Leaving Paradise

Time flies when you’re enjoying life. You also forget to update websites and blogs, so I will just summarize my last few weeks in Hawaii.

After 2 weeks of lounging around the beautiful island of Kauai’i, we flew into Oahu to celebrate Andrew’s birthday in Honolulu. Waking up half drunk the next morning, we drove up to the North Shore to watch surfers rip it up at the legendary Bonzai Pipeline. Waves were reaching heights of 10-12 ft that day, but it was completely flat over at Waimea Bay, site of the Eddie Big Wave invitational. In fact, swells never got passed 12 ft during our time in Hawaii, so the competition never happened and it looks like it will be off again for another year. With that under our belt, we saw all we needed to see in Oahu and flew into wowie Maui.

Having been to Maui before, I had an idea of what to expect and I was looking forward to it. Last time, however, we spent most of our time on the east coast with all the tourist, so this time around we decided to spend some more time driving out west to Hana. Waking up early to watch the sunrise on top of Mt Haleakala, we then took the slow scenic drive up north through the narrow windy roads of the Hana Highway, where we were able to stop and explore a number of water falls. When we got to Hana, we found the best body boarding beach yet, and spent a good few hours destroying our bodies in the crushing waves. Then, instead of driving back the same way as I did the last time, we continued on to loop around the south of the island, and what we found further down the road were some of the most magnificent pools to swim in.

Situated above Makahiku Falls, the Infinity Pool was a sight that you can only dream of, and we had it all to ourselves. We cliff jumped and swam, while overlooking the edge of a 180 foot drop. Down at the bottom lies the Seven Sacred Pools where we swam even more, and jumped off even higher cliffs. Being in the water for most of the morning, we decided to just keep driving until we came across the only winery in Hawaii, Maui Winery, and tried some pineapple wines. Taking us back east was a newly paved road, that is far less traveled than the northern route, and a real treat to drive on.

We next flew back to the Big Island on a small 9 seater plane with Pacific Wings and arrived like rock stars. Having started out on the Big Island for this trip, we have seen many of the sites already, with the only exception being the discovery of the snow in Hawaii up on Maune Kea. The rest of the time was relaxing. We rented a condo directly across the street from Keauhou Bay, where there are some good reef breaks. So our daily routine included…

-6am to 2pm: Stefan working, while I’m writing my book.
-11am to 12pm: Lunch time surf break
-2pm to 6pm: Hit the beach for some body surfing
-6pm to 7pm: Sunset surf to end the day
-7pm to 12am: Dinner, drinking, and playing some guitar and ukulele

It’s was a tough 2 weeks and we tried so hard.

Overall, my time Hawaii was well spent. I had some great travel mates to go with, making it the most relaxing trip I have ever done. And although I wasn’t able to finish my book like I had hoped, I did do a substantial amount of writing, with 360 pages and 112,000 words completed already, so I am well on my way.

Congratulations to Joern and Crystal and thank you for choosing Hawaii.
And a big thank you to Stefan and Andrew for the great time in paradise.