On Maui

Things I've seen in Maui -- pictures later:

• Snorkeling yesterday at Ulua beach, I saw an eagle ray at the edge of the reef, and chased it into deep water so I was surrounded by very deep blue -- visibility was not very good. I also saw an octopus, swimming between small coral heads. They swim with their legs stretched all in one direction. When he landed on a coral, his legs would spread around him, and he'd change color from dark brown to sandy color, making him harder to see if you hadn't been following him.
• At the snorkel site just before LaPerouse Bay, we saw big fish, especially yellow tang which are oddly absent from the other places we have snorkeled. I saw an eel swimming between two holes. At Kamaole Sands beach across from our condo, we saw a snowflake eel.
• Just walking in the waves near our condo, I saw a really big turtle. It looked like a rock. Then it moved.
  
• We went to two botanical gardens: the Garden of Eden on the Hana road, and the Kula Botanical Garden up at around 2000 feet on Haleakala. They are in different climate zones, though both tropical. Both of them have beautiful lily ponds.
  
• The Garden of Eden has views of a sort of hill at the bottom of a water course, and on the high end of the stream, of a waterfall that falls into a still pond. It has many tropical food plants such as a cashew tree. It was raining a little as we walked.
  
• The Kula garden has various rock formations and alongside it is a now-dry rocky water course around 100 yards across. In some man-made ponds among these rocks are captive birds including two African crowned cranes and a pair of NeNes. Some Painted Eucalyptus trees display incredible multi-colored bark. It's in a much drier area, so the plants are different -- the paths are more formal between gardens of irises, covered growing places for orchids, and a Koi pond in dammed area of a natural stream, down in a deep place that seems very tropical. Huge philodendrons grow as well as vines and palm trees.
  
• Further up the mountain on a different day, we again walked in the woods quite near the entrance to Haleakala National Park, and watched the little native birds (a'apane, i'iwi...) and saw two NeNes fly. We went to the start of the Shifting Sands trail that goes into the erosion crater and past the more recent volcanic cones.
• For the first time ever, we drove all the way around the north side of the island. The road is very narrow, but has been paved all the way (since we last tried) and is quite spectacular. There are some recent gated developments of fancy homes and ranches, and some old-time villages where ordinary people -- maybe of native stock -- live.
  
• At the Iao Needle, the park was closed because of rock falls on the access road and other storm stuff from a hurricane that fizzled. Therefore, we walked in and up to the viewpoint. Walking the road allows one to appreciate the really bizarre landscape with very craggy hills covered with jungle, very new with deep vertical lines where the mountain sides seem all folded and strange. We also saw the garden commemorating various immigrant groups to Hawaii: Japanese, Philipino, Korean.