Capturing the Moment

  Peaking through an iceberg at my kayak group near Meares Glacier in Prince William Sound. Kayaking around glaciers is one of my favorite things. This morning I led a small kayaking group from the mothership, anchored about a mile and a half away from the face of Meares glacier. This is a rare glacier in that it is slowly advancing, bulldozing its way through the Alaskan rainforest. Almost all other glaciers here are retreating. It can be a very active glacier, dropping huge chunks of ice off the face into the fjord waters below. This is what I wanted to explore today. I set off with a group of four other adventurous kayakers to see what beauty we would find. None of us expected it to be quite as beautiful as it was. Pristine conditions for kayaking this morning at Meares Glacier in Unakwik Fjord. The waters were flat calm. It was almost like paddling on a mirror. I led our group into thick brash ice as we crossed the fjord to check out some waterfalls on the far side. The kayaks ...

Pete fighting the current The pancake cliffs     The winds were starting to kick up, throwing waves and spray onto our sturdy dive boat. I was out with Island Divers here on Oahu checking out a couple of offshore dive sites. After a successful exploration dive of a wreck called Big Barge (not even the instructor had been there before), we decided to fight the wind and head closer to the coast to dive a site called Sea Cave.     The water was again nice and clear, however the current was very strong. But we were planning a drift dive where we could go with the current and get picked up by the boat down the coast. Luckily the group was all advanced divers so we hit the water and immediately descended with no problems. We could see the opening to the sea cave above water but under water it was totally different. Pancaked rocks form a 60 foot deep cliff. At the very bottom of the cliff there was a wide opening which led into the sea cave. 75 feet into ...

View from the ridge Wild chameleon found nearby at Twin Falls The more you explore Maui the bigger it can seem. There are so many secret hikes and hidden waterfalls, dive sites, sea caves, wilderness trails, lava tubes, and more. I think even if you are not a water person you could still have endless days of fun exploring the island of Maui. Today after an aborted Peahi paddle in session and a forfeit baseball game we made spur of the moment plans to go tackle the Makaiwa Hike on the road to Hana. I had heard about this hike from different sources and like most of the secret hikes here on Maui, the entrance is hard to find. The beginning of the trail is very overgrown with a lot of crouching down, pushing thru foliage, and avoiding spider webs. Then your view opens up and you realize you are on a steep ridge line looking out over the wild Pacific ocean. Walking further you can see all the way down the northeast coastline of Maui. When you reach the end of the ridge...