September 2006 Archives
I’ve ridden my bike to work for almost 2 months straight… yesterday was the first time I got rained on.
We went SCUBA diving on Saturday, and it was... AWESOME! It’s been 3 weeks since we were certified, and this was our first time out since then. We originally planned on going to Ulua Beach (where we learned) on our own, but then we decided to pay a guide to take us. Better, safe than sorry, right?
So we showed up at the Maui Dreams Dive shop on Saturday at 7am! After getting all of our gear picked out, we headed out to Makena Landing for our first dive. Before we got in the water, the guide told us that there was a good chance that we’d see white tipped reef sharks. I knew that they were pretty harmless, but I could tell that Kara was a little freaked out!
In to the water and down we went; we cruised along the bottom for a while until we came to an underwater cavern. The guide had equipped us with flashlights before we left, so we turned them on and swam into the cavern. We didn’t go very far until one of us spotted a sea turtle hanging out in one corner of the cave! As we were leaving the cavern, we spotted our first shark!! It was probably about 4 feet long and it was swimming along the other side of the cave. It was kind of mesmerizing to look at it... I mean, it’s a shark!!
After we left that cave, we moved further up the coast to a second cave. This one is called the ‘bubble cave’ because you can actually surface to an air pocket inside it. So we swam inside and then slowly surfaced. It was SO neat inside, as the water surged in and out of the cave, air rushed in through unseen holes in the rocks. A few of the surges were really large, and the air turned to sea mist. It was really quite amazing!
We left the bubble cave and continued until we reached the third cavern called the ‘toilet bowl.’ As we swam up to it, we saw the silhouette of two sharks circling in the cave. There was a strong surge near the cave mouth, so we had to hold on to some rocks to keep from getting pushed in.
We hung out there for a little while, just looking at the sharks in the cave before we continued on to the turtle cleaning station. We saw three turtles hanging out on the reef getting their shells cleaned by fish. One of the neatest things about watching turtles is when they have to swim up for air. They launch up from the bottom and swim up until you can’t see them anymore (because we’re so deep that you can’t actually see the top)! Then if you watch long enough, they’ll reappear on their way back down. We watched the turtles for a while, then turned around and headed back to shore.
Once we got back, we broke down our gear and then drove over to Ulua Beach. This is the place that Kara and I got certified, so we are pretty familiar with it. The dive was very similar to our previous dives at Ulua with one exception... we saw a HUGE spotted eagle ray! It was munching on some coral when we spotted it, but I think it got spooked. It swam away, but came back making a giant circle around us. It must have had a 5 foot “wingspan,” it was incredible!!
Diving is officially my new favorite pastime. Do your self a favor... get certified before you come to Hawaii! That way we can show you some of the awesome underwater sights!!
So, I haven’t been posting much lately… But there’s a reason!! Both of our home computers are broken! I suppose I could post at work, but I’ve actually been too busy enjoying my work! Besides my broken computers, things are good.
Ok, I’m finally going to post something…
Kara and I took our first trip off of Maui over Labor Day weekend. We got up on Saturday morning and drove to Lahaina, and took a 40 minute ferry ride over to Lana’i. As we pulled in to Manele Harbor, we saw 20-30 dolphins swimming along side our boat!
We rented a Jeep while we were there because we had heard that there were lots of 4x4 trails. The first day we were there, we drove out to Garden of the Gods and Polihua Beach. Garden of the Gods is a barren part of the island where there are many volcanic rocks scattered about. We passed through the garden on the red dirt road and continued on to Polihua. When we got to the beach, there was not even one other person on the beach! Unfortunately you can’t swim at that beach because the current between Lana’i and Molokai is too strong! So, we walked way down on our own private beach and enjoyed the sights.
The second day we did more off-roading, this time to Shipwreck Beach. Once we got to the end of the trail, we hopped out and started hiking. There is a WWII ship that was purposely sunk off shore, and we wanted to get closer for a better look. There wasn’t much of a trail so we just pushed through bushes and climbed up rocks. At one point we noticed a group of axis deer (including some fawns) up the hill from us. After a while we decided to turn back, but we had some trouble finding our path! We were down in this gully and we just kept walking up and down trying to find the spot through the keave trees that we originally came through. Eventually we found it, and made our way back to the jeep.
After Shipwreck Beach, we bounced, slid, and banged our way down to the other end of the dirt road. The map said that it should have taken us two hours to make it to the end, but we made it in 50 minutes! I think it’s safe to admit that I was driving faster and more reckless than the person that made the 2 hour estimate! Kara took this great video of us bombing down the trail… I’ll post it once I get it off the broken laptop.
Our third day was spent hanging out at the Four Seasons Manele Bay Resort pool. We ran into some people on the island that we kind of knew, and they invited us to hang out at the pool. It was a nice relaxing end to our three day romp around the island!
