Plus an original inhabitant
And so to
I should explain that the Hawaiian trip was slightly last minute and we only managed to book a place here on the Thursday before we arrived. It was a slightly fraught affair because I could not understand Patrick with whom we were arranging the booking.
On meeting our host, part of the reason for the unintelligibility was the fact that he was missing all his front teeth between the "incisors". There may also have been background interference from his wife who was Puerto Rican and a kind of Rita Moreno/Waynetta cross in a pair of unsympathetic black leggings. In her Formula one conversation we gathered that the very happy locals, in the park just across the lane from us, playing cards and a boom box whilst blocking our a truly amazing view of Kihei Bay
with their automobile homes would be:
Rita: "No trouble yoooo say hi them, they say hi back, yoooo wave smile, they wave smile. We no aive no trouble. My hossban he tell you, Patrick you tell tham we aive no trouble. They leave when park closes 8 o'clock. Yoooo need more mangoes? My hossban he pick them for yooooo off the tree, see the tree?"
We eat the fresh mangoes off the tree which shades our little condo and 3 others so wee had see the tree. The mangoes are lovely, quite "sherbetty" Our condo has been remodelled and is very nice but its neighbours provide colour until.....9.30 pm when the police shift them out in two squad cars. It would appear they have a deal with the park guy...each liquid donation to the council worker fund gives another half an hour of opening time.
First full day we set sail from Lahaina the home of the giant banyan tree, this is one tree
And local artists sell their wares and performers make music under its shade all Saturday...this is the same tree.
Whilst we seek out whales with the Pacific Whale Foundation. It is a bit late in the season but there are always stragglers...first we see bottle nose dolphins
We are told to shout out the clock position if we see whale spouts when they emerge for air. I spot one about half a mile away at 3 o'clock and everyone dashes to have a look.
That is our only sighting but I provide P with endless amusement when someone shouts the incorrect term "straight ahead" and Cap'n colludes by telling everyone to go to the bow and for some inexplicable reason I am pleased that I have an unobstructed view because I have dashed to the stern....and it takes a while to realise...
Overwhelmed with our viewings we return to shore to hunt out a beach, we have no trouble parking at this one.......
But we opt for another equally deserted and I merrily spend an hour balancing on a branch of a tree a foot off the ground observing the observer
We decide to head back to get ready for dinner somewhere and little boom box. Togged up, well as much as you do in Hawaii we emerge to have Rita and her stressed Spandex shuffling across to us.
Rita: "Hallo, hallo, how are yooooooo.
Us: "Hi, thanks for the mangoes, they were lovely"
Rita: "Oh yooo wanna more, I get yooo more. PATRICK GET THESE PEOPLE MOE MANGO"
Us: "Thanks we could probably get..."
Rita: "Oh my hossban, he think yoooooo so cute, he think yooooo so beaudiful"
Me, blushing: "Why thanks thats....."
Rita: "For a midget".
P is convulsed, doubled in paroxysms of supressed laughter but then the moment that saves him from heart attack.
First the Rita look up and down of his person, the snort and then the very reluctant throwaway line
Rita: "Yooou no bad either."
Followed by a click of the teeth.
His laughter is gulped back down...
Rita: "I say to my hossban, Patrick, they make lovely couple. I have chil'ren, you have chil'ren?"
Me: "Yes we have four between us, four girls"
Rita's mouth stops like she's slammed the breaks on at 60 mph, I expect to see blood gently seeping out the corners of her mouth, like the smoke from the wheels of the car, as her gums act as break pads She is looking at me, then at P and back to me and back at P, hers eyes gtting wider and wider and just like the breaks she squeals, and you need the yiddish guttural sound here,
Rita: "Wi cheeeeem, yooooou FOUR, PATRICK, PATRICK she has four chilren wi cheeeem!!!!!!!!"
Me: "No, no sorry we have both been married before we have two girls each from our previous marriages"
Rita, with the utmost concernt : " I gonna say I mean he so biiiig."
Whilst she recovers her equilibrium we beat a retreat to the local Thai restaurant.
Day 2 - hitting the Hana highway and up to the top of the Haleʻākala volcano...allegedly...
First the local sugar mill
Advice on the toilet door...
Not so diminished
And what would a houghton blog be without pictures of vegetation and all the while there was the smell of fresh ginger wafting
P wanted to emphasise the size
Or hope this would drop on my head
Then a stop here for the most delicious pulled pork and the most humungous bananaless smoothie to combat the crippling indigestion I would inevitably suffer....but didn't!
And so to the bit of the Hana highway which on the hire car map says "progress beyond this point is strictly prohibited...." Well it would be four hours back the way we had come because much of it is single lane and we would now be behind the Retired Boy Scout Troop of America annual outing and the sound of Loretta Lynn and Perry Como warbling out the coach windows was just going to spoil the ambience. So nothing ventured....Yep it's just one lane wide
Hmm was this such a good idea..but then the views on the other side:
And more vegetation...wild ylang ylang...and hibiscus
We meet a couple on a world tour, he nearly died and they just decided that life was too short...swapping adventures we didn't get up the volcano but hey this wasn't bad. A view of almost the full layout of Maui
And then sunset from where we would have ascended the volcano
Okay what day is it..time to don the action suit someone needs to keep the Pacific Whale Foundation on its toes...taking Mrs Houghton snorkelling. As I said I before I never really managed to get it all to hang together last time without enduring the most thorough salt water mouthwash..so this time...2 separate dive sites one of which is to be in the Molokini submered volcano crater (inactive).
So we'll start with the small youth size wet suit top which feels weird, tight round my neck; snorkelling, fish expert Barbie doll who's had way too many ecologically sound Lucky Charms for breakfast points out I have it on the wrong way...
Right way it is still too big..down to a junior boys. You may be eating a meal so no visual aids just scenery en route
Spinner dolphins which do just what it says on the tin about 3 feet in the air
Approaching Molokini
and then what lies beneath..
Unfortunately it was a purchased underwater camera so the pictures do not convey the true beauty, it is another world.
with strange creatures
So that was the first site, a spot of lunch en route to the second dive site here,
which was slightly rougher but just as exciting. Then back to Lahaina with free drinks.... P and I settled at the back of the boat, that's his first Mai Tai
note the wedge of the foot agains the rail whereas I am more to the middle of the back seat complete with white wine, holding on with one hand to the back rail, and we dip and dive gently in the peaks and the troughs for a while.
And as we rounded the corner of the island Cap'n warned us that it would be a little rough. The boat normally holds 100 and there were just 30 of us, so not a lot of weight, no real mainland American McDonalds' disciples to speak of.
Second MaiTai and white wine, slightly higher peaks and troughs. Then
Cap'n: " Hold on everyone, nobody is to stand until I say its Oooookaay..."
all delivered in a velvety, caramel tone, the only thing missing is Burt Bacharach...well we are in the capable hands ofhe first man to do the something something something on a surfboard......respect.
And as I muse in sycophantic ecstasy at this man's AWESOME achievements on an ironing board there is a pause at the top of the peak and the boat is pointing skyward and we wait and we wait and we know what's coming...well we know part of what's coming. Just not the bit, as we hit the trough which is also a wave trying to make us peak again, about me swinging off the back seat and giving P a white wine shower in the face and down the chest.
But the Wiles Mai Tai is a millpond in the glass and his face is one of total incredulity. I have to lay down, being a very singular, small pea seemingly having the motorbike wall of death experience, in a very large empty can ....until calmer waters return and I can take this
All that is left of those who had not been sufficiently impressed by Capn's ironing board antics
They have been fed to this
or this
I love this sculpture
Back to base camp to dress for our last dinner in Hawaii. The choices are not great and so we end up at Alexander's for mahi mahi and chips and a can of bog which is mango and papaya juice. Alexander instantly hones in on our accents and we trade notes on the best fish and chips in the UK. Following a great meal he comes out to chew the fat and we then get to talking of other food including liver which his wife thinks is gross. He relates the row they had on what constitues gross. She is from the Phillipines and when they took their son back to her family to celebrate his 7th birthday, wondering where his son was, he wandered into the back garden to find his maternal uncles teaching him how to slit the throat of the dog.....the one they were having for the celebratory meal! They had selected only the best of dog.....black of course.
We sat for a long time looking at stars and it was just magical that we had been and seen and snorkelled and then we set off home the next day and I had to keep looking back:
because although it has been condoed out and tourist development has been appallingly managed we did manage to find some little treasures along way from the glitter, bling and over large fishing rods....
How can you not like a place whose airplanes are painted like this
And its toilet signs like this
Aloha xx
