Lahaina Harbor

This is Lahaina Harbor on Maui as seen from the water.

And the sea rolled and tossed so the boat moved and pitched and bounced...

(picture from the web)

I bought some "Sea Bands" this weekend to take on my next trip to Hawaii. I don't know if they will help and unfortunately the only way to find out is to get on a boat so I guess I will have to give boating on the ocean at least one more try.

Stained Glass

We came across a church during a drive in "Upcountry" on Maui. Upcountry is defined as anything on the side of the main volcano called Haleakala (pronounced Ha-lay-a kah-la). The church was an older one and just loaded with stain glass windows so we had to stop and take a few photos. This church was located very near Makawao on the "green" side of the island.

One sunny day...

Several weeks ago Daughter and Granddaughter (who is just learning to walk) were up to visit, the weather was overcast and rainy as it usually is this time of year.

Many days later the sun came out... Definitely a crime scene by the looks of all the prints! LOL

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer

I was sitting on our lanai one afternoon watching the whales and I saw this moron on a surf board paddling out towards a whale that was swimming along the surface about 200 yards out from the shore. I only say moron because to be more descriptive would require the use of some "colorfull" four letter words.

The state of Hawaii requires everybody, businesses and people, including tourists, to keep a minimum of 100 feet away from the whales unless they approach you. In the event a whale or whales approaches your vessel you are required to kill the engines/stop moving and drift until the whales are at least the 100 feet away from you. Under no circumstances are you to intentionally aproach the whales like this moron did.

In all honesty I have to say I kept my camera trained on the whale just in case the whale decided to give this moron a well deserved tail slap. It never happened but I was waiting! After about two mintues the whale disappeared under the surface leaving the person on the board a long paddle back to the beach.

This wasn't the only person that I saw try this but the others were unsuccessful at getting to the whales before they went under water.

Playing with fire!

The other day I took a picture of the fire in my wood stove, the glass caught my reflection and I wound up in the photograph too.

So tonight I got to playing around with Photoshop, and this is what I came up with.

Reaching WAY out there

These were both taken with the Sigma 150-500mm lens at 500mm from the shore. These were probably to far out there to be photographing but I did it anyway just because they kept jumping out of the water and taunting me!

These are both cropped about 50%.

I think it's time for a garage sale so I can start my 300-800mm lens fund. Now what can I find of Cheryl's that she doesn't need? LOL

It's TIKI Time

These first two were found along the beach in Lahaina. The one photo has one of the qualities of Paul's tourist photo list. I'm not quite sure how I managed to get the tiki straight and the background so slanted. I'm going to say the tiki was leaning to one side. LOL

This third one was inside the Hard Rock Cafe on Front Street in Lahaina. I keep telling Cheryl that one of these trips I'm going to buy me a nice big tiki and put it in the front room of our home. Any guesses as to what her response was? LOL

Blooming Bradford Pears

Spring is knocking on our door here in Yukon,Ok.

Seems the Bradford Pears are usually the first to bloom in town.

The Bloom began last week but it was Sunday before I finally got out to take these pics.

Thought the deep blue Oklahoma Sky made for a good background to just shoot thru the branches and flowers.

Not a bad motto to live by!

Only editing was to add a subtle border.

Nikon 55mm/200mm lens was used.

Flowers from the Road to Hana

Just a couple of shots of the plant life we encountered on our drive to Hana.

Jake's capture!

For the last couple of years as some of you know I have been inspecting waterlines in a nearby town as they are installed in the ground. Part of the job is to photograph fittings and other pertinent bits before they are buried.

Today my Son Jacob was filling in for me as the onsite inspector as I was busy elsewhere. He managed to capture a few nice photos of a Grey Heron that was hanging around in the bush near the job site with my work camera, an old 6mp D50 and the pre VR 70-300 kit lens.

Maui Steaks

I think he heard me! LOL

These were taken during our drive to Hana. Instead of driving to Hana and then turning around and going back the way we came we chose to drive completely around the island.

Up until just a few years back the rental car companies would void your rental contract and make you completely responsible for any damage to the rental car if you took this drive. There was a section of road that was all dirt and not maintained and you had to have a four wheel drive to make it through that piece of road. Mainly because they set up high enough that you could get through the pot holes without tearing up the bottom of the car.

These days there are still two sections of that road, about a mile each, that are dirt and gravel. I wouldn't recommend traveling it when it was wet but if it's not, then it was a pretty good drive. The dirt and gravel sections were actually smoother than some of the paved sections were.

These two shots were taken on the Kaupo Ranch near Nuu bay along the Pi'ilani Highway. (That's pee-ee-lah-nee Highway) You can tell that we had made the turn and were back on the leeward side of the island as everything was starting to get back to being brown instead of green.

The race is on!

This didn't actually happen... I was playing with the Sigma 120-400 one afternoon and took a number of jet plane pictures. Then one evening a few days later I got to playing with Photoshop...

What really surprised me was how much the sky changed color throughout the afternoon when I took the pictures, no two photos were exactly the same color. Made for quite a challenge blending these two pictures together!

Out of the dark

Here are two more photos from the Old Lahaina Luau that I saved by using adjustments in the RAW converter before turning them into JPEGs. These are the before and after of each shot so you have something to compare to. I know how Paul likes to see the before and afters. LOL

I have been very amazed at how much you can change a RAW image in the converter without degrading the image. I have been able to "save" several images just because I shot them in RAW. These images were only adjusted in the RAW converter. The only thing I did to them in photoshop was put the frames on.

As much as I wasn't impressed by the food at the Old Lahaina Luau I can't same the same thing about the Hula Girls! LOL

RUFFLED MOCKING BIRD

Every year the same game takes place. Our full time resident the Mocking Bird attempts to single handle the many Cedar Waxwings invading his stash of Holly Berries. Aggressive stances and fancy divebombing techniques are just to little to ward off  his Looters of the Berries!

Standing watch and ever alert, a close eye is kept open for the masked bandits!

This year there were not as many Waxwings as in prior years. My guesstimate was only around thirty birds. Last year there was at least 75 to a hundred. The drought probably had a bearing on their numbers.

The good thing about their numbers were I got to watch three days of the Mockingbird trying to run off  the berrie thieves before the Waxwings had the trees stripped!

Whenever there was a break in the action between the, Mockingbird vs Waxwings war, noticed this little Wren would show up to see what all the commotion was about!

Guess this just about ends the Stealing of the Berries post for this year!

Non-Digital Picture

I ran across this guy painting a scene one day at one of the big resorts on Maui. I was killing some time while the women were... you guessed it, shopping!

Here is a photo of what he was painting. Personally, I prefer using a camera over a brush any day!

RETURN of the MASKED BANDITS

Yesterday morning, Friday the 2nd of March, the sun was already up and shining bright when I finally made it into the sunroom. Raising the blinds I noticed the Hollies were alive with a flurry of beating wings and frenzied feeding masked raiders. The Cedar Waxwings have arrived to devour the treasure of the resident Mockingbird! The ripe Holly Berries that he has been carefully eating and guarding for sometime!


 

Grabbed up the camera with the 200mm lens and started shooting thru the glass of the window, using it for a blind. Even with fast shutterspeeds, 1/8oo to 1/1000s and ISO of 400, had a hard time keeping up with the fast pace.

This guy reminded me of a sleek Dolphin jumping from the water.



Notice the small red spot on it's wing appearing as a drop of wax!

Always look forward to seeing these guys show up at the start of Spring each year. They are over a full month plus ahead of last year, arriving April 6th. in 2011. Early Spring? I think so!


Note;
All pics were processed using Picassa. All pics were cropped which makes some have a grainy texture.

Tomorrow I will try to have the Mockingbirds take on this robbery!  

Getting a work out

This is another shot I sort of saved by shooting in RAW instead of JPEG. The original image was way underexposed and I almost was able to make it a decent picture using the adjustments in the RAW converter in Photoshop.

This is from the Old Lahaina Luau in Lahaina. I think I would hurt something if I tried to hula! I'm not sure what is worse, doing the hula or trying to keep the flowers on your head.

Are you getting tired of photos from Hawaii yet?

Here is the original photo as taken. The only adjustments I have made is switching it to a JPEG from the RAW file.

Rough Seas

It seems the sea can be an unforgiving place at times. I would think in a place like Hawaii they wouldn't leave a sunken boat sitting around too long but apparently this one had been there for a long while. The anchor I found sitting along the shore behind a store in Lahaina.

UPDATE: This is from one of our readers who knew the story behind the boat and left the information on a comment.

A little history about the sunken boat...it arrived on Maui with its crew for a Halloween celebration. I think maybe a little too much partying played a role in this story!! They anchored at high tide on top of the reef. The folks went ashore to party and then the tide went out leaving the boat exposed on the reef. They were unable to get any boats or equipment in there to help retrieve the vessel. Time has passed and now the boat is actually part of the living reef and can't be removed.

Thank you Val!

Tropical Flowers

All of these shots were taken on our drive along the road to Hana on Maui. The last photo was taken in front of a church.

Taking a dive

I came across a group of swimmers trying their hand at diving off a famed local spot on Ka'anapali Beach called Black Rock or Puu Kekaa (pronounced poo-ou kay-ka-ah). One of the resorts does a daily evening dive from this spot to recreate a Hawaiian ritual. Hawaiian legend states that the spirits of warriors left the earth to meet their ancestors by leaping from this rock. By the way a couple of these guys were diving they were probably lucky they didn't meet their ancestors!