Update Part 2

As I'm sure you have noticed, creating new and exciting posts hasn't been happening very often.  And it's not due to lack of new and exciting experiences - it's due to lack of free time and committing myself to sitting at my computer for an hour...while in Hawai'i....when it's beautiful pretty much every day....and there is so much to do and see.  BUT, lucky for you (less so for me) it's raining this afternoon.  Time to play catch up.

So I last left you at Black Rock and the cliff jumping.  The following 'weekend' (I work 6 day weeks so weekend means my two days off in a row, regardless of what day it is) Helen and I wanted to check out Big Beach, which is...a big beach.  It's located on the far southwest of Maui - south of where I live.  I didn't have a car yet so we hitchhiked!  I have never done it before and it's legal here (well..the jury is still out on that one).  The first guy that picked us up was headed to Big Beach too so we got a ride the whole way.  We just jumped in the back of his pickup truck.

Once we made it to Big Beach, we kept exploring south to Ahihi-Kinau Natural Reserve.  We found a cool little cove to take a dip in and play in the tidal pools.  Helen and I were checking out some critters when a woman asked if she could take our picture.  She was a local artist and liked the way our reflection was shining off the pools.  She sent me the picture - said she was going to paint us.  No big deal.  We're kinda famous.

 
After cooling off we continued up the road to the lava fields.  We walked up the road and felt like we landed on another planet!  It's so bizarre looking.  There is this single lane road with lava rock on either side.  It was so quiet too.  The lava rock juts out into the ocean (to the right in this picture) but it's closed to visitors to maintain the awesome-ness that is the lava rock.

We continued walking for a bit then decided we better start heading back.  We caught another ride from these two total hippies!  So cliche.  They were pretty much living out of this van (we had to climb on top of their stuff - yet avoid the musical instruments).  They were very nice people and brought us back to Big Beach.  From there we hitched another ride to South Kihei from this woman who actually grew up in Worcester!  Small world!  She was also very nice and gave us a lift as far as she was going - but we were able to catch the bus the rest of the way home.  Great weekend!

February is a big month here in Maui.  It's the peak of the whale season so there are a lot of events happening this month.  To start it off, the following week was the Run for the Whales event.  There is a half marathon, 10k, 5k and a 2.5 mile walk.  As interns, we were able to help out with this event.  I was put at a water station for the walkers.  It was a fast event.  They literally came in one huge wave and then they were gone.  All hydrated (including a cute thirsty pup)! :)  This event is kind of the kick-off for the month.  I'll tell you more about the events as they happen.

Barclay and Ryan in action!

That night, I flew out to Oahu to see my friend Andi, who was in Ewa visiting a couple of her friends.  I crashed the party.  It was wonderful to see Andi and her friends were very gracious to have me.  Unfortunately, it rained my entire stay on the island but we still managed to have some fun.  We visited Pearl Harbor, which was on my list of things to do while out here.  It was pretty heavy.  It's an amazing museum and memorial and I highly recommend it to anyone in the area.

USS Arizona Memorial

Andi and me on the USS Bowfin

The USS Bowfin was pretty cool.  It's a museum of an old submarine so you can actually walk around inside of it.  It's unbelievable how many knobs and handles and switched and gauges there are!  And there were bunks right above the torpedo's.  The new guys must have been stuck with those ones.  Yikes!

We also did a driving tour of the famous North Shore.  We were going to go to the beach/walk around but it was pouring rain.  The driving tour was pretty cool though!  We might have even found Jack Johnson's house. 0:-D I saw the famous pipeline and Turtle Bay.  We stopped at some food trucks for lunch and I had a bacon wrapped spicy sausage with spicy mayo.  A heart attack waiting to happen, indeed, but SO yummy! It was a great visit.  Unfortunate that it rained the whole time I was there but wonderful company all around.  And Andi eventually got some sunny days before she had to fly back to snowy Boston. 

This is a long post - so I'll stop here but we're almost caught up to current day!  Yay.  I'll try to keep updating more regularly but I might have to wait for another bad weather day. ;)

Aloha!

Update - Part 1

Sorry, sorry, sorry! I know it's been a long while since my last post but I've been pretty busy/tired.  So what does that mean?  I have a lot to catch you up on.  Where to start...

The whales are awesome.  It's still incredible to see them every day and it's pretty awesome that I get to see them every day.  More and more of them are showing up.  It's getting to be what they call "whale soup."  There are just so many whales out in these waters now that they're everywhere!  Literally everywhere.  I can't imagine being a boat captain and having to avoid all those whales.  I'd be stressed to the max!  Good thing they've been doing it for years on end.

What else have I been up to?  Well, on January 18th, Surfrider  (the Maui Chapter) hosted a beach clean-up down at one of Kihei's local beaches.  Most of the research interns and our boss, Manue, all joined in.

                           

It was pretty successful and the beach was actually really clean - always good to see.  After the clean up, Helen and I had the day off and decided to head towards the north shore of Maui to a town called Pa'ia.  It's a tiny little hippy town pretty much focused around surfing.  The waves were a little more than Helen and I dared to handle so we set up on the beach and watched the much more advanced surfers do their thing.

Not a bad way to spend a day off.  The following day Jack and I decided to venture to the northwest portion of Maui to a town called Ka'anapali.  There is an area called the "Whalers Village."  Sounds potentially cool right?  Wrong.  It's a giant shopping center surround by resorts.  I was super bummed about that but we walked down the beach a bit and found a cliff from which people were jumping off.  It looked pretty sweet and it had been a long while since my cliff jumping days with Todd & his friends.  It's called Black Rock.  We climbed to the top of the 20-25' cliff and juuuuuummmmppped!

It doesn't look that high, but from the top looking down - a few butterflies sprang up in my stomach.  We jumped a few times and then enjoyed the beach.  It was a great weekend.

I don't want to bombard you with too much of an update at one time, so I'll stop here and hopefully write another post tomorrow night to catch you up to current date.  Still lovin' Hawai'i! :)

Aloha!