Michelle and I have spent the last eight days in paradise. We don’t want to leave. Our flight leaves in a bit less than 12 hours, and I have insomnia. It’s probably because of the Coke I had with dinner, trying to chase a headache away. Though, it might be I don’t want to leave, or because I still have some packing to do before we head for the airport, or any of a half dozen other things. It’s silly to be awake now, since Maui is completely dead at night, and I’m just cutting into or reducing the quality of the remaining time I’ll have in the morning. But insomnia is like that. Completely illogical and entirely counterproductive. Unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with it, but I’m not going there today.
We made it to Maui one week ago yesterday, in the morning. It was warm and sunny. Our bags were waiting at the carousel for us, and I was first in line for the rental car. The condo was available for early check-in. We signed up for two boat diving trips: one to Molokini Crater and another to Lanai.
Molokini Crater
Over the course of the week, we got in four boat dives (two on each trip), five shore dives and one snorkel. The Molokini trip usually goes to Turtle Town in Makena for its second dive. However, the water at Molokini was so calm, and the crater was so deserted after our first dive, that we decided to just move the boat from the west end of the crater to the east end and do our second dive there. At the west end, we saw bunches of eels, including the endemic garden eels as well as the common moray eels. At the east end, we saw endemic and rare fish.
Lanai
On the two Lanai dives, we saw octopi, lobsters, and white tip reef sharks. In one cave, there were two white tips, one of which was content to nap. The other got agitated by having half a dozen divers staring at it and pointing a flashlight at it. It swam around anxiously within the cave until enough of the divers had cleared away from the entrance, then it bolted out into open water. It’s amazing how quickly sharks accelerate. We also saw too many Crown of Thorns sea stars (an invasive species which eats coral) and one Tritons Trumpet (picture a big Conch or a massive snail) which was dining a big Crown of Thorns.
Ulua Beach
Green turtles were the theme for all of our shore dives. We started off at Black Rock in Kaanapali, where we saw “only” a couple of turtles, as well as a few eels (a zebra eel and a couple of morays) and plenty of fish. We snorkeled at Olowalu, where we spotted a large green turtle, though it sunk under a ledge too low for us to get a good look. Our dive at Kamaole Park III was pretty forgettable. We had tanks to use before our Molokini boat left, and Kam III is right in front of the condo complex where we’re staying, so we used the tanks there not realizing how shallow it is (only got down to 15′ on the entire dive). We did two dives at Ulua Beach, finding a turtle colony of 16!! Finally, we tried to do a shark dive at Makena Landing on Saturday morning. The surge was so strong, though, that we had to stay away from the cliff face and therefore from the shark caves. We ended up out at Turtle Town, where we had a very close encounter with one big turtle. It swam right up to me, and would have bumped into me had I not floated up out of his way. Undeterred, he turned right around and swam up to Michelle, scrounging at the cummerbund of her BC for a quarter or half a minute until she wiggled out of his way. We saw six more turtles in Turtle Town, some hanging out at the bottom and other swimming up to get air or back down afterward.
The other recurring theme of our dives were equipment failures. Michelle brought a reusable underwater camera along with her, which she got through her incentive compensation program from her employer. It was brand new, and it started to leak on the very first dive. We kept using it anyway though. Until brown water poured out of the actual camera on the third roll of film. We couldn’t tell whether it was the emulsion or just battery acid, but the film wouldn’t rewind on fresh batteries, so it really didn’t matter. So, we ended up with no pictures of Lanai. We switched to a new camera for the Ulua dive. Unfortunately, Michelle was not familiar with the camera and wrecked it while trying to rewind the film. So, we got another one and did the same dive again. We swapped film in the camera before the Makena Landing dive, but inadvertently closed the shutter before putting it back into the underwater casing. So, we ended up with no pictures from that dive too. Michelle’s BC also decided to start filling itself on this trip. It just needs some minor servicing, fortunately.
The big bummer was losing my iPod, presumably on the plane. I noticed it missing on Sunday morning, and couldn’t remember putting it in my backpack on the plane after the battery died. My hope of recovering it is fading quickly. I am dismayed by how few people turn in found items these days. On the Makena dive, I found a mesh snorkel bag with a Red Sox cap and a pair of sunglasses in it. I couldn’t believe that everyone I talked to in my quest to return the bag to the Sox fan was of the mind that I should just keep it, or amazed that I was trying to return it. I hope that whoever found/finds my iPod will turn it in to North American Airlines, and that they, in turn, will follow through and get it back to me.
So, the plane takes off in barely more than ten hours. I’ll get to see how my house looks late tonight, and start to think again about when we’ll be able to move in. And back to work tomorrow. I should try again to sleep.
I don’t want to leave paradise.
UPDATE: Still can’t sleep two hours later. So, I guess I’m just pulling an all-nighter. I pulled pictures off of the digital camera and added a few to this post. Underwater pictures will have to wait until we get the film developed. Yeah, film. Developed. How archaic!
Posted by Ryan Walker
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