Trip Journal entry for Tuesday, February 24th.

When you’re in paradise, you laugh when things go wrong.

Koki Beach
One of the common themes I’ve been mentioning about this year’s trip to Hana is doing things we didn’t have time to do in the past. Koki Beach was no different. Getting the earlier start in the morning and beginning the day in Hana gave us this little spot practically to ourselves. Only a lady playing with her two golden retrievers were there when we arrived, and that’s all we saw the entire time we were there.

Here are a few shots from Koki Beach, with it’s towering cliff, view of the ‘Alau Islet, and the red sand.

The Pools Await
The next stop of the day was the Oheo Gulch, aka the Pools of Oheo, aka the Seven Pools, aka the Sacred Pools. Whatever you call them, they were exceptionally more peaceful early in the morning ahead of all the crowds. Another place we had almost all to ourselves. As you can imagine, given the chance to climb rocks and hike to get a better shot, I could not pass up type of opportunity. Here are a few of the results.

Webnelly Falls
If you haven’t read about it yet, I sort of went for an unplanned swim. Somewhat distracted by a low camera battery (with my spare battery forgotten back in the car) and looking at my next shot instead of where I was climbing, I ended up in the water. I was okay, and as much as I wish I had a photo of the aftermath, I only have this shot of the rocks where I made that misstep and coined the phrase Webnelly Falls after my Twitter handle, @webnelly.

I sort of lucked out by not getting seriously hurt, and by saving most of my camera gear. I was wearing my camera backpack over both shoulders (thankfully) with most of my equipment in it. My Canon Rebel was in my left hand, and as I fell forward, I pulled a Statue of Liberty play and that arm went straight up in the air almost out of pure instinct. The water where I landed was about 18” deep, but because I fell forward, I went in all the way up to my chest on my front side.

Although I was soaked from chest to toe on the front of me, my backpack survived completely dry. The cell phone in my shorts pocket, however, died a watery death that morning. I sort of needed a new phone anyway.

The Shoot Must Go On
I could have been really ticked off, but seeing that everything was still dry and functioning and I still had about 20 minutes of battery life left, I continued taking photos. Now that I was dripping wet, I really didn’t have to worry about how I was getting back across those same rocks, now did I. Onward I went, to get shots like this one, which were well worth it.

Had I gotten angry and called it quits, I would have missed out. Later in the day, Cindy made a comment that she was very proud of me for shaking off the incident and not letting it get to me. It had been a pretty stressful few months leading up to our trip, to say the least. Seeing that my phone at times appeared surgically attached to my hand, being at peace seemed like the lesser possible outcome. I guess something about being in paradise for 10 days, especially the time spent in Hana, really turned things around for me.

Slight Change of Plans
After I finished getting the shots I wanted, we hiked back to the car to change into some dry clothes. That was an unexpected benefit of staying overnight in Hana, I had extra change of dry clothes with me. We had been planning to hike up the Pipiwai Trail to the towering Waimoku Falls, but while I had dry clothes to change into, my gym shoes were still soaked and not in any condition to hike.

We decied to cancel the hike and headed back to Hana for lunch, as well as another stop at the Halfway to Hana to restock on that yummy banana bread. We had fewer stops to make on the way back, so we were sort of taking our time. As we approached Paia, we found ourselves part of quite a crowd at the Hookipa Lookout at around 3:30pm. Much, if not all of the attention was being given to the windsurfers and kite-surfers who were out catching the big waves and putting on a show. Very impressive, and something I would never picture myself trying.

Cindy, Meet Cindy
Not far from Hookipa, three more of my Twitter friends were having another tweetup in Paia and saving a spot for us. It was great, and there were a few of those small world moments. The first of which was @DJSMOOK having lived in Oak Park, IL for a few years, which isn’t that far from where we live now. The second was @ucsmiles not only sharing the same first
name as my wife, they both had the exact same cell phone, right down to the color.

It was a really nice learning a little more about life in Upcountry Maui, which we hadn’t really visited too much previously. After a quick bite at Island Cuisine in Paia, we ended the tweetup with a visit to a private yard area behind the nearby shops (with permission, of course). It was a beautiful, green retreat away from the traffic and distractions from the main street in Paia. It overlooked a stretch of sand that I learned was Paia Beach, and the view was just lovely.

Our Own Mini Mardi Gras
We received a reminder from family back home that Tuesday was Pounchki Day, otherwise known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. For us being in Hawaii this year, we just had to partake in the Hawaiian spin on this last day before Lent: Malassada Day. Malassadas are bakery cousins of the pounchki desserts we’re used to having home in Chicago, and we didn’t have to go far on Maui to find them.

After freshening up back at the resort from the day’s long travels, we made our way to the Cannery to visit Lulu’s for a light dinner and for our malassadas. We had stumbled upon Lulu’s the week before, and since it was so nearby to the Ka’anapali Resort area, it was just the spot. Good thing, too, because after dessert, we didn’t have much energy for much else. After two days of a ton of time in the car, it wasn’t long before we were passed out for the night.

Tags: aloha09, Hana

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Trip 4 Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.