Flora and Fauna (day 5)

Yesterday we watched an egret scoop one of these little guys up and eat it.

This may be my favorite flower shot.

I like plants that pretend to be birds- very clever.

I like this tree- it looks like it has pineapples growing on it.

Falling H2Os

Grand Style Mele Kalikimaka

I don't know what he's doing in the fountain, but I like it.

It's very odd to wander the halls of an open air tropical resort decorated for Christmas with Yuletide tunes playing the background.

Carpe Carp (Seize the Fish): Day 3

Peter's Conference begins at 8am every morning and doesn't get out until after dark, but that didn't stop us from going snorkeling. Luckily there are lovely reefs at either end of the beach we're staying on, so in the early morning light, we grabbed our gear and headed for the closest one.

It was not disappointing. I even saw another octopus that inked at me when I tried to catch it to show Peter. Here's some footage of a typical snorkel (taken during my kayak tour, but you get the idea). Basically, it's an underwater game of "I Spy."

Goodnight Sun (day 3)

If you're wondering what this last picture is- it's the light outside my hotel room. I forgot my key when I left for the photoshoot, so I sat down and waited 20 minutes for Peter to come back from his conference. Got very boring.

Kayaking and Sea Creatures (day 2)

"If I paddle three more strokes, my arms are going to fall off. And then the sharks will sense the fallen limbs and come have a feeding frenzy and tip my kayak, and I'll be eaten."  My thoughts, as I kayaked out toward a shipwreck over a mile away.  But despite my fears, I persevered and my arms did not fall off and I had a lovely ocean kayak/snorkel tour while Peter was busy with his conference.

Our first stop was a shipwreck.  The water is clear enough that you can see it from the surface, even though it's about 75 feet down. I dove down a dozen feet or so to catch a closer look, but our guide is an amuteur free-diver, and caught some awesome footage.

Next we paddled over to a reef and swam with many a sea creature, including: sea turtles (3- I pet one of them on the shell on accident), a manta ray (our guide was surprised to see one), an octopus which I wore as a bracelet for a while, a sea cucumber (I "squirted" it),  a spiny sea urchin-like thing that I held in my hand, and of course, fish galore.

Perhaps my favorite part of diving is that if you listen very carefully, you can hear the faint sounds of whale song under the sea.

The pictures and video were taken by the guide's camera on our trip. He then sold them to us for the price of a disposable camera.

A View From a Sunday Lanai (day 1)

 Our first afternoon/evening in Maui exceeded my already grand expectations.  The view from our room is breathtaking (first and last shots- saw my first ocean sunset!), we visited the beach near twilight and saw three whales making their way through the waters, ate a delicious meal of macadamia nut encrusted mahi mahi at Humuhumunukunukuapua'a while surrounded by a salt water lagoon, and soaked up the warm Hawaiian air.