introduction
equipment
march 25
march 26
march 27
march 28
march 29
march 30
march 31
april 1
april 2
april 3
april 4
april 5
april 6
april 7
april 8
april 9
april 10
 
kenny liu
jim watt
david fleetham
masa ushioda
       ---
travel home
photo home
echeng.com
 

April 5 - Maui

6:25pm, one day later - I have had no time these past few days. Tuesday was spent packing, saying goodbye to Jim, and flying out from Kona to Maui. Why is it that my bags are always searched at the airport? I was bomb-wiped twice, too. Maui seems a lot bigger to me than the Big Island does. It's more developed, and seems to have more culture, although that "culture" includes a little kid with a mullet we spotted when we first drove into Angela's neighborhood. It even looked like a well-worn mullet, and not one that suggested that he was just trying it out for awhile. Garrett, Brandon and Angela have been fabulous hosts, putting up with our strange, out-of-house lifestyle. Getting up at 5:15am is normal for Kenny, but it's been kicking my ass.

We went out for two morning dives with Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures, getting into the water at "Reef's End" at Molokini crater, and "Marty's Reef," down on the South Kihei shoreline. The water out at Molokini was refreshingly clear and blue, but I won't say much about the diving because the photos below will more than adequately describe the experience. :) As usual for this time of year, whale songs accompanied us during the entire dive.

In the afternoon, we met up with David Fleetham to do some kayak diving at Red Hill (just north of the nude beach). The cave that normally houses white-tip reef sharks was strangely empty, but we did see some large turtles, and a neatly-lined-up pair of devil's scorpionfish. Kenny and I went out for a second dive, which ended in DISASTER when his kayak overturned and sent Dave's equipment (with two dive computers) tumbling to the ocean floor below. I was low on air at that point (and already had packed up in my kayak), and the current was pulling south. By the time I was suited up again and down searching for it, we had lost sight of it. We swapped out my tank and continued the search in the dim dusk light, to no avail. Kenny ground his teeth (very audibly -- it was high pitched, like a chirping bird) all night from the stress of wondering whether he had just added a large chunk to his existing medical school loans.

[next - april 6]


Squirrelfish, under a ledge

White-tip reef shark

A nice coral head community

Yellow Tail Coris wrasse

Blue-fin ulua

Trumpetfish

A big school of blue-line snapper

Kenny and coral

Kenny, smiling

A rare underwater photo of me

Shoreline (photo: Kenny)

Dave, underwater at Red Hill

Big turtle

Notice the damaged shell

Devil Scorpionfish

Kenny, at the cave by Red Hill

My underwater seascape

 
Copyright © 2002 Eric Cheng. All Rights Reserved.
86117 victims since 07.27.04
overall: 17,719,891 victims since 8/26/99