatest one. it didnt have leaves. it had a bunch of lavender coloured flowers instead. there were tons of them everywhere. everything smelled like ucalyptus too, and the smell clung to everything, which isnt really a bad thing.

thats all the good pictures of the volcano excursion. all the other pictures i have are more of the same old stuff.

so after we got back down into kihei (remember, thats the town we were staying in) we went for dinner. we tried a popular place called fred's. its the coolest mexican place ive ever been to. its got crazy crap on the walls like in applebees. its kind of an open air thing, so there were birds hopping all over the place, and keeping me amused while i was eating. the food was awesome. i had a mahi taco (mahi is a fish, kind of tastes like a heavier cod) and a chicken enchilada, along with rice and beans. there was tons of food too. id definitely recommend this place. just make sure you get there early. it gets very busy after about 6PM, to the point where the line up goes onto the side walk.

it took a while to eat. and then me and my mom went out looking for things to buy. we found stuff for everyone in my family, and i scored the awesome ammonite pendant and a necklace. i dont have a picture of it, but ill add one once i get a good macro shot.

got back to the hotel around 9PM, and i went right to bed. all the hiking took it out of me.

[Slug Toy]

heres the 29th.

this is the day me and my mom took a trip over to the big island. just a little fyi, the big island is actually called hawaii, just like the state. its surprising how many people dont know that.

so we were up at 4AM, and back at the airport (kahului) in maui to catch our flight. it was a 30 minute flight, and we got fresh passion fruit juice on the way. we arrived in hilo, the airport in hawaii (big island), and we were immediately wisked onto a bus. we were on our way to hawaii volcanoes national park.

our first stop was a place called rainbow falls.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/RainbowFall.jpg
this is a pretty cool thing to see. its an 80 foot waterfall, and theres a cave in behind it too. its very misty there too, as it is near any waterfall. lots of birds chirping all over the place.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Vegetation.jpg
the plants obviously love it here too. all the mist from the falls... there were some HUGE trees. one of the biggest was a mango tree, i wouldnt be surprised if it was near 150 feet tall. its not in the picture though. im not really sure what plants are in that picture, but theres lots of them.

we only spent about 20 minutes at the falls. then we took off and went to kilauea.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/KilaueaIki.jpg
this crater is called kilauea iki. it was formed by a large collapse, and used to be about 700 feet deep. it erupted back in the 80's, and was filled up to about 200 feet in depth. it set the world record for lava fountaining... 1900 feet in the air. imagine that, a 1900 foot lava fountain, too bad i wasnt born until 1987... i would have liked to see it.

from kilauea iki, we went down to the ocean, where the lava was still pouring into the water.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Expanse.jpg
this is what it was like at the ocean. the hill on the right... well thats actually a 2000 foot cliff. also, if you can kind of see a greyish strip in the air just above the ground, thats vog... volcanic fog. you can smell it, its like vinegar, and it burns your eyes and throat.

also, imagine this. its about 90 farenheit, very high humidity, direct sun with no chance of shade, and winds upwards of 30mph. that was intense. i had the job of carrying the camera, plus the water and a few other things. i was soaked with sweat by the time we were done with this area.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/LavaArch.jpg
this is pretty cool too. a lava arch. i was trying to get a picture of some waves crashing, because they were huge. it didnt work though, because they were spurratic, and i was never ready for them. just take my word, they were about 10 feet high.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/BlackSandBeach.jpg
the famous black sand beaches. well not really... not many people see THESE black sand beaches. you cant even get to them. you would have to get down a 30 foot vertical cliff, laden with loose boulders. in other words, suicide... its something only i would attempt, but i didnt have time.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/SteamPlume.jpg
that is where the lava was meeting the ocean. we couldnt get there because A. it was over 2 miles away, and we didnt have time, and B. the ground near the lava was unstable and constantly collapsing. this picture was the best i could do. for an idea of scale, as the plume of steam is going out of the picture on the left, its already higher than the 2000 foot cliff.

there wasnt much in the way of vegetation down by the ocean. just a few plants here and there that didnt get taken out by the lava. one type that was there was this:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Noni.jpg
its a noni plant. the round ugly green thing is a fruit, not ripe yet though. noni is actually pretty good for you, and medicinal too. the only reason its there is because there used to be farms in the area, until the lava came through about 300 years ago. the plant was brought over from polynesia.

there were a couple bugs here and there, including this:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Centipede.jpg
that centipede was about 10 inches long. you should have seen the jaws on that sucker. good thing it wasnt a poisonous one, because i DID pick it up.

so when we were done by the ocean, we went back up to the kilauea crater, and did some more exploring.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Kilauea.jpg
this is a good shot of the main crater. its a few miles across. heres something to think about... any white you see, aside from the clouds, is steam. there were steam vents everywhere. some geysers too.

we circled the whole crater. i have plenty of pictures just like the one above, but they arent worth posting. once you see one, they all look the same.

eventually we came to something very unique.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/ThurstonLavaTube.jpg
this is the thurston lava tube. there used to be lava flowing through it, about 400 years ago. the tube itself is very very long, but only about 400 feet are safe enough to walk through. you could actually fit an entire bus in there no problem.

the whole trip took quite a while. we didnt get back to the hotel until about 8PM. a day well spent though.

by 8PM, lots of the restaurants are pretty full. we stumbled across a small greek bistro though, and there were only a few people there. so we had greek food. standard chicken souvlaki, but not so standard tzatziki to go with it, there was shredded onion in it. it was a good dinner, but it was pretty damn expensive. i wouldnt necessarily recommend the place (if i could figure out the name of it), and i would sooner go back to maui thai.

so by the time dinner was done, it was nearly 10PM. time to hit the sack. another long day left me pretty tired.

so thats the 29th in a nutshell.

[Slug Toy]

so ive had a little lull for the past... 2 days now? wow. life caught back up to me... cooking dinner, fighting spyware, school... the works.

so heres my log for april 30th. this is the day we went out to molokini.

molokini is an interesting formation. it used to be a volcano, but for whatever reason it stopped errupting fairly early, compared to other hawaiian volcanoes. i think it may have blown itself up, because all thats left is a crescent shape sticking out of the water now. these days, its got very good snorkelling. its another state/national park, so its also well preserved.

unfortunately, i dont have any pictures of molokini itself. you never get good views from ground level. the best pictures are from about 5000 feet up in a float plane or helicopter. do a search for pictures of it, and you'll find some good ones. i did.

the morning was like any other morning. i woke up because of the birds around 8AM. i had the morning to bum around. the cruise out to molokini wasnt until the afternoon. so lets fast forward to the good stuff.

me and my mom drove out to a place called maalea harbor just after lunch. thats where the ship was docked. after a few signed papers (something about liabilities in the event of serious death) we were loaded up with 30 other people, and we were under way on a 10 mile cruise to molokini. 30 people may sound like a large number, but apparently that morning, they took 130 people out. talk about lucky for us.

we hung around jus toutside the harbor for a bit, and searched for green sea turtles. we werent disappointed. they were everywhere, and they were HUGE. unfortunately, i didnt have the camera, and we didnt hang around long enough to get a good shot. the turtles are kind of skiddish too, so they would just barely break the surface for a breath. i dont think i would have gotten a clear shot even if i had the camera ready.

after the turtle search, we didnt get very far before we came across this:
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Whales1.jpg
yeah!!! humpback whales, a real abnormality at this time of year. they should be heading north by now. it looks like there was a small one in the group, so that may be holding them up. needless to say, this was a really big bonus.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Whales2.jpg
heres an even bigger bonus. the small one almost put on a performance for us. a classic tail shot... characteristic behavior, but still awesome. you cant fake this stuff people.

and guess what. thats all the pictures i have for the day. i sure as hell couldnt get any underwater shots. probably not the best idea to take an electronic device into salt water, let alone any water. ill do my best to describe what happened though.

it took an hour to actually get to molokini. we were sailing with the weathergauge too. once we got there, we moored up, and were free to do as we please.

i hit the water running, and was immediately surrounded by about a hundred black trigger fish. they were a little too friendly, if you know what i mean... i guess they're slightly domesticated. you kind of have to get used to it though, if you want to see anything.

the first thing i noticed was the coral. there wasnt a lot, but there was a lot of colour in the stuff that WAS there. purples and greens and reds everywhere. there were lots of cool fish though. yellows, blues, purples, greens, reds, oranges, and silvers. angel fish, trumpet fish, parrot fish, admiral fish, and tons of flourescent fish i couldnt identify.

there was a professional photographer along as part of the crew, and she happened to find an octopus under a rock. it was black and about the size of a honeydew. it kept trying to get away, and every time, the photographer would grab it again, so everyone could see. if i didnt have my snorkel on, i would have laughed myself silly because the thing looked so helpless. eventually, the octopus was free to go, and when it went under a rock to hide, out popped a moray eel. it was about two feet long and brown. obviously not full grown. everyone followed it until it went out into rough water.

after the octopus and eel, it was already time for lunch. we had a barbeque on the ship. that was a bit of entertainment i wont be forgetting soon. the cook was talking to everyone, and he accidentally dropped a hamburger into the water and made no attempt to retrieve it, even though we were in a park and werent allowed to do that. so the fish got it. when i asked if he cared, he said "watch this" and tossed another bigger piece into the water right by antoher crew member. well... the fish were warmed up by now, particularly the trigger fish, which have teeth. so we had a feeding frenzy by the crew member's legs, and he got a few bites. luckly trigger fish arent like barracudas or sharks... they just hurt, but dont do any real damage. ive never seen someone leave the water that fast though. poor cook got a good talking-to after that.

after lunch, there was time for another quick swim. nothing new to see though. the fish were even more friendly though. they were actually following us. i had my eye on them...

i think we had about 20 minutes in the water before we had to leave. it went by really fast. the trip back made up for it though. this time we had to go head on into the wind. it was slow and cold on the way back, and very rough thanks to the trade winds that blow in the afternoon. overall, the trip back was uneventful. one group of guys had a little too much to drink, and were conspiring to dive into the water, but decided not too for some reason... they were slurring their speech pretty bad so i dont know the exact reason, something about barbeques later that night.

so back to the harbor after what felt like forever on the boat, and then back to the hotel for a shower. then dinner. we just kept it simple and went to safeway and picked up some stuff. turkey, coleslaw, and potato and macaroni salad. kind of like a picnic. it did the job though.

dinner was done at about 7PM, and we went out to see if there was anything else worth buying. we found some very cool pictures in a small shop and decided to get a couple of some turtles to make up for the lack of pictures earlier. wouldnt you know it though, the artist who took those pictures came in just as we were buying them. so we had a good talk about places to go snorkelling and what kind of stuff is out there. amazing who and what you find, and WHERE you find them.

got back to the hotel around 8PM. a little tv and then bed. the snorkelling left me tired. lots of things leave me tired. i think waking up leaves me tired. anyways, that concludes the 30th. some time tomorrow, ill get to may 1st, and then ill wrap up loose ends.

[Slug Toy]

i dropped the ball on posting this stuff. its been a while. i just dont know what happened. anyways...

may 1st

this day, we went down the south coast of maui, namely the kanaio coast. this also happens to be the site of the last lava flow to take place on maui.

we were up fairly early. we had to be a the boat launch by something like 6:30 in the morning. i think we were even earlier than that, because we were the first ones there by about half an hour. amazingly, its kind of cold by the water if the sun isnt out yet.

so half an hour later, the boats show up. i should mention that it was an outfit called blue water rafting that took us out there. id recommend going with them if you end up in the kihei area and want to see the kanaio coast, or you can even privately charter them. the crews are very friendly, informative, and entertaining. one of the guys reminded me of portman from doom. he was friendly and all, but something about him made me kind of uneasy. probably just the fact that portman was a creeper, and the guy looked and acted like him.

there were two boats, and we ended up on the one without "portman" as a crewmate. we had a captain named dan, and another helper named dante... hmmm... and it was made even more cool because dan had two different degrees in biology and something else to do with environments and animals but i cant remember now. classic beach bums too. they all had long hair, deep tans, lots of muscle, and they were all very laid back.

so, onto the actual trip. it was eventful right from the get go. we were told to hold onto these ropes along the boats because it gets very rough at times. just outside of the boat launch, dan asked "everybody holding on? lets see about it." and proceeded to make two hairpin turns at speed. so imagine this... a 20 foot river raft with two engines on it, going about 40mph on the water, taking two consecutive turns within the length of the boat, and maintaning most of the speed. the boat banked at least 45 degrees in the turns, so i could just look to my side and the sea floor. dont even get me started about the amount of water that got kicked up. lets just say people got a nice salty bath. interestingly, i had the strongest urge to just let go and see what happens. i didnt though... they had a record of no people being tossed, and i didnt want to ruin it.

it was a ten mile run out to the actual coast line that we were going to see. we stopped half way though to take a look at a beach. dan was telling us that from this point on, things were usually pretty rough. he was acting all cool about it, but i sure liked how he and dante were putting on jackets and hats while they were telling us about it. turns out it wasnt very bad at all. we were lucky enough to have a very odd and calm day. apparently you get maybe 10 days like that a year. so it was bumpy, but not insane like it was supposed to be. it made for very good pictures.

after we went the rest of the way, we started making lots of stops to take a look at all the different rock formations from the lava flow.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/ColumnarJointing.jpg
here we see some basalt with a neat formation. it looks kind of like pillars, right? its called columnar jointing, and thats what makes the pillar shapes. its because of the silica crystals, and the fact that they like to form hexagons and pentagons. couple that with the rapid cooling from touching the water, and you get these nifty hexagonal and pentagonal cracks all the way up the rock.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/MoreColumnarJointing.jpg
and heres some more columnar jointing. its very cool stuff. i should also mention that the water WAS that colour. the camera captured it perfectly.

that columnar jointing was everywhere, so you get used to seeing it. we started looking for other stuff.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/Cave.jpg
heres a nice cave that formed when the rock gave way. its pretty big. we actually fit the whole boat inside it. i have pictures from inside, but there was such low light, everything turned out blurry.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/CompressionCave.jpg
heres another type of cave. its called a compression cave. compression caves used to be tubes that lava travelled through. now they are semi submerged in water. what happens is a wave will come along and close off the cave and trap air in there. the air will get compressed, and WHOOSH... you get a nice jet of air and water flying out.

interesting story. dan said to keep a look out for a small compression cave that was supposed to be very powerful. but he "couldnt remember" where it was. i spotted it right away, but no one else did, and we were pulling up beside it. just as we got up beside it, dan said "it should be right around here" and a wave hit. WHOOSH, everyone got soaked again.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/SeaArch.jpg
there were lots of these arches everywhere too. we actually went through some, which as cool.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/AnotherArch.jpg
heres another arch for good measure.

the day was not only calm, but very clear as well. we could actually see the summit of haleakala, maui's volcano... the one that we went to that looks like mars.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f26/z1gg3rm4n/Maui/InlandShot.jpg
the summit is on the very right side of the picture. all the other little bumps on the mountain are side vents and conder cones from past eruptions. unfortunately, the camera cant catch the vast expanse of the scene. the lava flow extends for miles on either side of the picture, and as you can see, only half the mountain is in view.

thats all the picture i have. from this point on, we spent a lot of time snorkelling. it was very cool too. we got to see turtles, sharks, a manta ray, all sorts of fish and coral, and a crown of thorns which is a type of starfish that eats coral. too bad i couldnt find an underwater camera...

we had lunch on the boat, and we ended up getting back a little after 1PM. so we went back to the hotel and sat around the pool. well, my mom sat around the pool. i went back to the room and took a nap on the couch.

fast forward 5 hours, and its dinner time. we went back to maui thai, because its so damn good. this time, we got it HOT. for those of you who like spicy stuff, you probably know that most restaurants dont do spicy anymore, and what they call spicy isnt very kicking. well boy oh boy... this place does hot. when we said we liked spicy, and we wanted pain, the waiter said "i got ya". we found out what he meant when we started eating. imagine biting into a fresh super power jalapeno, and then multiply that by 5 or 6. oh god it was good!!! thai food is always best when its nearly unbearably spicy.

after dinner, there wasnt much to do, so we went back to the hotel and watched tv until bed time. and thats it.

stay tuned. this was the last set of pictures, so im going to wrap up the last few hours in a while. then you guys can ask questions or whatever you want. i got company over right now though, so give me a while.

[Slug Toy]

i dont know why i said id wrap up the last few hours. they're already wrapped up. may 2nd wasnt very eventful, and i dont have pictures so honestly, my point form description in the first post should do nicely.

i will, however, add in some last thoughts on this whole trip. random musings, if you will.

the first thing id like to say is you probably dont want to live there, even if it is a great place. everything is so expensive, and wages are comparatively low. the biggest problem is that 90% of all goods are imported, which adds to already high prices. take this for example. while on the mainland, gas prices were at about $3.22 per gallon, it was about $3.66 in maui. prices fluctuated a lot too. real estate is very expensive. there were some houses with good cliff-front property. the houses themselves werent too special, and id expect to find something here at home like that for maybe $800,000. well those houses in maui were upwards of $6 million. i found that everyone lived in a kind of mild and acceptable poverty. thats the only way i can put it.

another thing id like to say is that everyone was rediculously friendly. i dont know if i said that before, but if i did, ill just drive the point home with a large hammer. just little things that you dont see much of these days... people give the right of way when they shouldnt really, just for the sake of keeping things moving smoothly. everyone is willing to help, and casual conversation with strangers was a common thing for me at least... people werent stuck up or afraid or hesitant to have fairly in depth conversations. the good mood was contageous too, and i found myself acting accordingly in no time.

also, aside from my red snapper incident, the food was VERY good. a little expensive, but i already covered that. i dont know what it is with those people. maybe the large population of people with polynesian descent, or the large asian presence in general, but those people can cook.

another thing. if jungle is what you're looking for, hawaii ISNT what you're looking for. there are jungle areas, but they arent very extensive. i get the feeling you would stand the best chances of finding good jungle on the islands of molokai or kauai. but still, hawaii as a whole isnt very jungly. costa rica is starting to look good to me in that respect... and the flying translucent cocain whales are a bonus too...

be prepared for rough weather all over hawaii. the trade winds, and the convection and evapouration-precipitation cycles make for some lively weather. very fun when you're in an airplane, but a bummer when you're sitting around the hotel waiting for the rain to stop. i was lucky enough to avoid it altogether, but that is a rarity. the usual cycle is to cloud up and rain in the afternoon for a while.

ugh, im going to cut myself off here. im getting this uneasy, semi-sick feeling like the onset of a flu or some sort of food poisoning. i think i covered everything i can think of anyways. perhaps you guys have some specifics you want to know or something. if i end up not getting sick here, ill check back tomorrow to answer anything that shows up. in the mean time though, i declare this thread open to the general public for questions and comments.