Maui the Valley Isle

We are now on Maui which is called the Valley Isle since most of the island is a lush valley located between two extinct volcanoes. Our condo in Papakea is located on the North West shore just above Kaanapali beach and has a great view from the balcony. The island in the background is Molaki and just to the south, behind the other building is the island of Lanai.
This area is teaming with Humpback whales and most of the times you look out to sea you can whales or sometimes spinner dolphins playing in the waves. We spotted this really cute mother whale and her baby (on it's side with it's fin in the air) just off the harbour in Lahaina.

Judy and I decided to try snorkeling off the Black Rock just south of our condo and the water was so clear you felt like you were in an aquarium. Just as we were a little ways off the beach I heard Jude screaming into her mouthpiece and pointing at a graceful sea turtle passing right under me.

As I dove down to film it I could hear the whales calling in the distance and I got some great pictures and some videos as well until the turtle got too far ahead of me to catch up.

I think this video gives you an idea of how magical it is to swim next to these beautiful creatures!

There are lots of other fish on the reef like these triggerfish.

Or this spotted trunkfish.

We also drove up the North shore to a famous bay called Honolua to watch the surfer boys .

There were a few surfer girls as well.

We caught another great sunset and then headed downtown to listen to live entertainment at some of the waterfront bars and restaurants.

We are really looking forward to sharing some of these special moments with the girls when the arrive next week.

Last Days on the Big Island

It took 5 days but finally the high surf conditions came down enough that the scuba diving charters were running again. All the books and everyone I talked to said if you only do one dive, make sure you do the night dive with the Manta Rays so off I went to hopefully get up close to these huge but gentle creatures. We boarded a catamaran in Keauhou bay and made the short trip out in front of the Sheraton hotel. After all the rough seas they were not sure if the Manta rays would show up but I guess not being fed for a few days helped because we had four big ones show up that night!

The catamaran has lights and each of us carried a flashlight to help attract plankton which is what attracts the Manta Rays. They circled and looped the loop around us as the four scuba divers stayed close to the bottom and a number of snorkelers floated on the surface. The 5 to 6 foot wide rays pass so close that it's hard to get a clear picture and they sometimes brush against you as they go by so they wouldn't let us wear snorkels. The dive master said that there are some dives when he comes out with Manta slime all over his dive cap!

I took a number of videos so I posted a few to try and give you an impression of the amazing experience I had diving with the Manta Rays. By the way, these gentle giants have no teeth (they eat the plankton by filtering through their huge mouths) and have no barbed stinger like the Sting Rays.

Here is another website that talks about diving with the Manta Rays in Kona:

http://www.5min.com/Video/Manta-Ray-Diving-in-Kona-with-Wayne-Levin-21293003

We decided to head downtown for some life entertainment at Bongo Bobs and dinner at Lu Lu's upstairs. It was another beautiful night, the stars were shining, the surf was pounding and the street was packed. Above our 2nd floor patio seats in Lu Lu's the ceiling, posts, walls and even the surfboard sign were plastered with dollar bills signed by everyone from famous celebrities to kids on their March break.

After a hearty dinner we checked out the local band at Bongo Bobs, sipping Mai Tai's and sitting next to a palm tree sticking through the roof (by the way the Mai Tai's were good but not anywhere near as good as Nick's!).

The band played Hawaiian versions of songs like Over the Rainbow, Hawaiian Superman or songs from groups like Doobie Brothers, U2 and Santana with a Hawaiian twist. The guys were great entertainers and everyone enjoyed their sets and added a lot of requests as well.

I thought I would finish our Big Island adventures with a parting shot of the catamaran just as we headed out for the Manta Ray dive. Now it's on to Maui!

Andy and Judy versus the Volcano

No trip to the Big Island is complete without going to see the Kilauea Volcano so we booked a helicopter ride with Safari Tours and headed off on a two hour drive to the Hilo airport. Along the way we stopped at Rainbow falls which is only about 4 blocks away from downtown Hilo.


Here we are with our little yellow life jackets, air sickness bags in hand (which thankfully no one tested out) ready to climb aboard and head off across the Macadamia nut fields to battle with the volcano.

We flew around the Pu'u'Oo Caldera which is a currently an active volcano spewing noxious fumes and sending hot lava through about 6 miles of underground tubes to the sea.

It was a really clear day and as we circled the crater you could see right inside to the bottom of the caldera and the multicoloured rock layers inside the rim. The crater is huge and at least 1 or 2 kilometers across.

The lava then flows through tubes just under the surface of previous flows which insulates the lava and allows it to flow all the way to the sea without cooling down much. In some areas the crust on top of the tubes collapses and you get round "windows" which let you see the red hot lave inside. The hole in the picture below would be big enough to fly the helicopter into, although I guess it would melt if you ever tried it! The picture hardly does justice to the red glow plainly visible in the midday Hawaiian sunshine.

At the end of the tube the lava flows into the sea in a big cloud of steam. This is where the island is growing day by day adding about 600 acres in the last few years.

After the helicopter tour we drove 45 minutes to the Volcano State Park and hiked about 4 kilometers around the top of the rim of the Kilauea Iki Crater which has a 100 year old lava lake at the bottom. You can actually hike across the floor of the crater but it was closed when we got there due to poor air quality because of the active vent seen on the far side of the crater which is about 2 miles across.

We then drove down the chain of Craters road to the ocean and hiked across roads covered by previous lava flows to get a view from the ground of the same lava flowing into the sea that we saw from the helicopter.

The lava covered the highway, destroyed hundreds of homes, acres of forests but enough warning was given to prevent any loss of life. We wanted to drive down highway 130 to the other side of the lava flow but the wind direction was unfavourable and viewing there was closed. The fumes really stink and can be very harmful and even fatal if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hiking across the lava is slow and tedious especially since the ground is very uneven and if you fall it is as sharp as glass (as Judy's knees can attest to!).

The next day we decided to drive up snow topped mount Mauna Kea which is 13,796 feet high but has roads all the way up to the telescope observatories at the top.

Sorry that we don't have any pictures of the last part of the gravel road, which wound steeply back and forth up the side of the mountain without guard rails, because Judy had her eyes closed and refused to look and I had both hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. For some reason everyone else there had a 4 wheel drive truck while we just drove up in our Chevy Cobalt compact car! At the top I made snowballs and played in the snow and was out of breath in 2 minutes. Above 13,000 feet there is not much oxygen and you can suffer from altitude sickness very quickly.

Someone else made a nice Hawaiian snowman and you can see the other mountain peak, Mauna Loa (13,677 feet high) in the background.

After our day on the mountain we drove back to the sea, lay out by the pool and watched the sunset to cap off a few more great days in the sun.

The Big Island

On our first morning on the Big Island we started out with a trip to the local fruit market where Judy bought fresh Mangos, Pineapples, Apple Bananas and lots of local veggies. She couldn't resist smelling all the colourful fresh cut flowers and buying a bag of macadamia nuts.
On the trip back we passed a number of examples of local graffiti along the highway which consists of white coral spelling out a tribute on the black lava rock. I think this started out as a memorial to someone who had died in a highway car accident 20 years ago and has blossomed into hundreds of messages about almost everything. The west coast of the island is a barren desert but is still very picturesque.

This part of the road is also used for the World Championship Iron Man race held every year in October in Kona. They swim 2.4 miles across the harbour where the market is located and then bike 112 miles up the coast, past where our condo is located, to a place called Hawi (pronounced Havi) and back and then run 26.2 miles up to the airport and back. We passed a number of bikes along the way with people training for the next Iron Man and I thought of Roy and I out on the road in Newmarket, not quite the same thing!


So in the afternoon, we drove up to Havi and then at the end of the North Shore road hoofed it down a winding path along a cliff, which led to a black sand beach at Pololu Valley.

It's hard to see the scale in this picture but just outside the surf line is a Seadoo and it's "V" shaped wake. The two white dots are people on the beach and the cliffs we climbed down are at least 500 feet high.

Wednesday we decided to drive out to the south end of the island. The weather varied from bright sunshine, to mist and rain in the mountains where they grow Kona Coffee and back to sun shine again. Close to South Point are four large wind farms next to a number of ranches.

It was raining again by the time we got to the southern most point in the United States (yes it's hundreds of miles south of Key West) so we had to give up on our plan to hike 2 miles to the green beach. Apparently there is a mineral in the sand from the volcanic eruptions called olivine which colours it green instead of black. The Big Island is the youngest of the Hawaiian islands so many of it's beaches are still black lava sand.

The high wind and dangerous surf conditions caused the authorities to close all the beaches but of course, many of the local boys had to show off their Kohonas and test the extreme surf.

We stopped a took a lot of pictures and picked a few to try and give you an impression of just what 15 to 20 foot surf looks like.

You can see a guy inside this wave to the left of the guy on the boogie board.

It was amazing how these guys survived getting pummeled and would then swim out for more. We saw a few surf and boogie boards get smashed on the rocks but no major injuries.

Take a look at this short video clip I took this afternoon.

The day finished with yet another great sunset to provide a perfect end to a great day on the Big Island.

Farewell to Kauai

For our last day in Kauai we decided to cruise the Wailua River in a Kayak and then take a 2 km hike through the rain forest to the secret waterfalls.

The river banks were lined with Hibiscus plants that had yellow, orange and red flowers

The hike included two river crossings of waist deep water, thick red mud halfway up your calves and climbing over roots and branches.

The waterfall at the end was truly spectacular, just like it was out of a fairy tale. It was 120 feet high in a lush tropical setting surrounded by rock cliffs and hanging vines. You felt like Tarzan should be swinging by any moment!

After we washed the mud somewhat off our bodies and dried out, we rented a couple of bicycles and toured down the Coconut Trail. The trail follows the eastern coastline and is used by joggers and walkers as well.

With the sun starting to set we picked up some fresh Ahi Tuna for the BBQ and headed back to the Condo.

I thought that I would finish with a few of the pictures taken right from our Condo balcony. The first one is a Humpback Whale in mid-air leaping out of the water.

The second one is of a surfer standing on his board with a long single bladed paddle and with a whale surfacing just a little ways further out to sea. It was amazing to watch these guys surf in standing up on the board and using the paddle to steer and balance themselves. It was even more amazing to see huge whales jumping and splashing right behind them!

The last picture is of a sea turtle, feeding on green algae in the morning right off the rocks. The endangered turtles are protected by law but we saw many of them right along the shore in front of the Condo.

Tomorrow we head off to Kona on the Big Island and say so long to Kauai even though we still didn't do everything we were hoping to.

Kauai is a magical place and we definitely plan to come back.

Kauai Continued

The last three days have been fantastic with great weather, lots of activities and many photo ops. I've included quite a few pictures to try and give you a sense of how beautiful it is here.

We went snorkeling right in front of the Condo with hundreds of colourful fish visible as soon as you were waist deep in the water.

I tested my swing at the Poipu Bay Golf club, home of the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.

We boarded a 50' catamaran for a cruise up the Na Pali Coast and breathtaking cliffs and waterfalls plus we saw 30 or 40 spinner dolphins and at least 50 Humpback whales.

Later that day we drove up to Waimea Canyon which is often compared to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

We also hiked the Mahaulepu Trail (try saying that three times fast!) which winds up and down along cliffs along the southern shore.

Finally we drove up to Princeville and Haena State Park on the north shore to catch a sunset and watch the full moon rise over the palm trees.

So much to see and so little time!

Kauai the Garden Isle

So after a long day of travelling, we arrived at our condo on Kauai at 9:30pm local time or 2:30am EST. We left for the airport at 6:00am so it took over 20 hours total travel time, and that was without any flight delays!

The condo is great, we are right next to the ocean and the sound of the surf on the rocks is a constant reminder that we are not in Kansas anymore. When we woke up this morning we looked out from the balcony and saw Humpback whales breaching out to sea. The plan was to take things easy today, grocery shopping, drive around and get the lay of the land, visit the market, take a few walks (which is where we saw the gecko) and plan and book the next few day's activities. So tomorrow is golf at Poipu Bay and Friday is an adventure sail up the Na Pali coast on a catamaran!

The sunset in front of the condo was gorgeous!

We had a nice romantic dinner on the balcony and then took a walk along the seashore in the moonlight. Overall a great start to our adventures.