The first day on Maui, we went whale watching, and it was AWESOME! We were in the middle of whale season in Hawaii, and by all accounts, we went out on the best day of the year. About 10 minutes into our trip we saw our first 'breach' - when a humpback whale jumps out of the water and lands with a huge splash. We were told that this was the grand-slam of whale watching. This must have been all star whale weekend because we were witness to about 50 breaching whales during our 3 hour trip.
These pictures don't do it justice, but they are still impressive.
Who knew 40-ton whales could jump this high?
After seeing about 40 whales jump out of the water, Jonas got a little tired, and took a little nap.
At the end our boat captain told us if this is our first whale watching trip, we should stop now, because it will not get any better.
We also drove around the island to get an idea of what we wanted to do for the next 4 days.
You can actually see the top of a whale in this picture just behind the tree.
Day Two:
Letha and I decided to try surf paddling. We saw several people doing it along the shore next to our condo the day before, and it looked pretty easy - on a calm day...
Not as easy when the wind and waves kick up. It was pretty rocky along the shore, so Letha and I started to paddle out past the rocks while laying, sitting or kneeling on the board. About 100 yards from shore we see this huge head pop up 5 feet right in front of us, Letha screamed. It was a HUGE sea turtle. Its head was as big as mine. It took a long time to get out past the rocks. Over the next hour or so, we tried to stand up and paddle - unsuccessfully, and you will notice that there is no video of this, because by the time we got back to shore, our video crew (family) was 3 miles back up the beach where we took off from. We were exhausted and we both had cuts on our feet from getting knocked off the board onto the rocks. Since no one knew where we were and we had no cell phone, Letha walked back on hot concrete to get the car and I stayed with the boards. Not as much fun as we had hoped. We will probably try again...someday - maybe on a lake.
Not sure why, but we could not convince anyone else to try out surf paddling.
Day Three:
Our big hike was in Haleakala National Park. It's about a 12 mile hike through a huge dormant volcanic valley, with cinder cones and lots of lava rock.
Here is our hiking crew:
A view from the top:
Here is a pretty large cinder cone.
And this is a rare species of Silversword that can only be found here.
Here is McKenzie hiking back up to the top.
Here is a small lava tube:
We stopped to have some lunch.
McKenzie and I went to check out a cave up on the hill.
We had a visitor for lunch, the state bird of Hawaii the Nene - Hawaiian Goose
Day Four:
On our last day on Maui we decided to do a little more sight seeing. We went to see the Needle in Iao Valley State Park. The needle is a 2250 ft peak in the Iao Valley.
Off to the Big Island...
2 comments:
So Jonas, was it you and Mommy that went surf paddling or was it Mommy and Daddy? I'm confused. And, I didn't know that you called your Mommy Letha. If YOU went surf paddling, I'm going to have to speak to your Mommy and Daddy. BUSTED!
The air is a little thin at the top of Haleakala, isn't it? I remember being light headed when we were there, and we drove up.
Not sure what you are talking about, this post was obviously written by 'Daddy' :-)
Haleakala is about 10,000 feet. You might start felling a little low oxygen content at 10,000 feet. Just wait for the elevation on the Big Island.
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