According to Wikipedia, Pele’s Curse is the belief that anything natively Hawaiian, such as sand, rock, or pumice, will effect bad luck on whoever takes it away from Hawaii.
So how come I pissed here off? I had an impossible run of bad luck while I was in Hawaii, and I swear I never even picked up so much as a grain of sand with the intention of taking it with me.
Here’s the major bouts of bad luck thrown at me… Read the rest of this entry »
The reason everyone came to Maui was for Chelsea and Jonathan’s wedding. And the day was finally here. Not without some glitches, but that what makes a wedding special.
A beautiful location for exchanging wedding vows. I think it was called “Secret Cove.” And indeed it was secret. Somehow, the car leading the parade to Secret Cove got lost, and we ended up at a golf course.
Secret Cove has a tiny little beach, and at one point in time there was three wedding ceremonies happening at the same time. I didn’t get too many photos, because I didn’t want to get in the way of the professional photographer, or distract from the ceremony. But you can see some photos on the next page.
We were on our way at about 5:30 am to snorkel our way around the Island of Lanai. I was looking forward to this. I had been scuba diving a couple of times – but only in dirty old Saskatchewan water and this sounded fun.
We arrived at the docks at Lahania around 6:30 and once everyone was fitted with fins and snorkel gear – all given special names by the Captain of the boat and her crew – we headed out to sea. My mask and snorkel was called Mahi-Mahi. Mahi-mahi is Hawaiian for dolphin fish.
I had bought a small digital camera that was waterproof the day before just for the trip. Yeah – I know – I really needed another camera. But I didn’t think saltwater would be good for my SLR, considering how my cell phone reacted to dampness.
The Iao Valley State park was the last stop on my day trip. By now it was around 4:00 pm, and the sun sets at around 6:30 pm. I had no idea what to expect. There was a little star on the map the car rental place gave me that said “Iao Needle.”
The park is in the valley formed from a collapsed volcano (a caldera) Iao means “cloud supreme” from the bank of clouds that are usually hanging over the valley. Throughout the park, there are signs saying that flash floods occur regularly because of the frequent and heavy rains.
I decided another day of shopping or hanging around the hotel was not in the books. The truth is, it was a tough decision because I enjoyed being with the family. But I needed to see stuff, so I rented a car – well, almost a car – it was a four door Ford Fiesta. No destination in mind – just needed to pick a direction to drive.
North was the lucky spot on the compass. The Kahekili Highway goes all around the coast on the north end of the island. I had heard it was very scenic. Me and the Pentax headed out.
After my big day at Costco (I still can’t believe I did that – I’ll likely be bungee cord jumping or skydiving next) I was looking forward to a more relaxing day. Audie called me from the lobby first thing in the morning, ready to go, but I hadn’t had my shower yet. I asked for ten minutes. He told me he had one other thing to do, and would be back in about a half hour.
Hawaii time is always twice as long as anywhere else. This morning, that was a good thing.
My shower was broken. It tried to squirt water. But it just couldn’t. Two little drops would leak out and then it would hiss at me and another bit of water would trickle out. And then it quit trying altogether. Read the rest of this entry »
This is something I never dreamt would happen. I would be at Costco on vacation. Even more than that, that I would be at Costco in Hawaii. I was so excited I almost peed myself. In fact I think I did a little when we got to stop at Walmart on the way back. Woohoo!
At this point I decided I needed a car.
No offence to anyone, especially the shoppers out there. Shopping is not intended to be part of any of my vacations. I did enjoy the time with the family. But my poor old heart can’t take this kind of excitement day after day.
I was very tempted to pick up the 12 gallon bucket of peanut butter though…
Today was pretty quiet. The highlight of the day (photographically speaking, that is) was the surfing dog. I couldn’t get a good photo of the dog riding the waves in, but it really happened.
Bandit the Wonder Dog insists that it’s not real, it’s all done with PhotoShop.
As usual, I didn’t really pay too much attention to the directions Jonnie had given me to get the beach. Did he say turn left and go around the corner or was it go right and down the hill? No matter – I’ll find something.
But, as luck would have it, as soon as I started on my way, Ashley and David found me and a few minutes later we were on our way.
