It’s almost time to go home, so here are the rest of the photos that I took
on Maui.

I <heart> hibiscus

And Norfolk Island Pines too

On the way up to the top of Haleakala

Yours truly at 10,000 feet, trying to stay warm

Looking into the crater

Sunset

Lots of observatories up here. Several of them are run by the USAF.

Paia is an old Hawaiian town

We ate at Mama’s Fish House one night. The food is great, but the prices are
absurd. This is Opah topped with caramelized onions and avocado and served
with local veggies and jasmine rice.

Cool bird

We saw quite a few cruise ships anchored off of Lahaina

The banyan tree in Lahaina is insane

Well that’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed my trip photos!

As promised, here is my third and final set of underwater photos. I took these
in Lanai today, where the conditions weren’t quite as clear as Black Rock the
other day. Nevertheless, I have a few cool shots to share with you after the
link.

So what did I learn from this experience? Underwater digital photography is
ten times more difficult than "regular" photography. You’re moving, the fish
are moving, the camera’s LCD is hard to see, and the lighting is often poor.
I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve had to throw out over the last week.
In addition, a lot of them needed some "work" in Photoshop to get rid of color
casts (usually cyan). Still, it was fun to try, and since I own all this equipment
I hope I’ll get another opportunity to do more underwater shooting.

And now, on with the photos!

Looks like these three are sitting at a bar or something

The parrot fish were huge

Mystery fish and a yellow tang

I dunno what this thing is, but I’ve been trying to get a shot of one all week.
Note the spent firecracker in the background. Sigh.

Cool.

Yet another parrot fish

A yellow tang colors this otherwise drab photo

It must’ve been lunchtime

Really cool fish that I can’t identify and yet another yellow tang

Today we took a trip via
catamaran to the island of Lanai. We didn’t actually do much sailing (since
it wasn’t windy) but it was still a fun ride. Once there we started with
some snorkeling (pics to come) and laying around on the beach. Then we took
a tour of the island — there isn’t much to see. Lanai was once the pineapple
capital of the world and now they grow nothing at all — Dole bailed out a
few decades ago. Lanai is the polar opposite of Maui: no high-rises, no fancy
restaurants, few paved roads, etc.

The highlight of the trip was on the way back. We saw whales, and plenty of
them. At one point a humpback whale came out of the water right next to our
boat, and it was awe-inspiring. In fact, I was so caught up in the moment that
I didn’t actually get any photos of it. We had plenty of other humpback sightings,
plus there were pilot whales around as well.

Click the link below for pictures from the day. I’ll save the underwater shots
for a separate entry.

Captain Owen explains the rules and tells us about our trip to Lanai

And off we go…

Lahaina starts to disappear

Whale spout!

Blurry whale tail! You can see what the camera focused on here. These are humpbacks,
by the way.

The Island of Lanai

Caves

Big cliffs

Hulopoe beach with the Four Seasons at Manele Bay in the background

Lanai is old Hawaii. No stoplights, no fast food, nothing.

They have plenty of cool plants, of course

Our ride

Hoisting the sails… though we ended up only sailing for 5 minutes or so

Artsy shot

A pilot whale!

Humpback tail

Sunset over Lanai

The sun fades away into the clouds

Yesterday we went to Black Rock (near Kaanapali Beach) for more snorkeling.
The place was packed, but the snorkeling was great — super clear water and
plenty of fish. I got a few decent shots, but just like before, lots of them
ended up being deleted. Tomorrow’s my last day for underwater photo taking…
we’ll see how it goes.

Click the link for a few select shots from yesterday…

Black Rock

Yellow tang

Another tang

Moorish idol

Trumpet fish

Elegant unicorn fish?

Another Humuhumunukunukuapuaa

It’s pretty humbling when you have to throw away 80% of your photos, but that’s
what my experience with underwater digital photography have been thus far.
Yesterday the water wasn’t very clear, so I didn’t really have anything worth
keeping. Today I did some serious snorkeling and got better photos, but still,
it’s hard. Seeing things on the LCD isn’t easy, the fish don’t stay still,
plus you’re always drifting around… all that makes it a bit frustrating.

Click the link to see a few shots I took today, with more to come before the
end of the trip. Again, these are from the Canon SD800 with its matching underwater
case.

Oh, and fish experts are welcome to ID these guys for me, since I don’t know
many of them.

If I’m not mistaken, that fish on the left is the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa, the
Hawaii State Fish. The guy on the right is a puffer fish… those things
freak me out. Naturally there were many of them.

I have no idea what this thing is.

Nor this, but it’s cool.

Another Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (bottom).

I believe this is a trumpet fish

Yours truly taking a break at Kapalua Bay. This one’s for the people who say
that I’m never in any of the photos I post.

Just saying a quick "Aloha" from Maui. Yesterday included flying, waiting
in too many lines (for car and food), and a little swimming. Here are some
teaser photos to make you jealous. Hopefully my next set will include some
underwater photos!

Oh, all of these are taken with the Canon PowerShot SD800 IS.