Hawaii Heaven

In the fall and spring especially, you likely won't find anyplace on earth that can more closely resemble heaven. People who have visited here this time of year will know what I mean. It doesn't mean that problems cannot arise here. It just means if you are staying along the coast you are hearing the waves gently crash and the tropical ocean winds blow through the coconut palms and if you have the time to enjoy it all it is the closest to heaven that you likely will ever experience.

This year on Maui it has been a bit cooler which I like a lot, simply because over 80 to 85 degrees in the level of humidity often here is a bit much for me because I'm from northern California. As it is it takes me about 2 to 3 days to acclimatize to this place. This year I didn't really have to adjust much because it was raining when we arrived which dropped the temperature a lot. Like, for example it was 62 degrees last night outside (supposedly) but it felt more like 68 which is a perfect temperature to leave your sliding glass door open with just the screen door closed to keep mosquitos and geckos and scorpions and bugs out which are larger than on the mainland often. I personally like geckos a lot because they often will park themselves on the screens or ceilings waiting for bugs to eat and then often they will make little sounds like "Gecko, Gecko, Gecko" sometimes too. I haven't seen any this time but the last time we were here one of the golden ones parked himself on our ceiling and we could hear him there "Geckoing" often which was sort of comforting like when our pet corgi back on the mainland "Talks" to us like they tend to do a lot.

Yesterday we chartered a boat with a skipper and went in search of Humpback whales. We found a family of 3 traveling together (baby, mama and daddy) so we traveled along with them for an hour or 2 which was wonderful. My two daughters and one of their boyfriends leaned over the side with masks and snorkels while others of us held their legs so they could hear the whale sounds and take pictures underwater with underwater cameras and to see the whales underwater. It was very clear yesterday with about 100 feet or more visibility. For example, you could see all the way to the bottom (which where we were was about 100 feet deep off the coast of Maui south of Lahaina. Here are some of the surface pictures they took.

The next couple are going to be difficult to see because they are taken underwater at a distance of the baby humpback. It stays on the surface mostly (because it is less than 6 weeks old) while the mama and daddy sound to the bottom between breaths (about 5 to 10 minutes) between breaths.

The top underwater photo you are seeing the head to the right and the bottom one you are seeing the tail of the baby as it is swimming away the other direction.

Later, we saw a family of three during the sunset (beautiful) in the bay where we are staying which could be the same family. Their main sense is hearing and they can hear each other for up to 100 miles under the ocean.