Another early morning

Today we went scuba diving, but we had to get up really freakin early,,, again. 5 am. After rolling out of bed, we headed down to the marina to meet our boat. We loaded up and headed out on the ocean just as the sun was coming up. We got to our dive site and headed out. Our dive was cleverly named 5 Caves because, I assume,,, there were 5 caves :) We saw a bunch of amazing aquatic creatures, got to go into a bubble cave, into a cave with a bunch of aggro sharks, and tons of turtles. Not gonna lie, when a 8 ft white tipped reef shark quickly swam within a few feet of my shoulder, im pretty sure i peed a little in my wetsuit. Our next dive was down to a little wreck. There wasn't as many creatures to see, but it was tons of fun playing around the in wreck. I did have to have a little stare down turtle who wouldn't stay on his side of the fence. After we got back from the dive, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out to the hike our waitress had told us about. We were going to the Iao park, which is where the famous Iao needle is located (an inactive volcano). Our waitress had told us that when we got to the little lookout, we should jump over the fence (with signs saying NOT to) and just stay on the trail until we came out onto a little plateau. We jumped the fence (ignoring all the looks), and headed off into the jungle. It was an amazing hike through the greenest valley I have seen in a long time. We heard there were some wild fruit on the way up. After an hr and a half, we finally made it to the plateau. It was so amazing. We took a bunch of pics, and headed back home. After dinner, we were so incredibly tired that we went to bed by 8:30!!!

Walk softly and carry a big paddle

We slept in a bit this morning, all the way to about 7:30. Once we were up, we went down to the beach and rented some paddleboards. The thing about paddleboarding is, it's not hard to stand up, its hard to stay standing! We only thought we'd be out there for an hour or two, but we were having SO MUCH FUN, we stayed out as long as we could... 5 hr's straight! What a blast. It took us a while to get the hang of it, but once we did we even caught a few party waves. We were all so sore after, not just from whole-body muscle, but from the multiple falls into the shallow coral just below the surface! Sore muscles, bruised heal, and a few cuts,,, not too bad for a day of fun on some big boards, and little waves. After we returned the boards we headed back, got cleaned up and headed out for some dinner. After walking around town, we ended up walkin into the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for dinner. We got to sit right on the edge of the little patio which was just on the edge of the ocean and watch the sun go down as we ordered... how romantic for 4 guys :) Whatever,,, our waitress was cute, so it all worked! We asked her for a cool hike, that was somewhere the other tourists wouldn't find, and also wouldn't get our butts kicked by some locals. She told us about one, we paid (gave her a nice tip), and headed home and to bed.

The early bird gets less sleep.

So, last night when we got back, we decided to go to the top of the Haleakala Volcano and watch the sunrise, which was supposed to be awesome. Poor choice of activities. To make it there by sunrise, we had to wake up at 4 AM to make the 2 hr drive in time! Not only did we have to wake up at the pre-buttcrack of dawn, but we didn't get to bed at a good time either since the girls were up late packing. Only us guys were gonna go, so, after only a few hours of sleep, we piled into the jeep and headed to the volcano. The top of the volcano (over 10,000 ft high) was still dark when we got there, and really really cold. It was 36 degrees... in HAWAII!!! We hiked up, watched the sun come up, it was beautiful, took some pics, hiked back down and drove home. We all went out for our last meal before taking the girls to the airport. After we said our tearful goodbyes :) we (the fellas) headed out to the beach to try a little spearfishing for the rest of the afternoon,,, again, and to the same outcome, NOTHING! We did get chased by a small white tipped reef shark for a bit, and see some more turtles. Dinner was good, going to bed early was better.

The girls last day

Today was the last full day the girls were gonna be here with us in Hawaii. They all had lame reasons calling them back to the mainland. So, we decided to do another drive. A little geography on the island might help. Maui is shaped like a bowling pin, the road to Hana takes you about half way around the big half of the bowling pin, and today we drove the whole way around the small half. Now, I gotta say, in the guide book there is all this bla bla bla about how curvy and narrow the road to hana was... No no no. That road was a straight four lane highway compared to this one. There were many areas where only one car could pass (and just barely) and if you came around the corner and there was a car, one of you would have to back all the way up (which was kinda scary if you had to back around some of those spots). I think the book didn't really talk much about it to try and keep traffic down or something, who knows. Anyway, it was B - E - A - UTIFUL. The whole trip was constant neck strain to try and see everything! There was quite a lot of "JESSE WATCH THE ROAD!!!", but, hey, i wanted to see it too :) Our first stop was a little hike down am amazing lookout. We were going to hike down to the bottom where there are some tide pools that were supposed to be really cool,,, unfortunately there was a high surf advisory and it way too high, the water was totally covering them and it would have been a wee bit hazardous to go down there. After that we drove to the Blowhole. This is where the real adventure happened. For a while we just watched the hole spouting 60-100 ft high and the enormous spray from when the 10-15 ft surf crashed into the sea wall, then, we decided to get a little closer,,, oops. When we first got down to the spot we did what all boys like to do, played on the rocks and in the spray. Then we did what only stupid boys do when there are other stupid boys around to egg each other on,,, get really close to a razor sharp lava rock sea wall with giant man eating waves of death are crashing into/over it. There was a bit of a lull so we got up on the top part of the rocks. It was just some smaller swells sending spray over us, so we got a bit closer all the time laughing and having a good time taking pics and stuff like that. The power of the ocean was awesome. A few waves had even poured so far over the edge that we had to grab on to the rocks to balance when it was flowing back into the sea, but nothing we couldn't handle, still just good ol times. You know, the first time i went surfing, Cody, being the sensitive instructor that he was, told me to 'NEVER turn my back on the ocean, or else...', I should have remembered that, especially since i was the closest to it. We were all talking when we turned back toward the sea and all saw it. A massive freakin wave just about to hit the wall. There was a collective "OH SHIT" and that was all the time we had before it hit. We were completely engulfed in the spray, and then the overflow hit us. I had a pretty solid footing, but i felt my feet slipping away from me as the water flowed above my knees. I had no choice but dive out for a hand hold... on the razor sharp rocks! I got a solid grip, and rode out the storm. As the water drained and we mist cleared enough that we could see each other and we realized we were all there, we decided to get the freak out of there. There was some serious glory yells coming from us though, we were STOKED! What a rush,,, sure, it could have ended quite a bit worse, but it didn't, we survived, and now we have a rad story for the parents :) My hands however, suffered multiple boo boos cause those lava rocks took chuncks of skin as payment for my life saving hold. My hands hurt, but it was totally worth it! Well, fortunately for us (and my mom's nerves as she reads this) the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We ate lunch at a little park and did some snorkeling. We finished up the day in a little town for dinner. It was alot like Laguna in CA, small, clean, artsy, and fun. There was a tree there that took up an entire park! It had branches and roots raining down into the ground everwhere. I had a little staring contest with one of the locals,,, he won. The day even ended with a rainbow. Adventure, blowholes, beautiful beaches, some snorkeling, good food, and great company... What a day!

And on the third day...

Slept in late today and then spent the majority of the day at the beach spear fishing. It seems I have the same unfortunate luck fishing with a spear as i do with a rod and reel, but at least I got to see a lot more turtles though. Went back to the house, cleaned up, and drove to a town on the other side of the island for dinner. Got the best burger I have ever had, seriously, amazing. Hung out for a bit in the town, came back, watched a movie, went to bed. No pics today.

Day 2 - The Road to Hana

Ever wonder why locals everywhere get so friggin annoyed with the tourists,,, its because they DRIVE SO FREAKIN SLOW!!! Today we decided to be those tourists (sorry locals. although, in our defense we at least pulled off the road to let them pass) and drive the famous "Road to Hana". Its about a 60 mile strip of beautiful, ridiculously curvy one/two lane, mostly paved road that goes out to the little city of Hana. A good portion of this road is cut into the sides of the radically vertical cliffs along the ocean only moving inland to drive through some amazing rain forest. It was very "country", which was a nice change from the over-developed areas we have been in. A lot of the places reminded me of a more tropical version of the Smokey's back home. It took us most of the day to make it all the way out because we stopped at a bunch of hikes, waterfalls, and beaches. On our first hike we ended up getting pretty lost in a bamboo forest trying to find a waterfall. The hike really wouldn't have been that bad if we had stayed on the main trail, but what fun would be??? We ended up in some farmers pastures with his cows and had to turn around and tramp back through the insane bamboo to the main trail and then we found the waterfalls. I think our extra little trek probably better than the waterfalls actually. Our next few stops were a few (no hiking required) waterfalls and overlooksand then we stopped for lunch at a sweet little area right on the ocean. The rock wall in front of us was the first and only thing to take the brunt of the wicked wind and waves that have traveled thousands of miles of open ocean to get here. After lunch we headed to a black volcanic sand beach which was quite cool. It had (obviously) black sand :) and a sweet volcanic rock archway. Our last major stop of the day was a red volcanic sand beach. The red sand beach was SO RAD. We hiked down to the shoreline and headed around to the next cove. Of course, there were some more nudies there, three guys to be exact ;( (thats my crying frown). The cove they were in was amazing though, so we just headed down anyway. The ocean was really REALLY rough, but there was this line of rocks that stopped most of the swells and left a calm little pool to swim around in, which was perfect since we were all nasty from a day of hiking. After a quick swim, we packed up, took a group pic and headed back. On the way back, Georgia was in control of the music in our car on the way back since I had already had my song pics for the day(we have a little radio transmitter that plays your Ipod on the radio in your car). She was hoping back and forth between songs before they would ever finish, and finally settled on the Mary Poppins sound track... :( We stopped to take some pics and i went up to the other guys in the next car and said "you guys are never going to believe what we have to listen to in our car!!!", and they said "really, it can't be any worse than what we are listening to cause we only get one radio station out here and the freakin DJ won't let the songs finish and now they are playin MARY POPPINS!!!!". There weren't any other radio waves out where we were so they were picking up our transmission! Funny poop that was,,, we laughed for like, ten minuets before we got back on the road. We ended up at a pizza place for dinner, it was good, we ate till we were stuffed, we went home, and we slept... No sleeping pills needed tonight.