Saved the best for last!

This morning we headed south to check out Ahihi Preserve. Denise kept encouraging us to find this spot for my snorkeling adventure (more about that later) and yesterday, our neighbor, Don, encouraged us to check out the massive lava flow down the same road. First we explored several tide pools just before entering the reserve. I have always wanted to see a tide pool. The ones we found were full of sea urchins and brightly colored fish, sea cucumbers and I even spotted an eel which really surprised me. There were lots of crabs and snails and beautiful living coral formations. WOW!

Then we headed on down to the preserve which turned out to be in easy walking distance from the tide pools. With admonitions of the beach naturalist in my ears about staying 15 to 20 feet away from the reef, I was overwhelmed to realize the cove was all reef and the only way to get in and out of it was ON THE REEF. The fish were everywhere - big fish, not the little ones in the tide pools. We don't have fish like this in Illinois. The biggest adventure turned out to be getting out of the water since I was poorly equipped and a wave caught me and tossed me against some coral. I have three or four minor cuts but I would do it again.

The lava flow further down the road was immense and unearthly. You can look up on to the slope of Haleakala and see how the lava flowed down the side into the sea. I think that the last eruption of Haleakala was in the late 1700's.

We stopped at Big Beach and I think it is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life with sand as soft and fine as sugar. It is a rich tan color with water the color of turquoise and Molokini lying off shore as an accent shape in the water. It looked just like you think a beach in paradise should look. Incredible.

One would think that this would be enough, but with our time here drawing to a close, we only have food on hand in the condo for one more meal at "Hartleroad's Hide-Away" so we walked down to the Kihei Cafe for their Cheeseburger special. It certainly was - special that is. This is the same place that we bought home made sticky buns topped with Macadamia nuts for breakfast earlier in the week. Oh, My!

I want to also include a word about Easter worship yesterday with the Ala Lani United Methodists. The church actually houses three congregations: English speaking, Korean, and Tongan. They all met together yesterday and the Tongan choir, which filled the front quarter of the church, sang the traditional "Hallelujah Chorus" in Tongan, by memory and without accompaniment. The entire service was very moving but this choir filled the sanctuary with their voices.

It is time to begin thinking about getting packed up to come home. See you all soon. Oh, would someone please turn the temp up in Illinois? We are used to around 80 with a light breeze everyday.

Finally, thank you so much, Steve and Denise. Your island home has been a wonderful gift to us. Your Hawaii friends and neighbors have been wonderful to us as well. And thanks to Mom for encouraging us to come over here and enjoy it.

Steve's Sidewalk

There is a new gallery up on John's site tonight called "Steve's Sidewalk". Steve has talked about going for walks along the sidewalk for a long time and when we first arrived here we thought he was nuts. First we walked toward Kihei city center and that was just little shops and a park and, well, town. So then we walked the other way and it was condos and little shops and kept getting further away from the ocean. What was Steve thinking ? Surely anyone would prefer walking along the beautiful beaches.

Then we drove down to Ulua Beach and, low and behold, there was this wide sidewalk that ran between all of the resort hotels and the beaches. It is beautifully landscaped with flowers and trees and it looks out over the shore all along the way. Tonight we walked south along it and John took snapshots of things we saw. We did this especially for Mom so she could see all of the beautiful flowers. Enjoy!

Haleakala

After waiting for two weeks to head up to the "crater" on Haleakala, we decided to follow Bob's and Gloria's advice and trust that you drove through the clouds out into the bright sunshine above them. So yesterday after some swimming and sunning at the pool we headed out and up. As predicted, the temperature dropped from 80 degrees at Shores of Maui to 54 degrees at the rim of the valley-crater. We drove through dense fog on the way up the mountain and kept promising ourselves that if it didn't improve in a little bit we would turn around. It did improve and although we didn't see the whole crater by any stretch of the imagination, what we saw was amazing. And as with the Road to Hana - the trip was part of the fun.

On the way back home we stopped and bought a Protea bouquet which I hope to take back to Illinois with us on Tuesday. We saw Protea growing on the mountain side along with a field of Lavender and the most gorgeous trees and vines. We also saw lots of Silversword growing up on top and John got one cooperative chukar to pose in front of a Silversword for a portrait. unfortunately we didn't see any Nene which is too bad because John and I are both big fans of geese.

The moon was full this week and John has been up early two mornings trying to capture the moon as it sets over the ocean to the west. This is not as easy as it might sound since there is such a huge light difference between the moon and the night sky and ocean.

I went snorkeling again this morning for a little while and was brave enough to go out further. Have loved seeing all of the brilliant colored fishes but do not have anything exotic to report. I did see a turtle the other night while John was shooting a sunset photo and I was standing on the beach. I kept seeing this head pop up out of the surf, fairly close to shore. At first I thought it must just be a piece of drift wood or something being tossed around in the surf and then it popped up, looked around, and disappeared when the sea was calm.

I'm not sure which day it was that we went to see the Iao Needle, maybe on Wednesday. The gorges of Hawaii are incredibly beautiful with deeply carved water channels cutting through the cliffs. We could clearly see water channels for waterfalls up on the mountains, but again, no water.

On the way up to the needle we stopped at this little county park next to the nature center. I believe it is called the Maui Heritage Park. There are several distinct areas dedicated to all of the different groups that settled in Hawaii - Polynesians, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Portuguese, and New England missionaries and traders. Each group is represented by a small building and garden that represents their cultural contributions. There were several banyan trees, formal Japanese gardens and water features, and the ubiquitous rooster, although this one wasn't wild. Someone had tied him by the leg to keep him near the Portuguese exhibit.

On the way back from the Needle (by the way, we really liked the Iao Needle but the sky was very overcast so there aren't any great images of it) we stopped at the Bailey Museum which was something that I really wanted to do. This is the only remaining building of a girls' boarding school founded by missionaries. It was filled with artifacts of Hawaii previous to contact with the outside world and with the artifacts of the mission years. Here the woman running the gift shop gave me a Plumeria flower to pin in my hair - she gave me the hairpin, too - and the young woman who staffed the ticket table advised me how a married woman should wear it.

Maui Sunsets

Every evening around 5:30 PM we head for the ocean front to catch the sunset. John sets up his camera equipment on a promising site and I check out the tide pools and look for coral fragments. We have had cloudless sunsets and seen the green flash that sometimes occurs as the sun dips below the horizon and we have had cloud draped sunsets that are pretty dark and quick. And then we have had some glorious, glorious sunsets with cloud masses over the west end of the island turning pink and orange.

John has posted a handful of sunset images. Ask if you want to see the other 500 or so.

One guest in a condominium down the way has taken on the duty of blowing a conch shell each night as the sun dips below the horizon. I don't know if this has any real significance in the Hawaiian culture or if it is just some kid with a conch shell. Anyway, it makes us smile. We are having a wonderful time.

Snorkeling, who?

This morning John and I hit the beach at Ulua Beach Park equipped with our newly purchased masks and snorkels. I gotta tell you that I was more than a little apprehensive but I had practiced with the snorkel tube and mask in the pool yesterday and had done all right. I no more than stuck my face in the water when I spotted a school of yellow and black soldier fish. I was still standing up and hadn't even started to float out over the coral formation yet.

Well, since this was my first time to view a reef, I saw lots of things although some of the more experienced snorkelers said it wasn't a great day for sightings. We weren't at it long because it was COLD in the water but we intend to go back lots more. We took a long walk on the beach sidewalk to warm up after our adventure.

Yesterday we attended church at the Ala Lani (Path to Heaven) United Methodist Church in Kahului. All visitors were given a ribbon lei that was woven like a friendship bracelet from two different colors of ribbon. It was a moderately sized congregation that has English, Korean, and Tonga language services. The pastor had a great sermon and we enjoyed the whole experience.

On Saturday we drove to Lahaina for the morning. The whole town is a national historic landmark which is pretty cool. It is also a cruise ship port so there were lots of high end jewelry stores and art galleries. The art was really breath taking. We walked into one photo studio and the very first image we saw was a mill in the Smoky Mountains that we have visited several times. That was kind of funny.

We have also made a stop at Maui Giclee which is an art printing firm here on the island. They had an exhibit of local artists whose work they print, both photos and paintings. That was great fun, too. Throw in some shopping (who knew that I needed a sarong?), watching the whales off of the lanai and catching "I Robot" on TV and you know what we have been up to.

Resting in Paradise

Having had two previous days of sight-seeing and sun we thought it might be prudent today to enjoy some time sitting on the lanai enjoing the view and the cool breeze.

We drove to Hana on Wednesday and it was spectacular. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much rain lately so the streams and pools were very meager. Some places there was no water at all but you could tell that at times it is breath taking with well over 50 stream crossings as the road hugs the cliffs and switches back and forth to get up into the back country.

What really blew us away was the coastline and the surf on the windward side of the island. The waves were crashing against the shore at Ho'okipa Beach and they looked to me like they were mountains. We were assured later by someone who should know that the surf can be two or three times greater than it was that day.

We visited Kahanu Garden, one of the gardens of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. It is located on a cliff overlooking the sea just outside of Hana. The young man who took our ticket money and shared fresh, fire-roasted breadfruit with us turned out to be the director of the garden. There are three main features of the garden: an area in which all of the plants brought in the canoes of the original Polynesian settlers are planted, an ancient stone temple built in 1200 BC called Pi'ilanihale, and an incredible shoreline that can be viewed from the lanai of an old fishing shack built back in the 40's. We had such a great time there that we stayed an hour past closing. The director came looking for us but never once hurried us and suggested that it was time to close. He just sat on the lanai with us and visited about this wonderful spot.

On Thursday we began by taking a long beach walk at Wailea. (I put these names in for Steve and Denise. For everyone else, we drove a couple of miles south of where we are staying.) There were naturalists on the beach providing info to people about snorkeling. They assured me that with a swimming noodle and a mask, snorkle tube and fins I, too, could enjoy snorkeling the coral reef just off the beach. We plan to rent some equipment for next week, spend a couple of days learning to use it in the pool here and then heading out to the beach with it.

We went to Buzz's Wharf restaurant for seafood late lunch and then toured the Maui Ocean Center. The Ocean Center was quite well done and we had a great time learning about what we might see at the reef - if we are lucky.

We have had some trouble wrapping our minds around the fact that the stock market closes at around 10:00 AM here in the islands. But I was delighted to discover that the Daily Show comes on at 8:00 PM here. I can watch it and be in bed by 9:00. Whoo-hoo!

Aloha!

Tuesday Afternoon

This must be paradise. Everyday dawns with bright skies and a cool breeze off of the water. We are told that there isn't much wind right now and that until the trade winds begin to blow, there will be some clouds and haze. Therefore we are waiting to go to Hana and to the volcano. (I am still having trouble writing Hawaiian place names.)


As you can see from the pictures that John has posted on his website, we enjoyed our whale watch tour very much. We saw more whales than you could count. Mothers and babies and escorts - the naturalist explained to the children on board that baby whales don't really have Daddies, the Mom's just have boyfriends. Sad to say, the kids probably understood just what she meant. And let me tell you, these whales are HUGE! One surfaced very close to the boat giving us a great view of the big thing. You can hear the noise of their breathing when they come to the surface to exhale. As all good whaling tours do, our crew lowered a microphone into the water so that we could hear them sing. We couldn't see a whale anywhere but there was constant whale song. We were told that it was probably from four different whales. One of the other passengers was a scuba diver and he reported that he had heard them when he was diving.

We walked south on the beach today and enjoyed going from one beach to another. There are long stretches of sandy beach interupted by volcanic rock formations. There are paths that you can take across the rocks to get to the next beach. The waves are quite large today and there are a lot of surfers across the street at Cove Park.
Just another day in paradise.

Judy Shares Maui Moments Sunday, March 9

Saturday was an amazing day. We were up early - still on Illinois time and crept around hoping not to disturb downstairs neighbors at the condo. We had arrived too late to see "the view" from the lanai or porch so I was very surprised to realize that you look out southwest to another island, Kahoolawe. We were also surprised to see several 40 ton whales swimming around all morning between us and the horizon. One really energetic guy way out at the horizon breached several times, leaping straight up out of the water.

John had read in a tourism calendar that a Hawaiian United Church of Christ was holding a Lu'au to culminate it's 175th anniversary so we decided to take that in. Turns out that the Lu'au is an annual event and EVERYBODY goes. We had a great, great time. After lunch (kulua pig smoked in a earth covered pit - tastes like Memphis pulled pork-, macaroni salad and several other more exotic dishes I can't begin to name but were all very good) we were entertained by several dance groups from a traditional hula school. When I say classes don't think children. All of the dancers except two were adults with many "aunties" involved in each class. The music was provided by a three piece group of ukele and two guitars and M.C.'d by the founder of the school who was also the lead singer.

The icing on the cake (or the poi on the pork, if you like) was that the centerpieces were given away to participants and I was given one to bring back to the condo. It is made of a huge varigated leaf that looks like a philadendron with 18' long, bright red ginger blooms and yellow hybiscus laying on top of it. Finally a bannana palm leaf forms the vase for more ginger blossoms. I have it on the table on the lanai. John posted photos of the flowers in the Maui gallery.

Today has been a slow day. Jet lag seems to have caught up with me. I can't keep track of the time. We swam in the pool and plan a walk on the beach later. We enjoyed watching more whales and seeing all of the families teaching their little kids to surf at our little park. One man was out surfing with his dog, a golden retriever, on the board!

John took an official 60th birthday picture of me in my swim suit by the pool wearing the orchid lei that Elke had arranged for us when we arrived. If you have to turn 60, then I recommend doing it in Maui.