first break!!

finally now that we've finished our first class, we get our first break!! haha, it actually took us until the middle of friday to get our act together and figure out exactly what we were doing... it's always interesting trying to match up the interests of 12 people when none of us have the ability to drive ourselves anywhere.
friday morning we headed down the kona coast and went scuba diving!! i was kinda nervous because i'd only been diving for my certification dives in cayuga lake.. but no worries, it was utterly amazing! it was awesome actually getting control of buoyancy and just being able to hover there over the coral and watch the fish and turtles.

tess and i getting ready


yesterday night we camped out at hapuna beach, which is pretty close to us and had an insane time, swimming basically all our waking hours. unfortunately, we hit our first real misfortune of our time here when a bunch of our gear got stolen. oh well, it's replacable and hehe we've learned to be more careful.. i hate not trusting people and having to be so paranoid about people stealing stuff. the waves there were awesome.. biggest ones i've ever swam in. we defintely drank our share of seawater. and the ocean at my watch while we were enjoying the waves under the moonlight. the losses were worth the fun though.
ciao for now :)

pics!

waimea canyon


beach on kaua'i


kalalau valley in NW kaua'i


bamboo forest below haleakala volcano, maui (i felt like there should be panda bears sticking their noses out from between the stalks :) )


the view from our cabin in the haleakala crater

a few older pics that susie took...

yellow tangs in kealekekua bay


swimming up to our kayak in the bay

Maui and Kaua'i

So the last few weeks have been quite whirlwind...
We started off by flying to Kaua'i and spending 4 days there. Kaua'i's a lot more NW of the other islands so it's a lot older and greener. haha..we've gotten our share of POG (passion-orange-guava) since that's what they give out on Hawaiian Airlines flights. oh and yeah, that's definitely where pogs originated, for those of you who remember that weird fad.
On Kaua'i, we encountered a lot of rain and cooler temps (haha, im not basking in the sun every day for those of you who think I'm just being a beach bum all the time...). We spent two days hiking in Waimea Canyon and saw some sights even more fabulous than the Grand Canyon. We also spent a day doing work for the Koke'e Resource Conservation Program which works on removing invasive species from the native forests of Kaua'i. Between all of us (about 15 people) we removed 13,000 kahili ginger plants !!!! crazy... its kind of depressing because as much as we removed, it seems like such a small amount when the plant is just taking over everything. In Kaua'i, we actually stayed at an old YWCA camp and had this rustic cabin and bunkhouse. hehe.. it was like summer camp with all the bunk beds lined up in the 'barracks'.
We spent the next few days on Maui. For the first day, we took a very necessary easy day and hiked to an amazingly tall waterfall and walked through this mysterious bamboo forest. We hung out around the campfire that night with some guys who showed up from another part of Maui, but who were both originally from the mainland US and had randomly decided to move out here. The next day, we woke up at 5:15 am to see the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala volcano at just above 10,000 ft.. but sadly it was rainy and clouded in. We basically wore every piece of clothing we had that morning and were still huddled together at the summit. Later, we started on our hike down into the volcano crater and camped in a rustic cabin on the other side of the crater. It was seriously like crossing a Mars scape in the beginning. Our little cabin was in the most picturesque setting ever and while we were napping on the lawn in front of the cabin, I woke up to nene in my face (the endangered Hawaiian goose). The next day we backpacked out and back up the side of the crater. longest switchbacks EVVVer. over the two days, we went 21 miles and did a vertical of about 3500 ft. When we emerged from the trail into the parking lot, Ty amazingly greeted us with beer, gatorade, and oreos. :)
After that, we had a very well-deserved weekend at some condos down on the southern coast of Maui and lived it up on the beach and in the hot tub for a few nights. and ate the best fish and chips evver.
pictures will come.. the comp's being way too slow for that now...

gone for a while...

new skill of the day: apparently i have a realllly amusing turkey gobble ... that's what happens when we have longgg van rides. so anyways, we're packing now to leave for kaua'i in the morning (the oldest of the main islands) , and then we'll be heading to maui for a bit, so i may be out of touch for then.