Capturing the Moment

   It is possible to circumnavigate Maui by road but it is not an adventure for the faint of heart. The drive to Hana and around Haleakala is infamous for its hairpin turns and one lane bridges but some would say the road around the west Maui mountains is a scarier drive. My dad came out for a visit this December and managed to fit in a ton of adventures as well as the complete circumnavigation of the island by road. He tackled the road around the west maui mountains almost by accident and then I accompanied him to the top of the volcano for sunrise and on around the backside to Hana and back for the complete circumnav. 0-10,023 ft in a day and 80-25-80 degrees in a matter of hours. From desert to lava fields to waterfall filled rainforest are just some of the environments we traveled through. Over his entire trip we went snorkeling, whale watching, to beaches of all different colors (red, black, white),  lava tubes, boat rides, sunset dinners, swimming with sharks, h...

   Here we are on a tropical island surrounded with bikinis, beaches, and mai tais but this morning we find ourselves searching for any piece of warm clothing we can find. We are going to the top of Haleakala Volcano to watch the sunrise.   Being the shortest day of the year we were able to sleep in longer than I was used to. A leisurely 4:15 wakeup time and a cup of coffee got us going. We found ourselves a nice parking lot at the summit and then braced ourselves for the very untropical conditions we expected outside. Somehow no matter how much I bring I still feel unprepared.   We tried our best in these pictures to look warm and fuzzy in our winter getups but it was a job with the 50mph wind and frozen over puddles on the ground. Our group of intrepid adventurers stayed tough and witnessed an incredible sunrise over Haleakala crater.

 There are many amazing sights in nature that people walk by every day. And while people do tend to take an extra minute to notice sunsets, coral reefs, and breaching whales here in Maui there is still a hidden world just beneath their feet. Many people walk right over tide pools without ever stopping to glance down into one. The amount of life that a four inch deep tidepool can contain is astounding.  When the low tide and the sun setting coincide Heidi and I go with flashlights to our favorite tide pool locations. I look at it as a snorkel without getting wet. Last night we found hunting moray eels, camouflaged octopus, and vibrantly colored nudibranchs. All three of these creatures were juveniles. Tidepools can act as a protected nursery for reef creatures. Protected until you stray too close to the moray eel! I was just about to take a picture of the eel last night when a fish swam in my way. As I hesitated for him to keep swimming all the sudden the eel snapped the fis...

Red Spotted Nudibranch Dwarf Moray Eel What a dive! In a place where people go for big things like sea turtles and white tip reef sharks, we found a treasure trove of the small and overlooked creatures of the reef. Carefully picking our way over the reef provided a rare opportunity to see creatures like nudibranchs, dwarf morays, and cleaner shrimp. Mating Tom Smith Nudibranchs! The tiniest frogfish  One of the most fascinating events we witnessed on this dive was mating nudibranchs. Two Tom Smith nudibranchs were very close to each other, head to tail on their right side, with the reproductive gland extended and touching. It was easy to miss but Heidi's sharp eye and constant research into the behavior of nudibranchs allowed her to know exactly what was going on. I could hear her thru the water yelling, "They're mating, they're mating!" Grumpy little frogfish Wire coral goby  As I slowly set pictures up from different angles and settin...

  There are only a few places on Earth where you can go from a hundred feet below sea level to fourteen thousand feet above in a matter of hours. The Big Island is a perfect place for this unique adventure. Now for those of you who know a bit about scuba diving you know it is not healthy to go on a dive and then travel to extreme heights. So this adventure is best done in reverse. Start your day watching the sunrise on mighty Mauna Kea then travel down to the beach for a scuba dive off the warm tropical Kona coastline.   Our dive site was one of my all time favorites. It is a place locally known as two-step, or O'Hanaunau. We were very lucky this day because a small pod of Hawaiian spinner dolphins were cruising back and forth out in the bay. So we snorkeled out closer to them and let them swim to and fro sometimes coming quite close. We didn't chase them or make them change their behavior. I was able to snap a couple of pictures as they swam past me. Even as we descended w...

  As soon as I heard the lava flow on the Big Island was flowing back into the ocean I wanted to see it. I saw this phenomenon ten years ago but ever since moving back out to Hawaii the lava has been pooling up underground and not flowing into the ocean. This all changed a few days ago when the lava busted out of several tunnels and started flowing over the edge of a forty foot cliff down to the black sand beach and crashing waves below.  With the help of my friends Erica and Brent we worked our way out past the county guards with their walkie-talkies and out onto the flow. It is something that you just have to add to your list of must sees. An endless sea of pahoehoe lava rocks that have cooled into amazing formations. Some still look viscous while others bunched up into wire rope forms. As sunset got closer and as we got farther into the flow we started to see glowing red from up ahead. After an hour of rock hopping across the flow we slowly crept up to the active surfa...

Adventure dive with Jack's Heidi and the Manta Bowriding dolphins on the way to the Manta spot   Nearly a year ago Heidi and I first went on the famous Manta Ray night dive in Kona, HI. We were blown away by how close and how many mantas we saw. It is like no other big animal experience I'd ever seen before. You are with them for the entire time. This time we went out with Jack's Diving Locker which turned out to be the best choice for the day. The conditions were pretty wild with Kona winds from the South and surf in the 4-5ft range which is as big as Kona has seen all year. On the way out we came across a very large pod of spinner dolphins who bowrode the fast moving boat and were surfing our wake behind us. It looked like the bad weather was not affecting their playful mood at all. Once we got to the spot I could see the looks between our divemasters and captain were not ones of joy. The conditions in the usually protected bay were pretty wild to say the...