The Unbearable Sadness of Leaving

It is so sad to be leaving - tonight at midnight - so today we will try and keep the day as routine as possible in order to not have the feeling of hawaii end too prematurely. The feeling of hawaii is a gradual encroachment, so gradual you don't even see it happening until you think back to what awaits at home - mostly just responsibility - and then you realize that you have been operating in days where the most taxing responsibility has been making sandwiches for lunch and when to leave the house for starbucks and the beach. And the biggest worry is always the quality of the water - how big are the waves, is the water clear? I think for the true health benefits to be had one should stay in this mode for a month, maybe to tempt fate - long enough so that the routine is boring. Wouldn't that be great? I wonder how long it would take before I found snorkeling boring? Each day is so new and exciting.
Yesterday we were guests of Harmen and Donna at the beach at Mauna Kea. Normally there is public access but it is very sparse and hard to come by unless you are there at 9am. The water was great for snorkeling which was such a relief because all week the ocean has be tumultuous and it is sometimes too wild to go out and because of all the tumult definitely too cloudy. But yesterday in the good conditions I managed to see an octopus. It was very darling and terrified. It crouched in a rock crevice looking so frightened every time we dove down to see him. You could just feel the intelligence radiating from his dear little body. In fact if I had to grade them you could sense they were more intelligent then our beloved sea turtles.
We were unable to fulfill my goal of snorkeling at captain cook. The day we tried the waves were so ferocious that the intrepid (or stupid) people that had gone out were having a very difficult time disembarking their kayaks. We witnessed one double kayak that sidled up to the cement pier and just when the helpful guys leaned down to give them a hand up the 3 foot cement drop to the ocean, a giant wave came and the one being lifted was flailing in the air getting knocked on the cement and the other poor sucker was almost tossed out of the kayak. Even in the world's most perfect conditions that disembarking is too difficult for me, I can't hoist myself up in a wobbly kayak with nothing to hold on to and somehow manage to leap to the pier. Last time one of the helpful guys leapt into the kayak and paddled me around to a beach. That beach was under too much wave action to even dare approach it on the day we contemplated a trip. My only consolation was that I was able to buy much beautiful Hawaiian fabric at a store coming home from Captain Cook. Now I need a new suitcase.
We managed to rouse ourselves for the botanical gardens and we took many beautiful shots of the exotic flora. The only consolation of the rough oceans has been the boogie boarding has been good for the boys. On the day of the picture I wasn't even able to go into the water the waves were so high. Kyr says that they were often boarding in 10 foot waves. It was terrifying to watch for the mother.
Farewell from Hawaii and pray we don't have too much difficulty getting home to snow bound BC.

Happy New Year

Hawaii has to be the fireworks capital of the world. When we were driving home after the tennis party(those tennisers really need a how to through a convivial party tip) Waimea was thickly covered in smoke so thick that we could barely see to drive, as though it was a thick fog. And it was simply the smoke from local fireworks. Our neighbors were so intense that they started their continuous fireworks by 5pm and by midnight they were so fast and furious they must have had 3 people doing nothing but lighting them. It was quite a neighborhood competition, one you realize that they take very seriously. I will declare our immediate neighbors that we can see from the lanai the winners compared to those that surrounded us simply because of the intensity of the post midnight display and the longevity. I worked out that inbetween the big huge fireworks it was important to have those little noisy ones firing the most intently in the neighborhood, and then just when you think the others have given up or their little ones are fading, you shoot a big huger into the sky. But the other neighbors surrounding are also very sly and they also have saved a big huger to try and dominate. But I would have to say that our lanai neighbors appear to be the slyest (and richest presumably) so that they ultimately had the last big fireworks. So really the most interesting part of the 5 hour fireworks display is that time after midnight when all the competitors are trying to achieve dominance. I wonder how they greet each other the next day? Do you think there is any overt acknowledgment of the winner or is it just one of those things where they carry the knowledge smugly inside them and only let it out months later at an opportune moment? In the few days leading up to New years the grocery stores sometimes have up to 8 aisles devoted only to fireworks. Not the kind of island for dogs like the Tobes.
Snorkeling and boogie boarding continue at a fast pace as we try to outrun the cloud cover that is supposed to descend tomorrow and not leave until our vacation is over. If that is the case we will still try and be intrepid and beach it in the clouds, and sometimes that is okay. It is really the water conditions that dictate the success of the expeditions and those don't seem to be linked to whether it is sunny or cloudy.