We arrived in Maui on Friday 19th. 5 hour flight, quick get for the rental car and then what should have been a 40 minute drive to the hotel in Lahaina ended up taking almost 3 hours! The ttraffic suddenly came to a halt and didn't move for over 2 hours...eventually it got going again and we could see what was the hold-up...brush fire!...more of that was to come.........

 

We spent the afternoon on the beach, and swimming in the 80 degree water. Paradise.

Saturday we found a really cool little beach the locals call "baby beach". It's very quiet, off of Front Street in Lahaina. The water is very shallow, maybe 4 feet going out for a few hundred yards. Theres loads of coral reef there so I spent ages and ages snorkelling. Really takes your mind off of everything being in that ocean environment. Just you and the fish! Was really knackered after that! In the Afternoon we went to another beach renowned for good snorkeling, a little further north. I was so bloody tired, could barely swim a stroke. Went out to check the reef and swam with a large turtle. Was very cool Not sure how I would have felt had I been in close quarters with a dolphin or BIG fish (i.e. shark). I'm not a good swimmer..prefer to just float.

 

Sunday we heard that there were small wildfires in the San Diego area, apparently nothing big (yet)....

 

Spent the day on another beach, got some bad sunburn on my back.

 

Monday morning was weird....We were woken by phone calls from home: the fires had spread to something really big with our town (Encinitas) basically in the line of fire (no pun intended), also our horses which are boarded in Del Mar were in danger. The whole area 5 miles east of us was burning up real good. It came to within 3 miles of our house and a little less to the horses. 4 years ago was the big Cedar fire in SD, where over 2000 homes were destroyed. The TV was predicting this fire to be even more destructive than that, and with our house in the direct line of the fire we were in a little quandry. Do we stay on vacation or go home to hell? It took about 30 seconds to decide that being in Maui was best. If we were at home we'd have to be evacuated to goodness knows where. Best to just keep apprised of the situation (I had my laptop with me, live streaming to local Channel10, and really good up to date forums of where the fire actually was, and who was getting the mandatory evac warnings), and get on with ouyr vacation.

 

I had booked a bike tour down the 10,000 foot volcano Haleakala, so we drove over to the town of Hula (no hoops here) to the bike shop. Anastasia and Alex followed behind the bike bus all the way to the top oof the volcano (10,023). We spend 20 minutes or so at the summit, took a few pictures and admired the amazing view on this p[erfectly clear day. Can only really be described as stunning. Back in the bus and down to the staging area at 6500 feet. Riders are not allowed to go down from 10,000 ft any more because of some fatalities in the last few months (bollocks). So off I went with 2 others in tow and the rest flailing behind. The descent was a lot of fun, 99% freewheeling, constant switchbacks. I rode as fast as I dared, not too crazy but at an excilarating speed nontheless. Time seemed irrelevant..I think it took maybe 2 hours to get down the 38 miles to the bike shop again...We stopped at a mexican restaurant for lunch, and were joined by Anastasia and Alex, not before 2 of our bikes were stolen by kids and then swiftly recovered by a passer by in an SUV!!!!!