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Published: September 22nd 2010
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Snorkelling
We were up at 6:45 and headed down to the Kihei boat ramp for a morning of snorkelling. We were on the boat and headed out for the atoll of Molokini, a bird sanctuary and former volcano, the curve of which was still visible. Our instructors were two middle aged American ladies who were clearly pretty stoked with their lot in life. And who wouldn’t be in their shoes - as we arrived at the island, Pam (one of the instructors) announced to the boat “Welcome to my office!”
We got our snorkelling gear on and I jumped in to the water with my camera strapped to my hand, eager to try it out underwater. 3M waterproof it claimed. To say that, at any point during the snorkel, I was as much as 2 metres underwater would be exaggerating. Which was why I was surprised and more than a little pissed off when, 4 photos and thirty seconds after getting in the water, my camera went blank and turned off.
The rest of the time snorkelling around Molokini was kind of hard to concentrate because I was so pissed off at having my camera busted barely a week after having
Blake, Me and Rhiannon
On the boat, heading back in from Molokini bought it. The only other moment I particularly remember was going to the edge of the island’s shelf and looking over the edge, into the black abyss below. It was terrifyingly awesome.
From there we went back on to the boat to check out a wreck, but the water was full of coral spawn, so we couldn’t really see it. It was nice to know that the reason we couldn’t see the wreck was because we were swimming in sperm.
The final stop was a little reef barely 100 metres off the boat ramp that Pam called “Turtle Town”. Before we even hit the water the reason for the name was apparent, as a massive sea turtle popped its head out of the water. We hit the water and they were everywhere. Ok, so everywhere may be a slight exaggeration but there were plenty to be seen - big males, medium females and even a few little ones. The law in Maui says you can’t get any closer than 5 feet to the turtles, but one was shepherded in my direction by another girl from the boat and I think if the turtle police had been around I would have
Blake's leg
The last photo before my Olympus packed it in. been slapped with the $5000 fine.
(I also copped an eyeful of a different description thanks to a girl in a boob tube coming up to surface a little too quickly but my Mum reads this, so I might save that story for the pub.)
Da Rush
After checking out and getting a bite to eat from cafe O’Lei (great feed and good value at $10 a dish) Blake, Rhiannon and I hit Da Rush - a stationary wave that we had promised ourselves all week we were going to take on.
Rhiannon wasn’t keen so it was just Blake and me. The guy at the front desk told us that they need a minimum of two people to run the wave for an hour. But if we were willing to pay for the full hour, he would run it for the two of us for half hour and get “a private lesson”. We figured we’d get twice as much time on it, so we paid and were offered this piece of advice.
“Put all your weight on your back foot. If you think you’ve got as much weight as you can put on your back foot, put 5%!(NOVERB)
Da Wave
Reggie shredding it up, me being envious and the "instructors" waiting their turn. more on it.”
Turns out it was the only advice we received the whole time. Our “instructors” for our “private lesson” were two guys - one who worked there and had thalidomide-baby arms and the other was, by the look of it, his mate who just wanted a free ride.
Blake got the hang of it pretty quick and, though “Blake and Joe vs Da Rush” shows a lot of stacks, he spent a lot more time standing up than me.
Staying upright has never been my strength. As a kid, when my family moved in to a two-storey house, I fell down the stairs so many times that I stopped getting sympathy from my parents and instead started getting in trouble for it. Stacking it on Da Rush was okay because it was a fairly soft landing onto what was essentially a very taut trampoline surface. But it was frustrating as hell because instead of offering a helping hand or some advice on how to stay upright, the two “instructors” waited for us to stack because then they would jump on and shred the wave. To say we paid for two people for half an hour was bullshit, because
the “instructors” spent significantly more time on the wave than Blake or I. It was fun, but I left far from impressed.
From there Blake and Rhiannon drove me to the airport, having borrowed a rent a car from Dylan, who had rented himself a sweet Harley for the day. We said our goodbyes in the fashion I most enjoyed - “See you in South America,” Blake and Rhiannon heading over to meet up with us some time in November.
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