Maui

Hi Everyone..

So in case you haven't heard yet; i have made a sudden treck out of the country. It is somewhere i had hoped not to go quite yet, but here I am... In Maui.

I always said that i didn't want the USA as my first stamp in my passport, and i had hoped that they wouldn't stamp it... but they did.

But now that i am here, I don't really care.

so, long story short - Melissa and I had planned to go somewhere warm together this winter. We figured that we would take my Fairmont deals and her westjet deals and go somewhere and not have to spend a lot on the trip.

Turns out that Mels family decided to come to Maui for their vacation and because we had planned to go somewhere together she invited me along. I found out about this about a week before the trip. My next working day I requested the week and a half off! and it was granted to me (i don't know why!!!, like really - who would give me a week off with only a weeks notice?) but - I worked hard to pull it off and get 2 weeks work done in one.

I flew out at 7am from calgary on saturday and after a confusing trip through the vancouver airport, we managed to get on a flight bound for Maui. A measly 6 hour flight later and I was in +25 degree weather!

Now, i had talked about doing my scuba a little bit before and i decided to take advantage of being here in a tropical wonderland by getting that item scratched off my to-do list.

Walking into the dive shop on saturday, they laughed at me when i said i wanted to get it done before thursday! "it can't be done" well, someone how they managed to make it happen. It took a one day session with a guy named Kioni, and then 2 days with another lady named Rachel.

so, let me tell you about going under the water the first time.

See, i had put sunscreen on, and when i first put on my mask i tasted something well..., salty... I thought about my sunscreen and how i just got my face wet and thought that i was tasting my sunscreen... so - i started spitting!! but i could not get rid of the taste! it was gross... yukky.. goopy... but after all that spitting it was still there. I decided to just deal with it. I put my mask on and got ready for the decent under water.

I got myself "sorted" and decended under water. I couldn't do it - but i refused to go back up to the surface. I was trying to get on my knees on the bottom but i couldn't breath right! Kioni was looking at me wondering if i was going to get the hang of it. I knew all i had to do was calm down and take a nice breath and i'd be good. But... let's see you take it easy breathing out of some strange tube thing! really - it is not easy! well, it is... but it is quite the mental hurdle to get over!

Finally, after a few moments i managed to get my breathing under control and the rest was simple. Even clearing the mask was easy! well, not easy - but not nearly the challenge as getting myself to just breathe!

it's now been 3 days, and 5 dives and i'm feeling pretty comfortable under the water. Tomorrow I am going to Molokini, it's the remans of a volcano and it's just a cresent moon shaped island. Promises to be an interesting dive! I am pretty excited.

Oh, and i really hope to get the pics, but i saw a giant sea turtle today on my second dive... the turtle was a mere... 30cm from my face!!! ya... was about to high five it! but you aren't supposed to touch them! ($10,000 fine!)

hmm, what else... well, i'll tell you more when i see you this weekend! should be flying into Toronto friday afternoon around 5pm. (i know, traffic, but it's the earliest i can get there, and i'd rather wait in traffic then in the vancouver airport)

Cheerio!!

Michael

Oh.. that taste in my mouth... the "sunscreen"

i'll say these few words..

it tasted "salty"
this is "Maui" aka... Ocean...

ya... SMRT!!! :)