STILL WAITING ON THE HURRICANE

 If you're going to be stuck somewhere for hurricane season, Maui is the place to go.  Is this not a gorgeous sunset?

Actually it is a MOONSET.  This is the full moon setting over the ocean.

It's about 5:00 in the morning and WELL worth getting up early for.  This is the first time I have EVER caught a moonset like this.  

Shortly following that was the sunrise.  As you can tell, I'm parked on the patio watching all of this while sipping my cup-o-joe.  As the hurricane heads this way, so do the clouds.  It didn't really rain, but it spit on us a couple of times this morning.  We are patiently waiting on the swirling dervish, though it seems to be moving VERY slowly.  I expected lots of wind and rain last night, but it did not happen.

Left and right or even overhead and behind you, the sky was spectacular.

This was the last of it as I headed on over to the ABC store for some breakfast,  I was totally distracted with the purchase of another T-shirt ... that only makes two ... because they are so much lighter weight and cooler than the shirts I brought.  I ditched the Levi shorts and capris for my running shorts.  It's just too hot.

In no time, Cyndae's daughter Becca and her two friends showed up.  We took them snorkeling in Kapalua bay.  The water was not as nice as the day before, once again the results of the hurricane heading our way.  The winds were pretty strong and the currents even worse.  

We went WAY out this time, to find sea cucumbers, more parrot fish, lots of anemones and one lone turtle trying hard to stay in one spot so he could eat.  He flipped over twice before heading out to deeper water.

We were earlier this time and got the perfect spot to hang out under this tree.  Within a couple of hours, the rollers were hitting strong and the tide came in with a bang.  We had to be quick on our feet to keep from getting washed away.

That's when one of the girls ran into this baby just hanging out waiting for dinner to arrive.  I've no idea what kind it is, nor do I want to know.  She almost got it stuck in her face before coming to a screaming halt.  You'll be happy to know we left it to it's web.  No spiders lost their life on this day.

After a couple more runs, we were all snorkeled out.  Plans for barbecued chicken were made and we headed back home.  THIS joined us for dinner.

If you want to see fabulous sunsets ... no color enhancement at all ... come to Maui in September.

They keep saying the hurricane will turn west, but we are not seeing that yet.  Worst case they say we are looking at 25-30 mph winds with 50 mph gusts.  It's a wait and see game.

ALOHA from the sunny warm ocean shores!!

HURRICANE WEATHER

 Waking up once again VERY early in the morning.  There were three huge trees here, but they fell over in the last storm.

Breakfast was simple ...  a breakfast bowl from the ABC store.  No kidding  ....  this stuff is delicious.  Rice, scrambled eggs and fried corn beef with peppers.  

Our plans for the day were to drive up to Lahaina.  When you stay in our condo for two weeks, you have to leave on cleaning day.  So off we went, looking for a place on the beach to snorkel since the water in Kihei was too rough for paddle boarding due to the hurricane heading our way.  Oh yeah ... hurricane!!

We arrived in Lahaina just in time to drive the main road through town.  Oh so sadly, this is all that is left.  I mean if you were ever here before, you would not even think you were in the same place.  There is nothing but tall weeds and very few skeleton buildings.  It's just not recognizable at all.  Every single building is gone.

This is what remains of the old Jail/Library/Art center.  We spent many hours in the basement of this building in the old days.  It's all gone except the concrete side walls.

At least what remained of the old fort is still in tact.

This was the busy downtown section, full of art shops, souvenir shops, clothing stores and restaurants.

It's just awful ... you can't even visualize where anything once stood.  The only thing left untouched was the Cannery and the Safeway store.  If you ever went to the Luau behind the Safeway, it is still in one piece too.  

Thank the Good Lord, THIS is the banyon tree.  Everything around it is gone.  The parrots who posed for pictures now live in Kehei.  The big wooden building/hotel is completely gone.  The two story across the street with a restaurant upstairs is also gone.  So sad.

At the very end there are still two tiny restaurants open.  We lucked out and got a seat at the bar.  The bartender said they were closed down for 6 months before they were allowed to reopen.

I ordered three malasadas.  HUGE they are.  They come on a wooden plate with a syringe full of caramel sauce.  The sauce on the plate is lilikoi vanilla.  You take the syringe, stick it in a malasada (kind of like a HUGE fried donut hole) and fill it up.  Not too much or it will explode.  They were amazing!!

Cyndae had eggs Benedict with bacon and hash browns.  Also delicious!!!  At least we donated a bit to the locals for breakfast.

Right outside was the Hula Girl.  She's been moored here for as long as I've been coming to Maui.

We finally landed in Kapalua bay.  It looked crowded, but the water was perfect for snorkeling.  This is a big sheltered bay where fish and turtles hang out.  Too bad I forgot my camera.  No kidding .... this place had some of the best snorkeling ever ... and we were practically alone in our endeavor.

Just to the right next to those rocks was a baby turtle eating up a storm.  What a cutie he was.  I spotted silver knife fish, parrot fish, angelfish and dozens of tangs, along with my favorite Humuhumunukunukuapuaa fish.  I was surprised to see so many in spite of the rough ocean.

We could have sat under that tree all day, but alas, the tide came in and washed us out.  

We skipped dinner since we were late getting back, so we walked across the street to the Gelato store.  Peanut butter Oreo cookie if you please!!!  There was a fabulous sunset ... probably the best I have ever seen here.  

It is of course because of the hurricane heading straight for us.  The good news is that it will hit the island of Hawaii first, and according to the weather guessers .... it will turn West and miss us, with the exception of some good winds and ocean rollers.  We are close enough to get a little wet, but hopefully no damage will occur.  No, I'm not to thrilled about that and I'm watching the weather constantly.

Wish us luck!!!  And if I don't return someone please take care of Kitters!!!  Just kidding .. we should be fine.

Update:  It rained very hard three times last night.  There will be flooding here and there, but hopefully not where we are.

SNORKELING AND GREAT FOOD

ALOHA once again!  My cup of Joe was on the patio well before sunrise.  There was a party of women last night who made a horrible racket until 2:30 in the morning.  I think I got 3 hours of sleep.  No worries, there is always another day to sleep.

I sat and listened to the birds chirping and the waves crashing.

The sunrise was worth getting up early for.

That's when the excavator went to work.  I know ... I'm weird.  I love operating heavy equipment.  These guys are trying to shore up the damage on the seawall from the last storm that took out several feet of the bank, along with all the sand.  The beach is now VERY rocky.

Just a quick shot of the flowers that line our huge grassy front yard.

And the lizards.  OH so many lizards.  It's a good thing Kitters isn't here.  This one was a tad over 1" long, head to tail.  Very dinosaur like.

By 8:00 we were off to snorkel a cove East of us.  We found a tiny beach without too many big waves.  What was bad however, was a VERY rocky bottom with big holes dug out by the storm.  That makes it difficult to get your fins on.  

Too bad the visibility wasn't the greatest.  There was only one small pod of fish very far out.  Cyndy and I figured out we are not in the shape we used to be!!  Sorry no pictures.  I left my phone in the car.  Back to the pool we went.  We call it Saltwater Therapy, followed by Chlorine Therapy.

From the pool,  Cyndy and I headed off to her house up country.  Her daughter and some friends are landing today for a weeks stay, and they require more snorkeling gear.  

We got back just in time for dinner at the Monkey Pod.  This is a restaurant with bar, but mostly bar on this night.  Appetizers were half price, as were the drinks. It was a packed house.  My dinner was three fish tacos for $23.00.  The fish "plate" was about $45.00 and the only steak they serve, $58.00.  

They also had pizza ... which I might have ordered until I saw their oven.  Yes it's a pizza oven with a turntable, but there's no fire.  It's a strobe light.  Thus the tacos.

I would go back ten times over just for this.  Strawberry cream pie ... homemade.  This was to die for.

Back home once again, we watched the sunset from our lawn.  Yup we are right across the street from the best beach on Maui.

This picture is from 2014 and this is where we snorkeled every year, sometimes several times a year, to see Big Momma and her baby.   Hopefully the beaches and shore areas recover from the tropical storms quickly.  

Last picture of the day ... the sun had set and the moon rose up high.  The last little bit of lavender and pink covered the sky.  If you come here, you can look forward to seeing this every single night.

Nope ... haven't forgotten my boy.  I still think of him every minute of the day.

MAUI SUNSET

 

Before we get to the sunset, here's what it looks like at 3:00 am.  I was lucky to sleep in THAT late.  I grabbed a cup of coffee and parked on the patio.  You can hardly see it, but that's the ocean just across the street.  

This is the same place I have stayed for about 20 years.  Unfortunately, the prices for these places have gone from $900 a week up to $1700 a week.  Hotel rooms around here go for about $250+ a night ... and that's a CHEAP hotel.  The good ones, $500-$1,000 a night.  WAY too steep for my meager budget.

This is looking down the beach where most of the sand has been swept into the ocean.  There is hardly any walking spots left.  Even the lifeguard shacks were in danger of disappearing.

First thing in the morning, we took off hauling Cyndae's paddle board down the street to the only place to get to the beach.  The entire beachfront is rocks and boulders, with a 10 foot drop off.  Here she is, adding a little more air.  This is a very heavy inflatable paddle board.

Off she went, but the water got worse and worse while the wind came up, making it hard to navigate.  

When the waves got like this, she came back in.  It's no fun to get wiped out by these.  

We got back to the condo exhausted ... and it was only 8:30.  A quick trip next door to the ABC store and I scored a rice bowl with grilled chopped steak and eggs.  DELICIOUS!!  

Is it bed time yet?  By 10:30 we were having lunch before heading off to Wally World for cookies ... you know I can't live without cookies.  Rice, Pepsi and a short sleeve swim shirt were on the list too.  It's just too hot for long sleeves. I know, it kind of defeats the purpose, but it's just TOO warm.  Back home, we jumped in the pool, me with my big swim fins for a leg workout.  

Back inside, we watched a movie for a bit, whereupon I stated ... it MUST be 4:00, yeh??  NOPE ... it was 1:30.  There was one more walk, though my legs were screaming from too many "fin" laps.  My watch said I walked up 12 flights of stairs ... and it felt like it!!

But who could miss a sunset like this!  Cyndae and I walked about half a mile to this location.  

It was worth all the pain.  A gorgeous sunset to finish off the day at 6:30.  Is it bedtime yet?

And so I bid you aloha once again.  It's actually 7:00 ... 10:00 California time ... WAY past my bed time.  Especially since I know I'll be up at 3:00 once again. 

I hope everyone has a great day.  We just got a "bad storm" warning for the next three days ... so we will be hanging out and holding on!!

ALOOOOOO-HAA!!!

 I WILL NEVER UBER AGAIN!!  But first, let's get to my overnight stop.  I drove through Sunday traffic jam after traffic jam for two hours to get to my destination.  Sacramento!  Lucky for me, it was cool and breezy.  I stopped in at Panda for some lunch AND dinner.  Cindy said to go early to beat the crowds returning from Tahoe.  And so I did.  Panda Express is my friend!

Monday morning I woke up at 2:00 am and never went back to sleep.  I finally got up at 4:00 to get ready for my UBER ride.  I requested (in advance) a female driver.  I don't know what happened to the first one assigned to me, but the second one named Kasey showed up right on time.  That was the only good thing that happened.

She jumped out of the car and said "you sure have crappy neighbors".  Apparently she parked for awhile at the end of the street with her car music blasting.  She got lambasted (or so she said) by a guy walking his dog.  I put my bags in the trunk and got into the front seat.  

Here's my pepper spray she said.  I started to get that feeling ... you know the one.  By the time we got to the first turn, she told me she was diagnosed as bipolar last month, but she was sure they were wrong.  She continued on about how men used her, and in fact she had been raped last week and the police refused to do anything about it.  You just can't make this stuff up.

She went on to say she was going to be a pro basketball star until Covid hit and RUINED her life.  She cried.  Two minutes later she was laughing about how she didn't need men anyway.  She sang to the radio, told me she was suing UBER because they were only paying her half what they were supposed to and laughed that her ride the day before tipped her $500.00.  I kid you not, it was the scariest ride of my life, mostly because she had a hard time keeping the car on the road.  I kissed the ground when she let me off at the airport.  

Cindy said to check my heavy bag, so I did, with a little help from a lovely couple who showed me the ropes.  We were loaded up on the plane and ready for takeoff.

AND AWAY WE GO into the wild blue yonder.  

It really could have been a great flight, except my carryon did NOT fit under the seat in the Hawaiian Airlines plane, as it did on Southwest.  I had to stow it overhead.

The people sitting next to me never left their seats, so I was unable to get my phone charger in order to read for the entire FIVE hour flight.  Instead I was entertained by the husband and wife team in front of me with the 8 month old baby.  The gal never sat down the entire trip.  She carried that baby back and forth, dumped it on her husband, carried it again, changed its clothes three times, even though it didn't need it and talked the entire trip.  Nary a peep from the baby.

At long last we landed ... 15 minutes early.  YAY!  Or not, because see this plane here?  It was in our spot and had "problems".  We sat on the tarmac for an hour before it finally pulled out.  They said to get your luggage on carousel #2.  I called Cyndy who had been waiting all the time in the parking lot and she finally came to where I was.  Come to find out, my one check-in bag (that she told me to check) was on carousel #4.  60 minutes later, we left the airport.  

We went straight to Coconuts Fish House for lunch.  What a crazy place. Sadly, town is not all that busy.  Many folks cancelled their reservations due to the tropical storms moving about.  It's weird, because in all the 30 years I've been coming here, there have never been storms like this.

Lunch was fabulous1. Coconut shrimp, a HUGE basket of fries and Cole slaw .........

Along with the biggest serving of onion rings I've ever seen.  I'm having the leftovers for breakfast.  

Because of the time change, It was still early afternoon, so we hung out in the pool for a few hours.  In spite of all the storms, it's HOT with a capital H.  At 3 am this morning, it is still 78 degrees and HUMID.  Think Florida!!  

The bad news is my room has no AC, only an open window and a ceiling fan.  It's no problem however, because you can always take a dip in the ocean.  

It was a beautiful sunset, but I'll wait until tomorrow for the pictures.  Hopefully I'll be out for a run this morning because it is just now 4:00 am.  The time change is killer!!!