Scuba Diving

We woke up fairly early and cooked breakfast. We wanted to eat in enough time to digest before scuba diving. We got out early and got to the dive shop around 8:30. That gave us time to find parking in Lahaina and get fitted for our wetsuits and gear. We were diving with Pacific Dive which is one of the few diving outfits that will do intro dives on Maui. We aren't certified and haven't spent our time to do that so we have to do resort dives which have much higher dive instructor to diver ratios (we had 2 instructors and 3 people on our dive).


After getting fitted for our gear, we drove up north to our dive spot and parked and got into our wetsuits and bcs. We walked down to the shore, and then into the water. After donning our fins, we kicked out to a buoy, dropped our dive flag and donned our masks and regulators. Then we slowly descended to the ocean floor. We got to the floor and hung out there for a bit to get situated, stow extra weight and then get moving. We were going to follow a sand channel in the coral north for about 30 minutes and then turn around and come back.



We got started kicking and were quickly rewarded with a school of fish. It was a pretty good situation to have 2 instructors because we had one in front looking for stuff and one behind us also trying to find things for us. We saw a wide variety of fish and coral and the like. We swam out about 25 minutes and took a read on our remaining oxygen and turned around. We started swimming back along the channel and picked up on a lot of things we missed on the first pass.


Megan was really excited to see not one, but two eels. You can see the one we caught on film right in the middle of the coral. It was surprising to see the huge variety we saw over the same path on one way and the way back. We got back to our dive flag and surfaced up. Once I got to the surface, I took off my regulator, upped my buoyancy and then my stomach started to get upset. I had been sick the last time I was scuba diving, but that was because I had been drinking too much the night before. This time I just got seasick on the surface with the big waves coming in.

We kicked onto shore and I immediately started to feel better. After getting rid of our gear, we headed down to costco to develop our film. It was only 14 dollars to develop our underwater camera and our hang gliding roll which included getting digital copies of each of them. It is amazing how dependent we are on digital photos now. Megan and I realized we haven't developed film since our New Zealand trip about 3 years ago. Costco luckily does 1 hour film development so we dropped it off, swung by a mall so Megan could look at a pet store and a few other stores in the mall. After killing enough time, we came back, got our film and headed up to Lahaina.

We wandered around downtown and stopped at a restaurant on the water so we could get some lunch, some drinks and watch the Cavaliers game. Megan got an amazing coconut encrusted ahi while we watched the tight game and consumed some blended beverages. At half time, we headed back up to our hotel where we napped for a bit and then went out to hang out by the sea to get some sun. We brought our wedding book and magazines and looked through a ton of venues to limit them down.

After we watched the sunrise, we headed back to the room and took out our computer and looked at pictures of a lot of the locations and contacted the ones we liked. Megan was really starting to feel sick so we headed over to ABC to get her some decongestant and allergy relief. After she took them she passed out. I woke her up a few hours later to have some ice cream and then we went to sleep.

Snorkeling and hiking

After waking up and making a leisurely breakfast, we headed up to Slaughterhouse beach to go snorkeling. We found sweet parking and walked down the steps to the beach. The water was really clear and we put on our fins and masks and got into the water. I was having problems with water getting into my breathing apparatus. Luckily while we were out there, another couple pointed out a SEA TURTLE!! Megan and I saw over and took some pictures of it and swam across the whole beach with it as it glided along in the water. Even though it looks like they don't exert much effort, they can really move.

We then headed in so I could look at my breathing thing and because I had been drinking sea water while trying to breathe. We got close to the shore and were about to take off our fins when Megan's fin broke. We took off our other fins and saw her fin had cracked pretty badly where the fins flex. It looked like poor design in general. As such we were done snorkeling for the day.

We took a short nap, ate our packed lunch, and then headed up the coast to the Nakalele blowhole, a lava shelf that has been undercut by the sea. On high tide, when a big wave comes in, it sprays a good 50/60 feet in the air. There are two ways to get there, the chump way and the longer more difficult way. We of course took the latter which brought us past some people ATVing and along the coast with 100 foot cliffs with the ocean breaking hard below. We walked past a smaller blowhole which fools some less informed visitors and walked around the coast until we hit the real blow hole. I was wearing my swim trunks still so I went over to the hole and had Megan get some pictures.

Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel, made dinner and took a short nap. Megan was starting to feel sick so we decided we would keep it low key. We had both wanted to see Wolverine, so we headed to Lahaina downtown and caught the movie. After watching Wolverine wreck crap, we headed to downtown Front St and did some window shopping, toured some art galleries and found some post cards. Around 10 or so, things started to close down so we headed back to our hotel and went to sleep.

Recovery

After an exhausting day, all we had planned on Friday was a massage and a magic show. We slept in till 8 or so and put together a big breakfast. On the way, we tried to stop at a Long's drugs near us to develop our film from the hang gliding, but their photo lab was broken. We got down to Wailea and stopped at the Shops at Wailea to get a snack before our massage. We got a sandwich and gelato at Whalers village and then drove back to the Grand Wailea. After dropping our car at the valet parking (the only parking they have), we walked to the spa.

At the spa, they have an hour of bathing before the actual massage. I used the roman hot tub and then the cold plunge before heading to their specialty baths. Since the specialty baths have seaweed and other stuff in it, they want you to wash off after using each one. I went to the Swedish shower which you step in and have these jets of water clean you off for a good 20 seconds. Then into the steam room and then to the cascading water which massaged your back. Then they did this exfoliation thing and I went to the Japanese hot bath which had bubbles coming up from the floor. Then another cold plunge, more cascading water and finally a last Swedish shower and it was go time for the massage.

I met up with Megan and our two masseuses and we headed to this semi private cabana area. We had a foot exfoliation and then got on the massage tables. Both of our masseuses were very good. I think I passed out a couple times. It seemed like we were there forever which was awesome. Also at first I thought it was going to be lame to have the semiprivate area, but it turned out to be sweet as we could hear birds chirping and waterfalls around. It was very relaxing.

After the massage, we went back to the spa, showered and got changed. Then we stopped at the restaurant there which was right on the beach. We split a lobster sandwich and had a bunch of drinks and watched the first half of the Cavaliers game. We then left and tried the shops at Wailea to develop the film, but when we got to Ritz Camera there people were unloading all the cabinets and furniture. It looked like they had gone out of business a month ago. We decided we'd hit up costco later to develop it.

On the way back, we called and made reservations for scuba diving and surfing. When Megan made the scuba reservation she was told our instructor would be "Mark. He is an ex army ranger and is in shape and INTENSE! But he is nice" With that recommendation we had to do it with the company. We got back home in time to watch Lebron make a last second 3 to win the game. So good at basketball! Then we made a delicious salmon with crab/rice/shrimp stuffing. We had some wine with dinner and then called to make reservations for Scuba diving and surfing.

We had reservations at Warren and Annabelle's magic show for 8:30. We left early and parked and wandered around Lahaina downtown before calling the show for directions as we were hopelessly lost. Turns out the building is in the Lahaina parking lot area near Ruth & Chris' steakhouse. Google maps totally lied to us.

After we got there, they let us in and we got a few drinks while waiting for the show to start. They were out of strawberry which ruined my plans for a Captain based drink on the menu and also Megan's planned drink so we fell back to our usuals. They play show tunes to kill time for a while and then let you in. I think the show didn't start until 10 or so, but it was awesome. They moved Megan and I up to the front since they had asked if we were celebrating anything and we mentioned our engagement. We got to help on a bunch of tricks and he railed on Clorox and California for a while. It was SUPER funny and we both had a lot of fun. We ended up getting home after midnight and went to sleep. This was the latest we had been up yet in Maui.
We stayed up a little figuring out the plan for the next few days and crashed around midnight.

Sunrise and the Hana Highway

In order for us to make sunrise at the Haleakala crater, we had to wake up at 2:30 am. Luckily we had prepacked our breakfast and lunch, so we were off at 3:15 or so. Surprisingly enough, at 3 in the morning, there is no traffic on the roads. Whereas before we were going 30 miles an hour, this morning we were up at 60/65. Huge win for getting to the crater in time.

The last 10 miles or so is very windy as the switch backs of the road make their way up to the crater summit. We got to the summit which is around 10 thousand feet elevation at around 4:50 for a 5:39 sunrise. This was a perfect time because there were a lot of folks around. We moved to the edge and set up our tripod to make sure no chumps got in the way of our picture. There is nothing that ruins pictures more than other people. Did I mention it was cold? Cause it was fing freezing. It was 75 at sea level and 43 at the summit. The blue book had warned us that it was going to be cold so I brought all of my clothes. I was wearing a patagonia short sleeve, a patagonia long sleeve, a long sleeve button down and a north face fleece. I then had my hands in my shorts and another short sleeve shirt wrapped around my head as a hat. It was cold.

I have never seen something clear out faster than after the sun came up. There were a lot of bus trips that had everyone out a minute after the sunrise happened. Once it cleared out, we pushed our tripod back and took some pictures of us with the wireless remote. After taking a bunch more photos, we got back into the car, took off all our extra clothes and started the windy drive back to sea level. On the way down we had to dodge all these bike tours who were riding down in the lane and not on the shoulder. We had actually considered doing that but after talking to some people and reading the review in the blue book we decided not to pay for that ride. It isn't a tough bike at all; in fact you don't have to pedal at all. It is 100% downhill and not a real workout.

We finally got out of the park and headed up to take the road to Hana. Hana is a tiny town on the east side of Maui. In the future, whenever I hear that it is the journey not the destination that is the reward, I will think of Hana. The highway there is beautiful (and also super windy) and the town itself is a tiny little village with not much to speak of in terms of entertainment.

We were also armed with mp3s of a walk through of the hana highway. Unfortunately our rental car uses microsoft sync which as of iphone update 2.1, doesn't connect to the iphone even via usb. I hate you apple. So since we could only listen to it via the iphone built in speaker we decided to skip it. Anyone going to maui in the future can get these from me.

We reset our odometer at the start of the drive to match the maui book which lists everything by mile marker. The start of the drive is filled with a bunch of sucker stops that aren't that interesting and a lot of people waste their time on the early spots and rush through later. We stopped at mile 1 for a quick 20 minute nap. At this point it was a little after 8 am and we had been up for almost 6 hours. After we woke up, we continued past a few stops up until mile 10 where we went to the Garden of Eden. At mile marker 6 there is a hike to 4 waterfalls nearby, but we weren't up for it at this point. The Garden of Eden was one of the few places you have to pay admission. It was 10 a piece to see the gardens which have some animals wandering around and nice views of a cove and a waterfall. On the way out, there was a parrot showing which we stopped at. At first it seemed cool until the guy there informed us it would be 20 dollars for him to take a picture of us with OUR camera. We promptly left.

Soon after getting back on the road, we pulled off to see another waterfall. We had to jump a fence and take a sketchy trail down a ways, but it gave us a beautiful look back towards the falls.

Around mile 14, we stopped to get some banana bread. Apparently Hawaii loves the banana bread because there were shops all over for it. This place was recommended in the book so we stopped there. Heading back along, at the 17 mile mark, there is a small pullout and we walked down below the bridge to see Ching's Pond. You can apparently jump about 25 feet from around bridge level straight down into the water. You have a very small margin for error.

There were a couple other small stops we took along the way to see small waterfalls and other vistas. At around mile 24, we took the branch off to Nahiku Rd which was a one lane road meandering its way down to the coast. It was very green with vegetation overflowing onto the road. There were a few workers trimming back the trees and bushes on the side all the way down. Finally we hit a turnaround at the bottom and there was a "resident only" sign for the rest of the way. We parked our car and followed the road about a mile down to the coast. It was beautiful to see the rocky coast and the waves crashing up on the surf. It was definitely worth it to walk down. However I think you can actually drive it because there is a big parking area and turnaround at the bottom. It was drizzling a little so we didn't spend too much time there and walked back to our car.

We continued on to stop at the Kahanu Garden. However at that time it was pouring. We looked at the flier and it looked like a wide expanse of grass. There is a large temple there, but you can't climb on it and we decided to bag it and continue on the road. We drove on to the Wai'anapanapa black sand beach. It is formed from lava floes hitting the water and leaving fragments of sand. The sand wasn't very fine and was somewhat painful to walk on. We waded in to the water and were rewarded with some glimpses of sea turtles swimming by the cliffs on the left hand side of the beach. We walked back to our car and headed into Hana Bay where we stopped off the road by a beach with concrete tables. We pulled out or bamboo mats and took a nap for 20 minutes to kill time until our powered hang gliding flight at 4:30. We would have prefered to continue on the road but the county was doing construction on the Paihi bridge about 10 miles after Hana and had closed the bridge. After waking up, we drove back west to the Hana Airport.

We had gotten lucky to get reservations when we called yesterday for powered hang gliding because he had a packed schedule. We booked with Armin at Hang Gliding Maui We each had a half hour "lesson" because he can't charge for sight seeing tours. He first took Megan because she was more nervous about the flight. I took pictures with the little camera while he took her up. While she was up, I ran back to the car to get the big camera to take better pictures of her landing. I got some good pictures of her landing and then I gave the camera to her while I went up.

It was amazing! I have never been up in a small plane type thing. We went up as high as 4000 feet and had great views of the coastline of Maui as well as some of the valleys and waterfalls. I also got to steer the glider for a few minutes and then he took over and navigated us around. Armin is a great pilot and also fun to talk to the whole time. I can't recommend the flight enough. It was ridiculously outstanding. He also recommended a restaurant in Pa'ia for dinner.

We left around 5:30 and the traffic was almost all cleared up now. We knew the roads better and kept a much better pace this time and got to Pa'ia and stopped at Jacques, a seafood/sushi restaurant. I had the mahi with wasabi sauce and it was really good. After dinner, we drove back to our hotel where we passed out around 10 pm exhausted after a ridiculously long day.

Easy Day

We woke up fairly early since we are still on California time. We had purchased "Maui Revealed" and we read that to plan the day while eating a leisurely breakfast of last nights poki grilled with scrambled eggs. We packed up our lunch and headed out.

We drove south and stopped by Del Sol to get our free tote (we got a coupon from our hotel). I dropped Megan off while I looked for parking. By the time I found parking, she was done, so I turned around and picked her up. Del Sol was located in Whaler's Village, a cute little open air mall on the water. Megan wanted to do shopping there and said we should go back later. The free beach bag was key because it could hold our snorkel gear.

We decided to drive down to the south island because it listed some good snorkeling spots. It also said that South Maui is the super fancy area so we figured we could visit it post snorkeling. We drove down past the Four Seasons and the Grand Wailea, both amazing resorts and continued on towards our snorkeling spot. We were trying to go to a place recommended both in the book and by one of Megan's coworkers called Fishbowl. To get there, we were going to have to park and then walk a mile or so over volcanic rock and then get in to the water. Unfortunately when we got to the location of the trailhead, there were signs saying it was closed and there was a 1000 dollar fine/a year of jail time for trespassing. We drove back about a mile or so where we saw a ranger and got out to talk to him. Apparently the jerk tourists had ruined the walkway and the corral at that snorkeling spot so he suggested another place close by that was still open.

We parked, changed into our swim gear and headed down to the beach. After throwing on our gear, we walked in and swam out towards the corral. I had never been snorkeling without a wet suit before and I was happy that I didn't have to work that hard to stay afloat. It was actually way easier to float around and look at stuff then to tread water when you had to mess with your mask. I had a few issues with water getting into the breathing apparatus, but other than that nothing major. We saw a bunch of surgeon fishes, some butterfly fish and also some other fish that are less easily identified. We made a note to get an underwater camera to take pictures there.

Afterwards, we got into dry clothes and headed up a couple miles north to a sandy beach. We found a spot under a tree to get some shade, and ate our lunch. We were both super tired after snorkeling for 2 hours or so and we totally passed out for an hour. We woke up and drove up to the Grand Wailea because our Maui book told us they had good massages there. We pulled up and dropped our car with the valet and headed in to the resort. It is an amazing place. There are gardens and ponds all over and it is very open. It was actually somewhat difficult to navigate. We had to find a map off to the side which told us how to get to the spa and even then it took us another 5/10 minutes to find where we wanted to go.

We signed up for a joint massage for Friday, got our parking validated and then wandered around the grounds. There was a sweet bar over looking the beach as well as a mall off to the left of the entrance. Megan wanted to do some window shopping so we headed around there. The one jewelry store had the ugliest tackiest octopus bracelet. The thing probably weighed 5 pounds and was huge. I pointed it out to Megan to laugh at it and the sales person quickly showed us the female version. Megan said this looks pretty ... and was about to say ridiculous or tacky or disgusting or something along those lines and got cut off by the salesperson who said "I know it is done so well isn't it?" We bit our tongues and headed back to our car.

We drove back up towards our hotel and stopped at the Whalers village to walk around the shops. Megan bought some clothing and then we stopped at Hula Grill to get some drinks. We saw the end of the Cavaliers/Magic game and got some tropical drinks and a tropical fruit taster platter. Some of the fruits were ... interesting.


After hanging out for a while, it was getting close to sunset so we waited at our table for the green flash. After we didn't see it, we walked back to our car.

Along the way, Megan saw some toads out on the gold course. She LOVES toads. So of course she went about to pick them up. Toads pee themself when they are scared, but Megan has so much experience traumatizing them that she knows how to hold them so they won't pee on her. After giving a few toads heart attacks, we drove back up to our hotel. On the way back we called and made reservations for Warren and Annabelle's Magic show and for powered paragliding. We made dinner and packed our breakfast and lunches for tomorrow. The plan was to get up at 2:30 am to see the sunrise on top of the Haleakala crater so we had to get everything ready the night before.

Hawaii!!

Megan and I have been super busy the past few months. Between work, frisbee starting up, other travel and moving we haven't had a lot of free time. We had booked a week long trip over memorial day a while ago and it kind of snuck up on us. As a result we were still organizing the house and unpacking when the time came to get ready. We ended up staying up packing until 2 am Monday night when we flew out at 9 am.

We had planned to take Caltrain to BART to SFO, but after looking at times and prices, it was marginally cheaper and way less convenient to use public transit (goold old bay area) so we drove up and parked in Millbrae and headed over to the airport.

We thankfully talked our way into exit rows on the long flight to Oahu, got some food and jumped on the flight. It actually went pretty quickly. We both passed out for varying amounts of time and I stayed up long enough to watch the in flight movie, Inkheart.

We touched down in Honolulu just in time to run to our connection, swap seats and get on board. We got in to Maui around 1:30 pm local time (2 hours earlier than Cali). We had gotten advice that we should try and buy groceries for the week at costco so we stopped by the costco right next to the airport. We then drove over to Laihana where we are renting a condo for the week. It took about an hour to drive about 35 miles as the speed limits are woefully inadequate. If you make a 2 lane highway, why would you put the limit at 30?

We got home to the Paki Maui, and we put away food and walked out to the beach while it was still warm. We wandered north and south up the beach front to see what the coast was like. We then headed out to the grocery store to pick up non costco sized food stuffs. As far as I can tell Maui is 25% more expensive than Cali which isn't terrible.

We got back and made dinner. We split a bottle of wine and we both passed out around 9pm. Pictures to come later.

Engaged

Megan and I headed down to San Luis Obispo for a weekend trip.  The gas at home had been turned off through some idiocy on PG&Es part and we were without hot water and heat, so it was good to get away.  We drove down Friday night after she got done with her personal training workout.  On the way down, we used my newly installed DVD receiver in my car and watched Studio 60.   And by watched, I mean I listened and she watched.  Luckily Studio 60 is one of the shows where it is way less slapstick and more witty so I was able to followed it along pretty well without seeing what was happening.

We were staying at the Peach Tree Inn which is about a mile from downtown SLO but is pretty awesome.  It is a family run deal and they have a good continental breakfast.  The rooms are decent sized and have a couch, desk and space for Megan's bike.  What was really awesomeabout them is when I was chatting up the front desk it turns out they had a ton of bike paths in the area mapped out with elevation markers and pictures from the route.  We chose one of the shorter routes at 28 miles and headed over to Art's Cyclery to rent a bike for me.

After getting a bike we left our car at Art's and started on the trip.  When we were heading up one of the hills I told her my seat didn't feel right (thanks Paul) and I wanted to adjust it at the top of the next hill.  She said she thought it looked off also.  We climbed to the top of the next hill and we stopped at a little turnout overlooking the vineyards.  I got down on a knee and fiddled in the bag for bike tools (double thanks Paul) to "adjust my seat".  She was standing right near me looking out over the hills and not paying attention to what I was doing.  While she wasn't watching, I got the ring out and asked her.  Her first response was "Really? Are you serious?", but then she quickly got onboard :-)

We then headed up to our friend Brynne's father's vineyard, Domain Alfred and tasted some wine and called our parents before getting back on our bikes and finishing up the route.  We dropped off my bike and then headed back to our hotel.  After getting cleaned up and taking some pictures, we headed into downtown SLO to get lunch at Firestone and do some shopping and got some FroYo.  After getting a ticket for not putting money in the parking meter (oops) we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was at Artisan in nearby Paso Robles which was awesome.   We ended up getting back to the hotel around 11/11:30 and were both exhausted after the long day.

Sunday we headed up to Hearst Castle.  Hearst had been our first weekend trip in California, so it was good to go back.  This time we took the tour 2 which showed a bunch of the private living areas and the kitchen.  When I first booked the tour I was super excited to see the kitchen but when we actually got there, it was much less impressive than i expected.  Luckily the other ridiculous rooms he had put together made up for it.  I realized that the appeal of Hearst castle is the extravagance of the ceilings and paintings and while the kitchen was huge and super modern for the time, without the expensive addons the room didn't pop like the others do.

After finishing the tour, we grabbed lunch at Main St Grill in Cambria which appeared to be a clone of Firestone from SLO (same menu and everything) and then headed back up to the bay area.  

Woot! Megan is officially recruited to the Schechter team.