Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Maui Magic
I have now got to Maui, where I will be staying for almost two weeks.
It really is as amazing as people make out, the volcanos are so big (3000m) in such a hot part of such a big ocean (2500nm from nearest land) that all the moist air hits them and condenses, so that they are constantly covered in cloud, making the west maui mountain the 2nd rainiest place on earth with 10m of rainfall per year! However since it's doing all the raining on the volcano the downwind side of the island is a desert. I went on the hostel's bus trip there yesturday to a fantastic beach, the sand it proper golden, not white and the dried out african savanna style trees go right up to the edge, the only downside is that the waves break right on the shore there so you can hardly stand in 1m of water because to get knocked over by the force of the rip tides even though at the moment the waves are only 2ft high! Think what it much be like at Jaws in the winter when the waves are 75ft high :-o
Today I went on the trip to Pa'ia (almost all Hawaiian words have an even number of letters because the languade is made up of two letter sylaballs, so that it is quite easy to pronounce because it is just done pair by pair) which was a area of big sugar plantations, and a really nice village much better than the edge of the city in which I am staying atm, so I am going to move the the "Rainbow end" hostel there on Wednesday, where my room will have a window, so that it is not quite so hot.
The reason Hawaii is part of the US goes back to the Californian gold rush when everyone was looking for gold, and nobody was making any food... so they shipped it all in from here, and the US government said they could do this tax free if they could have pearl harbour to use, so everyone was happy, and the relationship grew until the 1960 when Hawaii joined the US.
After Pa'ia we went what is apparently the greatest windsurfing place in the world (where they alledge that windsurfing was invented, but I expect more than one place can claim that (in the 1970s)) the wind funnels between the two volcanos, so that today there was "no wind" with a force 5... anyway I have found out where the place to hire stuff from is, and shall be doing some myself in the next few days. Tomorrow we are going on the trip to Hana, which goes round the windward side of the Volcano Haleakala past lots of rainforest where there are no buildings or anything to some waterfalls (which are diverted to irrigate the desert so they can grow sugar cane on it)
If you look you can see the outline of the valleys and ridges on the volcano in the background below the cloud.
It really is as amazing as people make out, the volcanos are so big (3000m) in such a hot part of such a big ocean (2500nm from nearest land) that all the moist air hits them and condenses, so that they are constantly covered in cloud, making the west maui mountain the 2nd rainiest place on earth with 10m of rainfall per year! However since it's doing all the raining on the volcano the downwind side of the island is a desert. I went on the hostel's bus trip there yesturday to a fantastic beach, the sand it proper golden, not white and the dried out african savanna style trees go right up to the edge, the only downside is that the waves break right on the shore there so you can hardly stand in 1m of water because to get knocked over by the force of the rip tides even though at the moment the waves are only 2ft high! Think what it much be like at Jaws in the winter when the waves are 75ft high :-o
Today I went on the trip to Pa'ia (almost all Hawaiian words have an even number of letters because the languade is made up of two letter sylaballs, so that it is quite easy to pronounce because it is just done pair by pair) which was a area of big sugar plantations, and a really nice village much better than the edge of the city in which I am staying atm, so I am going to move the the "Rainbow end" hostel there on Wednesday, where my room will have a window, so that it is not quite so hot.
The reason Hawaii is part of the US goes back to the Californian gold rush when everyone was looking for gold, and nobody was making any food... so they shipped it all in from here, and the US government said they could do this tax free if they could have pearl harbour to use, so everyone was happy, and the relationship grew until the 1960 when Hawaii joined the US.
After Pa'ia we went what is apparently the greatest windsurfing place in the world (where they alledge that windsurfing was invented, but I expect more than one place can claim that (in the 1970s)) the wind funnels between the two volcanos, so that today there was "no wind" with a force 5... anyway I have found out where the place to hire stuff from is, and shall be doing some myself in the next few days. Tomorrow we are going on the trip to Hana, which goes round the windward side of the Volcano Haleakala past lots of rainforest where there are no buildings or anything to some waterfalls (which are diverted to irrigate the desert so they can grow sugar cane on it)
If you look you can see the outline of the valleys and ridges on the volcano in the background below the cloud.
# posted by Barny @ 3:30 AM 
