Getting ready for a new adventure . . .

The promised whale photos

Humpback surfacing just off our starboard side.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?"

"Okay!"

"Bye now."

A Whales Tail

Pacific Ocean Mysteries

Look closely toward the bottom left of the photo to see the Spotted Hawaiian Puffer.

Gail holding a sea treasure (please note that this guy handed it to her--we NEVER disturb the flora or fauna).

Yellow Tang

Another great day on the water. We set sail around 12:30 for the reefs near Coral Gardens and finally got our first taste of snorkeling this trip. Weather hasn't been in our favor, but we got a brief reprieve. Although the clarity of the water wasn't the best, we were still IN THE WATER. Not only that, everywhere we looked we could see whales spouting. It looked like a sea of geysers blowing close up and off in the distance. And then there's the whalesong . . .

Anyway, here are a few sub-par photos of just a few of the fish we saw. I'm getting accustomed to a new camera, so I had some technical difficulties, but in all, there's not much you can do about water quality for picture taking.

I'll post more photos of whales as soon as I can get a stable internet connection!

Whales Everywhere Photos

Thanks to my friend, KO, we have some decent photos of the whales today. Turns out I needed to re-read my camera manual as my photos turned out kinda yucky. Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the males fighting over the female. Apparently it is exceedingly rare for whales to fight over a female. The posture and position and all that, but rarely do battle. But then suddenly, they did. Here are a couple of pics.

Off to bed soon for me. We are snorkeling tomorrow (finally). I haven't yet been in the actual ocean since we've had not-so-great weather (okay, it's been super, but not for snorkeling).

Whales Everywhere

We took the Ultimate Whalewatching raft, which holds 18 people, miles out into the Pacific today. The water was somewhere between turquoise, aqua and heaven. We saw many whales, some of which were only 100 feet from our pontoons. One whale breached. We witnessed a rare sight - two males in competition for a female. One male jumped on the back of another male. Our tour guide said it was rare indeed to witness this. A guide in another boat radioed us with "Holy Cow! Did you see that?" They swam in front of us and behind us, under us, and alongside, raising their heads and raising their tails. It was a blast to watch. It is something that I believe my brother Ken would love to see. Kathy will post pictures.

Then we went to Aloha Mixed Plate for lunch, eating good food outside. I couldn't take my eyes from the ocean in front of us. Once you have seen a whale in the water, you can't stop watching the water for the next one.

Tomorrow is a snorkeling day, although I am staying home and swimming and resting. There is big excitement about snorkeling.

Whales!

OMG! I have never seen so many whales! We're hoping to blog in more
depth tonight plus post pictures. Right now the Internet service for
the entire island is out so we will have to wait for later. We shoulda
planned on 2 weeks. Our vacation is ending too soon!

-------------------------------
Kathy Ringwood
206.953.4608

Sent from my iPhone

Maui Now

We are resting up tonight because tomorrow is our whale watching day. We'll go out on The Ultimate Whale Watch on a Zodiac Raft. I had imagined a large boat myself, nothing from the raft department but everyone assures me that we'll be safe out there in the Pacific Ocean. We all want to see whales breech, just like on the commercial.

I have thoroughly enjoyed our vacation here; it's been cooler than what we had last June. Others prefer coming in June because the snorkeling is better. Everybody will snorkel on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I wish them well. I will be on the shore reading.

We miss our little dog and the kitties and all of our friends. We wish everyone was here. We'd like to get Jay certified as a service dog although I am not sure what service he would provide. If he is a service dog, he can fly with us and he has expressed a desire to take a vacation after his busy year of being an iggy ambassador.

We watched President Obama's address to the nation tonight. He is an elegant man who is hopeful and funny.

We drove around a large part of the island yesterday and caught sight of real estate that we cannot afford and no one else can either. There is the lone home on the hill here and there, then miles in between. The sea was beautiful every inch of the way.

That's it from here. Aloha!

Maui or Bust

Oh man, how lucky are we to get to go back again so soon! Stay tuned. We leave Sunday.

Goodbye to Maui

What a beautiful vacation that was. We snorkeled and sailed, and most importantly, played liars dice beside a pool. Kathy made slide shows complete with music and they may be on this blog complete with relevant music. Sailing on the Pacific in a katamaran comes in as everyone's favorite activity of the trip. It was a perfect day.

I came home to a job interview that went well. That's good news for this household. The people I interviewed with are nice and funny and that goes a long ways. I'll plaster Maui photos all over the cubicle walls no matter where I go to work.

The cats are speaking to us again and the dogs may be happy to be home, although it sounds as if Neville had an affair with Lola and Jay had one with Jasmine. That'll teach us to leave them with others. Neville is leaving us for Lola so we will be a one dog household soon.

My Maui wardrobe worked out well. I did not buy crop pants for the adventure, instead, bought "city shorts", which are a longer version than bermuda shorts. I mostly wore a pair of striped blue and white shorts that I call my "prison shorts". It was very hot in Maui and we mostly ran around in wet bathing suits. But we're back now, looking for summer parkas and as usual I am freezing to death.

Snorkeling off Maui 2009 - the movie

Decided to put some of our pictures to "movies". Here are some of our snorkel adventures. Clarity wasn't great because of a high south swell, but we had fun anyway! Enjoy.

Sailing, the "movie"

A beautiful afternoon of sailing!

For Sale (in Maui)

Peg's brother has written saying he things we should stay longer, buy a house, get jobs, then invite him over. This place might do. What do you think? If not this one, we'll have to tell you about the others we've seen.

Our Sailing Adventure

Yesterday we sailed out of Ma'alaea Harbor on a 42' catamaran. What an afternoon! We had the boat to ourselves--yep, just the 7 of us hosted by Captain Eric and First Mate Mike. We had a blast. The south swell is at it again so we didn't get to snorkel, but wow, did we sail. Love speeding across the deep blue water with an occasional salt spray hitting deck. For me, there's nothing like it. It's where I find my "center".

Today is our last day. It seems like we just got here, but I must say that I miss my Iggys and my kitties. A quick snorkel this morning, some last minute shopping, and a nice BBQ and game of liar's dice by the pool tonight will top off our vacation.

The underwater photos are "in process". We've been using disposable cameras since Ornellas' new underwater camera LEAKED the 2nd time out. The photo processing unit at Long's is down...and so it goes! Maybe tonight!


Sailing


Peg



Gail



Hanging Out




Main Sail




Peg & Kath



Ornellas

Peggy Snorkels Molokini

Peggy here. I snorkeled Molokini and have a picture to prove it. It was so beautiful, extremely clear, and very safe. It was a 3 hour balance challenge, with sea swells, lots of rocking, and, I am happy to report, no seasickness or unusual vertigo. I don't know how deep the water was, but it did seem that the reef was close, and it probably wasn't.

Kathy loves snorkeling and it is wonderful to see her so happy. She heads away from the boat with the more experienced snorkelers, heading for reefs. The two Kathys looked at open houses today and we find that we are only $14 million short of owning a small home here.

The trade winds kick up in early afternoon and are saving those of us who are too warm. We are all sunburned a bit. We play liars dice in the evening and bbq. We are in and out of the pool and the hot tub. Today we had shave ice and tonight will play liars dice and bbq with Marsha, Ann and Diana...that's a nice way to pass an evening in Maui. --Peggy

The Weekend (already)

Wow--it is true that time flies when you are having fun. We are so busy and our internet connection is so slow at times that I've barely had a chance to blog. Yesterday we had spectacular snorkeling at Honolua Bay--north of where we are staying in Kihei. The water was a little cool, but I forgot about the temperature when I saw ALL the fish and coral. Turtles, an octopus, and tons of colorful reef fish. We even saw a spotted eel. Ornellas' underwater camera LEAKED so suffice it to say she got no photos yesterday. I took quite a few and they are being developed (I had a disposable underwater camera with me). Hopefully I'll be uploading some photos tonight.

Today we're hitting some local adventures--the swap meet at the Maui State Fair (upcountry). And tomorrow we take a boat to Molokini for some more snorkeling. This time, Peg will even get into the act!

In the meantime, here are some photos from Thursday evening's luau:

A little snorkel success

Wednesday's snorkeling adventure was a total bust due to abnormally high southern swells. We tried, but the 4 foot waves made it pretty hard to get in the water not to mention that visibility was poor. The swell warning ends tonight at midnight so we should have clearer water starting Friday. In the meantime, we headed to Turtle Town and managed to see a few turtles and fish despite the poor visibility. Here are a few pics. We obviously remedied the issue of not having a cord to download photos from camera to laptop. Yay!


Reef



Reef Fish & Other Living Creatures (look closely)


Turtle (one of about 5 we saw today)

Whaddya mean, "road trip"?

The Gang (Ornellas, Gail & Peg--Kathy is the photographer)


Okay, so it isn't exactly a road trip, but since this is the blog where we write about our travels, I decided to post our trip here. As many of you know, this trip was planned and paid for long before we were laid off. So, what's a girl to do when she's not working and it's time to board the plane for Maui? GO!

Cast of characters: Kathy & Peggy; Ornellas (Kathy) and Gail; Dianna & Marcia (friends of Ornellas & Gail)


Somebody forgot to bring the cord for the underwater camera so at this point I'm unable to download the digital images, darn it, so here are a few from the regular camera. We arrived Sunday--




Secret Beach-Maui



Honalua Bay - Maui (we will snorkel here in a few days)

A taste of Italy

Well okay, maybe this isn't truly a "taste of Italy". We have 2 new family members since returning from our trip. One is an adorable black and white tuxedo kitten named Beatrice (or Bea, or BeaBop, or Busy Bea). She's my bud! AND, we adopted (from rescue) an 11 month old Italian Greyhound. Oh my. He's adorable. He and Bea love to play together. They even have their own blog: www.jjandbea.blogspot.com Check it out. Taylor doesn't want anything to do with it, but she does comment on occasion.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a job. Check out the critter blog.

Ciao,

Kathy

Ciao, Florence

We've decided to rent a car to drive back to Rome tomorrow rather than taking the train. We need to say goodbye to Tuscany one more time and give Ornellas and Gail a chance to catch a quick glimpse of it all.

Today was rainy and cool, but we did manage to walk the city, look at the sights, shop a little (mostly very expensive). Although we've had a great time, we are all looking forward to getting home to our routines. When I'm complaining about a month from now, don't remind me that I said that, okay?

We'll blog from Rome tomorrow night. Thanks for checking into the blog.

Ciao for now.

--Kathy

K & P Enjoying Italy

Kathy and Peggy near the Spanish Steps in Roma!