Gone to Seed

The end of April here on Maui reminds me of August in the Midwest where I grew up. Temperatures are back in the eighties and the field grasses are gone to seed and glowing golden.

Sunsets have not disappointed recently.

Birthday non-Gathering

Social Distancing is becoming an art form. This morning several of Maui's Pink Cap swimmers did not gather, but headed to the beach separately for a series of family grouping and individual swims.

The traditional Birthday Lei was delivered via a six-foot pole. And I got photos of almost everyone as they swam past me.

Click HERE for photos of almost the entire group and more...

Drop Off

Thank goodness we're still allowed to go for walks outside, and that we have such great places to walk.

Here is what a banana flower looks like when it first begins to open. The reddish flower petals will drop off leaving just the fruit hanging from the central stalk.

Eveningly

Here we are at our daily (eveningly?) sunset viewing. Rough life, huh?

After the golden glow of sunset itself, the sky gradually transitions to a vibrant crimson.

Unfortunately, the camera never seems to be able to capture the intense color of the yellow shower trees.

On the Move

 It's unusual to see a Moray Eel out away from the reef, but this big one was freely swimming yesterday evening.

I only saw one turtle my whole swim, but saw a Flounder as well. When a flounder settles onto the sand it is almost invisible, I was lucky that this one decided to move at just the right moment.

Topple Over

Kiawe trees are not meant to stand. Once they reach a certain size they topple over - but they do keep growing. This double trunk kiawe at Kam I recently gave in to gravity and, heaven forbid, blocked the walking path. No need to panic, there was a way around it.

The middle photo is how Doug and I spend almost every evening.

Exact Same Spot

Doug dragged me out into the ocean yesterday, and am I ever glad he did.

Besides all the usual turtles and fishies, I met a friendly Spotted Eagle Ray who was getting cleaned at the exact same spot as the Manta Ray last week. Fun, fun, fun.

They Hurt

I'm glad I didn't swim yesterday because I saw lots of Man of War jellyfish washed up on shore, and boy oh boy do their stings hurt!

We had exactly the right amount of clouds yester'eve for a magnificent sunset.

Immersion

I finally got in a decent swim yesterday after work; it has been way tooooooo long.

And, lucky me, a friendly Manta Ray swam up to me - over and over.

All too often I look at the ocean and say, "Not today." Yet, when I do immerse myself in the water I am always glad that I got in.

Charades and Trivia

Monday I attended my second virtual birthday party since the lockdown, and this one was just as much fun as the first. We attempted to play "Charades" and were amazingly good at solving the clues. The trivia game we played next seemed to work much better in this format.

Yesterday's walk saw even fewer people out and about.

Mostly Deserted

Maui's beaches were mostly deserted as Doug joined me on my walk this morning. Which is a shame because Maui was looking mighty fine.

I added a couple of sunset photos to this post because we have had some rather nice ones in the past few days.

Turtle Treat

I wasn't feeling well yesterday - until Doug dragged me out into the ocean. What a treat.

We saw lots of turtles, and one of them kept following us around (bottom photo). No matter which direction we went, she kept heading right toward us.