Iao Valley

This is Iao Valley here on Maui. The Iao Needle that you see protruding into the sky used to be a look out point for the Hawaiians so they could see invaders coming. How they ever got up there is beyond me. I certainly wouldn't want to climb it!

The season is almost over

The whales are starting to thin out and will be gone by the end of next month. I'm already looking forward to next whale season to see what kind of photos I will be lucky enough to capture then.

I guess it's back to the water for fish and turtle shots now.

Looking down

This photo is not upside down, it's just a reflection I came across that I thought needed to be photographed.

There are things here I find new every day and I look forward to getting out and finding everything on the island that I can. Life is good!

Things are looking up

I always find it interesting to point my camera up in the air and then watch the people around me do the same thing trying to figure out what I'm taking a photo of!

Pals!

It's all in the details

Just an abstract shot I took as a peacock walked by me one day.

Yeti !!

I encountered this fierce snow creature on my way to work this morning and managed to get a couple of good shots before it was gone again. Don't know where my dog was at the time but he showed up soon after...

Sunrise, barely...

I took this picture within a week or two of the shortest day of the year. Usually the Sun is way high over this particular hill but on this day it barely came above the trees...

Less than a month until Spring!

A really big fish!

I was cruising down the highway on my way to an art show one day and looked out at the ocean to see this nuclear submarine slowly moving along in the channel.

The navy routinely runs training missions in the channel but you never, ever see a submarine surfaced in the channel. At least I never have in the 13 years I've been coming to Maui. I watched the submarine for over an hour cruise through the channel and out to sea. It almost seemed as if they were making sure some one, some where, new they were there. Kind of a "hey look, we're here" type of thing.

Normally I would think they were just doing something benign however the week before this I watched as two large military aircraft (they looked like C-130s) flew in the channel in a formation and only about 500 feet off the deck. The week after I saw the submarine I was on a whale tour and got buzzed by two military Huey helicopters. These three different encounters all happened about two weeks after the "accidental" nuclear missile warning scare we had here. Hmmmm....

Of course when I saw the rain showers in the background on Lana'i behind the submarine all those conspiracies thoughts went away. I just wanted to get a photo!!

Crazy skies!

This was the scene a few weeks ago in Coal Harbour... Crazy skies!

Don't feel bad Paul...

.... it snowed here too!

Yep, we actually got snow! We had a big storm front move through yesterday that dumped inches of rain on the island and dropped the temperatures down quite a bit. 

I woke up this morning to snow on the top of Haleakala. I tried to get up to the top to get some photos but by the time I was finished with work and headed that way the snow had pretty much melted away.

Mossy Oasis...

A few years ago when digging up some pipes in Coal Harbour I came across an old piece of Whale bone which isn't that uncommon around here as the old RCAF Coal Harbour seaplane base was sold and turned into a Whaling Station after WWII was over.

Anyway back to my story... I found this old piece of Whale Bone and set it on a nearby electrical enclosure and promptly forgot about it. Well several days ago I saw this mossy thing and on closer examination realised it was the whale bone I had found and placed there several years earlier. Now turned into a beautiful little Mossy Oasis complements of Mother Nature!

Birds on the wires

Another foggy morning scene from Coal Harbour. The birds on the wires made for an interesting silhouette shot.

As big as a school bus

Hey, Paul started it!

And yes, they really are the size of a school bus and weigh even more!

Tall as a six story building...

It's difficult to fathom just how large one of these Coast Guard ships is until you start counting how many deck levels there are, then comparing that to a building of similar height! (And that's just the part you see above the water...)

Ahhh...

There they are, the first two flowers of the year...

Definately a soothing sight for winter weary eyes!

Morning reflections...

Sunrise and fog this morning made for some interesting silhouettes and reflections.

It's another lucky day whale watching!

This one just had to pose for me to get the perfect shot!

Purebred Meltie...

I wasn't real sure what breed "Sunny" was until I saw him in the rain.

Pretty obvious he's Purebred Meltie!

Sticks and Stones...

Make for a great splash!

I took another trip along the Road to Hana about two weeks ago and this is one of the better shots I ended up with. This was taken at Ke'anae Peninsula, about 18 miles from the town of Hana.