Tom and Linda's Visit

Erica's parents arrived last Sunday for eight nights with us here in Maui. We weren't sure they would enjoy our Hawaiian bach, but they seem to have settled right in! Along with their arrival there has been consequently more drinking, cigar smoking, less morning runs....it is like we are finally on holiday! Which brings us to eating...

Thank god for Mexican! We found a great neighborhood joint in a small town upcountry, Makawao, with a great happy hour and fantastic food. Of course, Erica's parents don't settle for any old Margarita, it was straight to the top shelf variety with grand marnier, yum. We were celebrating Tom's 60th birthday, although I think we quickly forgot there was a reason beyond the margaritas. Pork tacos to follow, $2.50 each, a meal in itself. They also do $5 one pound lunch burritos, $20 fajitas for 'two' (looks like plenty enough for 4!) and $5 fully loaded nachos. We will definitely miss this when we get home!

A north swell picked up this morning stirring up the ever calm ocean from the past few days, although the surf was affected - by WIND! It wasn't consistent, a bit gusty but it will most certainly do. First sail in over two weeks with some decent waves as well. Sunset down at the end of the road has been turning it on recently, with turtles popping up all over the place. We even noticed a couple fins on the horizon at one point....

Tom and Linda are relaxing and enjoying Maui life. The sunsets and turtles are becoming a standard evening affair. We have been snorkeling twice - Honolua Bay and Wailea - with great results just off shore. Turtles, octupus, a shark, a manta ray, loads of fish and coral. Once the ladies mastered the gear, we were set! Attractive as always....

Memorial Day in the USA today so national holiday. Remembering the fallen of war. They still managed to collect the rubbish at 5.45 this morning. Luckily I was at the beach and missed it. Super small but still kinda fun waves. So shallow it was about 4 inches deep on the inside! Knuckles hitting the reef on the duckdives.Had the biscuits(scones) and gravy with sausage and eggs at Charley's for breakfast this morning. Went for a swim and almost sank. No wind or sign of any. Things are so bad I broke the bodyboard out and played in the shorebreak with the kids. And got sunburnt!
We took a drive over to Kihei and caught the sunset with Pete and Christal and Tom and Linda.
A local. No scale so guess how big it is.

No posts for quite a while. I was in a bit of a slump for a few days there but snapped out of it now. There has been no wind! At all! Its supposed to to be Force 4 plus 75% of the time and there has been nothing for over a week now and before that a few crap 10 knot days. There is a massive low pressure sitting to the north of the big island, blocking the usual trade winds from getting to Maui. So I was getting a bit down. It is highly unusual and people are talking about global warming like when it snows in the UK or not snow in NZ but what can you do.It makes it hot too with no cooling trades to take the edge off. Luckily, the ocean cooperated a little and we had a solid north swell that has hung around for almost a week now but completely died today. I didn't expect this to be a surf trip though:-) So we have had to find a few other things to do.
We went on a little hike and found a couple of nice waterfalls. Erica had never seen anything like it! Went on another hike and found some cool lava tube caves.
And we have taken a couple of little road trips around the island in search of uncrowded waves. That is the only problem with Hookipa is that unless it is massive its the only place to surf on the North Shore and as you can imagine the standard is high and little old me doesn't get much of a look in. This place on the upper west side had a nice wee right and a crazy shorebreak that lots of tourists were swimming in without a care in the world. Just bobbing about and getting slammed. Erica and I wouldn't go near it. We saw one lady, who by the look of things, broke her neck. Horrible. Lifeguards coming running and they drag her out and and put her in a brace and on the ambulance but then we saw some signs and it happens all the time. There are a number of beaches like this and all they have to warn people is these wee signs. Not Newquay that is for sure.
Needless to say we have also been eating reasonably well. We had Mexican for 3 meals in row! This was one of them. $5 lunchtime burrito with a beer and then collapse on the beach! Allen our landlord has been giving us plenty of fish too. Big slabs of tuna and some great wahoo. Erica will do a food post soon.
I was having a surf at Hookipa a couple of days ago and was, as usual, stuck on the inside getting a few waves on the head. By the way it is super shallow reef and full of urchins but the water is so clear its really beautiful. Anyway this big dude paddles past me on a standup paddle board, charging out over the whitewater like its nothing. I'm still paddling out and he catches a wave from way outside, does a couple of big turns and then spins round backwards and surfs right past me. It was Laird Hamilton and he was charging. This is the guys who invented tow surfing, is an amazing fast windsurfer, paddles between island and across the English channel and is a complete legend. He's about 6'3 and 100kg and looks like a surf god. He paddles back out and is standing on his board way out to sea calling in the sets for all us mortals and chatting to his buddies, taking all the biggest waves and generally ruling the place. He took off on one wave, didn't like the look of it, pulled off and I caught it. Cool. Google him and see some of the things
he has done.

This was not the other day!
We are expecting the arrival of Erica's parents tomorrow afternoon. Hope they like the place. We have been saving up all the touristy things and shall be doing them next week.

Well, Pete and Christel have been and kinda gone now. They have rented a condo on the southside in Kihei. Had a nice time with them. Pete and I did our usual of staying up till 3am putting the world to rights but other than that it was quite low key. Few afternoon beers and then a chilled evening. We will go down there in the week sometime and sample their pool!
Went down to Kihei to watch the sun set and got chaffeured around town in the back of their Mustang with the roof down.

No surf or wind. And non forecast.
Actually I take that back. Just been up to Ho'okipa and had a reasonable surf . 2-3 ft Cornish so about 1 foot Hawaiian. Head high on the biggies. But nice enough and it has stopped me going a bit crazy.
Should be here for a couple of days too. Definitely no wind though. For as long as the forecast period which is this time next week.

Had a bit of a quiet day yesterday. No wind and very hot so we just took it easy. Spent 3 hours in the morning cleaning Allens boat. He gave us a good deal on the house here so we offered to help out with any jobs around the place. This was one of them. Everything in Maui gets covered in this red dust from the volcanic earth so it was filthy. Good to keep my hand in at the cleaning though for when we get back to work.

Previous to this though had four great days sailing. Here is a clip Erica took from the rocks at Sprecklesville.

Here's the view looking down the beach. Its lovely apart from spiky mini pine cones that pierce your feet if you forget your flip flops and the sand blowing in your eyes, ears and lunch.

But the trades have backed off now so no more wind for a bit and there is no swell. Time to break out the snorkel! The exciting news is that Pete and Christel from Queenstown arrive this arvo. They will spend a couple of nights here and then go down to the South Side so definitely some cold beers tonight when they get here.

Number 2 in the occasional series of Maui trucks. WTF. Got it raised, bit of a body kit...and put the same crappy little wheels back on it! And this belongs to the local fire chief so its not just the kids doing it.

Spoke to a couple of locals about the Union Jack on the flag. The British flag was given as a gift to the King around 1800 by a visiting Brit. The Americans complained so the King designed his own that was a hybrid of both keeping both countries happy and an allegiance to both, which I think helped avoid conflicts with others.

Finally found and had a sail yesterday at Sprecklesville. The place where they film all the movies and the classic Hawaii sailing location. Its a great little beach, nice and sheltered from the wind for Erica but with beautiful water and not to many people around. Some good sailors there-pulling loops and all the tricks. As you can see we are losing our pasty white skin from the NZ summer! There was a couple of house on the beach here which would be great to rent for a week or 2. Anyone keen for next year? The wind has been good for the last 3 days although its not supposed to have been so no complaints there. 4.7 yesterday so probably 20 knots at times. No swell whatsoever though just a nice bit of chop. Just like Wanaka.
Great palm trees here. Very tall. They cut the coconuts down so they don't blow off in the wind and brain the tourists. This is the first in an occasional series of Maui trucks.The locals like to get a standard 4x4 truck and raise it up like mini monster truck. This guys was on a budget so got a little jeep. Taking pictures is hard though because people wander what your up too. A policeman asked Erica what she was doing when she took this and she made up some rubbish about importing them back to NZ.
The NZ card is a good one here. Hawaiians like the Kiwis and relate to their Polynesian brothers from the other side of the Pacific. Probably not so keen on the English after Cook "discovered" Hawaii. And the Union Jack is still on the flag. Not sure how they feel about that but will ask Allen. So for the time being we are definately from New Zealand.
As an aside, we went to Krispe Kreme donuts and Costco yesterday. Both highlights of the trip so far. Costco is bulk buy shopping at its best with a food sample stall at the end of each aisle. I just ate my way around the place. They should do that in New World and I would be more keen to do the shopping.

Bit of a grey morning here in Maui today. Up at 5.30 because of the bloody chickens that live in the trees behind our house so went out there with some rocks but missed everytime. They are wild and make a racket but Allen says it because its a full moon. We will see.
So its a bit rainy but the trades are picking up already and that should blow the clouds away. Had a great day yesterday. Went down to Kihei in the morning for Erica to have a wee surf but it was windy and hard work. Luckily we found a Quiznos sub joint in Kahului so that made everything better!
As you can see Erica was very happy. The car is holding up too. Just. Then we popped into awindsurfing shop and I got hold of an 06 Naish Freewave and then took it for a sail down at Kanaha. Proper windy for the first time and a lot of fun. Lots of people sailing. Super windy. Few waves on the reef. A couple of pros flying about but generally most folks like myself.

After 2 hours of that it was beer o'clock so we headed back to Paia, took a beer and some pretzels down to the point at the end of our little road and caught our first Maui sunset.

We decided it was time to splurge...out for dinner and even a happy hour beer before. How lucky are we?! We went to a sushi place called Jacques with 20 minutes to spare before happy hour actually ended. Ordered up a couple of draft beers and noticed the bar was slowly filling with what appeared to be local guys. A blonde guy walks in and sits two down from Erica - she immediately picks up on his accent as Australian but has no clue who he is. It is JP! In the flesh but Erica is clueless and saying things like, where you from, how long you been here, is there windsurfing in melbourne, what do you do for a living! JP says he windsurfs and it begins to set in. A couple mates join him and he is saying how we are from new zealand. Apparently they went to Queenstown last winter for 18 days and heli-boarded. Anytime mate, anytime! We bid farewell to go and get dinner, and continue our extravagant evening, but are bound to cross paths again. Now E knows his face she may not play so cool, either he thinks we are complete amateurs or are pretty cool. We will find out.... isn't life grand?

This is he for those who don't know.

This is our car. What a knacker. No A/C. The back doors don't open. Windows only go down from drivers side. Stereo doesn't work. Cheap as chips though and no one will steal it! And the junkie long boards kinda match it.
Had my first windsurf yesterday. Totally marginal 10 knots of wind but plenty of good waves breaking on the Upper Kanaha reef so lots of fun catching them and trying to ride them with a little style. 90 litre Goya wave and my 5.3 Down the line riding though which I have never done before and completely kooked it a few times getting washed over the reef but its all pretty safe down there and good practice when it turns on at the better and more full on spots up the coast. Locals tell me that its is very unusual conditions. Very light wind and some reasonable swell.
Our little surf spot right out front has been a bit junk all week until this morning when it turned on for a hour. Just me and a longboarder out and some great head high plus lefts. Super shallow on the inside though with rocks sticking out the water. I tried to get back out the water via the rocks and got properly worked. Dinged my board and my pride. Won't do that again!
The forecast is for light winds into next week but there is tonnes to do so its not the end of the world. We have books to read and plenty of beers and just watching the world go by here is great.
Sorry there is no more pictures but some will be on the way soon.

So we are in Hawaii!! It's brilliant. Hot, sunny, tropical but not too sweaty - yet. Bit of swell but no wind. The people are friendly, laid back and cool. We have been busy since arriving and spending the night on the floor of Honolulu airport. Met our landlords who are a local couple who seem to know everyone around. Allen has lent us a couple of old longboards which fit badly in the back of our very shitty but cheap car. Here is Erica on the beach just at the end of our street called Paia. The island is proud of its beaches and they all have nice little parks next to them.
Allen took us spear fishing. He makes his own spear guns which are works of art. We went down to the south side of the island which is empty and volcanic so completely different from the north. Jumped off the rocks and  
started shooting pretty much anything that moved. Size didn't seem to matter. And the octopus in the middle was fair game too. Luckily didn't see anything too big but one of the lads said he saw a 4 ft white tip reef shark! I saw a turtle.
We met a really nice couple from Alaska in the pub. Met up this morning for a surf at the Waikiki equivalent on Maui called the Cove where tiny little waves roll gently on in. Had a blast catching the little rollers. Erica caught a couple of nice ones and by the end was standing and riding them right in to the beach. Then our new friends smuggled us in to their fancy hotel where we lived it up for the afternoon swimming about and drinking Heinekens. 
Just saw the weather and no sign of wind until next week!!!!! Its supposed to be windy all the time. Gee. Ah well. Plenty of other stuff to do so we won't get bored. 

Seems like a long time ago but did the Contact Epic a while back. . Great day out. Well run event but a long day of 8 hours in the saddle. Fantastic ride though through some great country that is private and usually closed to the public.

The race started at 7am after a short ANZAC day parade which was very atmospheric with the mist on the lake in the cold morning.