Saturday April 13, last full day on the island

I woke early - around 5:45 am - to the sound of birds rising to meet the day.  I decided to spend my last relaxing morning on the property with my zoom lens and a leisurely stroll around area near the Fleming house to check out the birds as they sought out their breakfast. 

I spotted one earlier in the trip, but finally captured a decent shot of a Jamaican Mango hummingbird, large for a hummingbird and endemic to the island.

White wing dove, somewhat backlit, but a good enough shot to ID

A couple of Jamaican woodpeckers

While looking for the woodpeckers, this yellow-billed parrot flashed overhead and I reflexively hit the shutter on my camera.  I didn't have enough time to focus, but the flash of tail color that I caught helped to positively ID the bird.

There were 3 parrots eating in a palm tree, I stood under it for about 20 minutes waiting for them to move to where I could get a clear shot.  Finally one flew out, and was kind enough to land on a well lit tree branch for me.Yellow-Billed parrots are also endemic to the island.

Just in case my pinhole photos of the banyan don't turn out, I stopped by with my DSLR to grab a few shots.

I headed back to the room around 7:30 to wake D and G for breakfast.  Down at Bizot, I decided to change it up and enjoy some foods I can't easily get back in the states.

Steamed callaloo, roasted tomato, and a plate of local fruits.

The weather was pretty clear and sunny, though windy, so the ocean was a bit too choppy for any more snorkeling.  G and I decided to spent mid-day around the pool, alternating between cooling off in the water and reading our books in the chairs.  By lunch time D had himself involved in a lively game of dominoes at the bar, so G and I meandered down to the Bamboo Grill for lunch.

I can't remember if I'd taken a picture of the actual kitchen part before - here it is, along with the menu board.

I had the fish in foil, plantain, and roasted sweet potato.  G was not very hungry so she had some festival.

After a bit more time in the pool and time to read, G and I headed back to the room to shower and begin packing.  It didn't take very long to have things decently organized, so I picked up some photo gear and headed out for a walk around the grounds.

Mocking bird will not allow you to park beyond this point!

Another lensball shot of the rocky shoreline, this time with clear skies.

Pretty contrast of the foliage against the sky 

Back on the main beach with the lensball

The main beach at Goldeneye

This is the island in the middle of the beach.  I called it the "party island", although I rarely saw anyone on it - it seems to be designed to host a large party.  There are chairs and lounges in little spots of sand...

...and at the end of the island there is a stone bar, behind the bar is a massive stone bench and table.

From the table looking out at the endless sea.  

The view looking up from our beach chairs, the palm trees are technicolor against the blue sky

Saturday night at Goldeneye is a giant party, with a huge pool-side buffet dinner at Bizot Bar and massive bonfire on the beach.  After finishing up a bit more packing and cleaning up for dinner, we all headed down to Bizot just as the buffet was being set up.  I took a few photos of the set up before the food was brought out.  Also, I don't usually prefer to eat at buffets because it is difficult to ask questions about ingredients, but the head chef of the kitchen came out and walked me through the entire buffet, listing all the ingredients in everything and guiding me through what I was and was not able to eat.  Goldeneye will be getting a great review from me just on how they handled my allergies throughout the trip.

D played dominoes until dinnertime (sorry for the darkness, I didn't want to turn on the flash)

Soup and bread station - the soup was a "pepper pot" soup, made with callaloo, coconut milk, spices, and root vegetables.

The salad bar (I avoided it due to the bowl of chopped egg)

Rice and peas and roasted vegetables

The BBQ station included beef, suckling pig, and jerk chicken on 3 different grills.

The seafood station had grilled mahi mahi, and seafood saute with your choice of shrimp, scallops, calamari, and mussels.  To the right of this was a massive table filled with cheeses, crackers, and fruit... and around the corner to the left (which I didn't see until later) were three trays of sides - mac & cheese, roasted sweet potato in peppers and roasted plantain in peppers.  

The lounges were removed and tables were set out around the pool

The dessert table

I started with the soup, which was delicious and honestly I could have just eaten that all night.

grilled mahi mahi with fruit salsa, roasted vegetables with peppers/onions, suckling pig

D and G at dinner, we took a table near the bar for the extra light

G and I at dinner

The bonfire - the photo doesn't do it justice, the bundle of wood was 7 feet high when they started it

My second plate of food - mostly sauteed shrimp and a bit of the beef

This dinner had the largest crowd I'd seen at Goldeneye, but it was still spread out to the point where we felt like it was a private dinner just for us.  We stayed out pretty late, enjoying the food and drinks, and as the other tables began to wind down, D headed over to the bar to get into a full-on tournament of dominoes.  G and I were getting tired, so we headed back to the room to settle in for the night. 

There's not a lot to say about Sunday - we woke up early, showered, and had our luggage packed into a van by 6:45 am.  On our last walk across the property, as we were crossing the bridge, a massive leopard stingray swam up the lagoon directly below us (too quickly for me to grab a photo, unfortunately, but the experience was cool!)  The drive to the airport was 2 hours of us alternately nodding off.  Security was interesting - they flagged my carry-on to be inspected for "electronics", but fully inspected the bag that didn't have the electronics in it.  I stood with my hands folded in front of me so that I wouldn't react when the agent started pulling out my cameras, but I did cringe as she yanked my pinhole camera out of it's case and started turning it over (I'm so glad I wrapped it in bubble wrap!)  Our flight to Charlotte was uneventful, customs was empty so we had no problem going through, and we made it to our gate with a half hour to spare before our scheduled boarding.  Our connection flight ended up being delayed by an hour, first because there was no plane, then because there was no crew (due to them being on other delayed flights)  In the end we landed roughly 2 hours later than expected, but happy to be back home safely.

June 24, 2018 - arrival on Maui

Intro:
With my past vacations my travel journal has been published in real-time - or at least, as close to next-day-real-time as internet connections would allow.  For my 2018 trip, however, I felt less inclined to spend time in front of screens.  It was my first trip to Maui, so the combination of soaking in the new adventures all day plus the tiring effects of the heat and humidity left my brain too mushy to write coherently by the evening time.  I was also experimenting with a new creative outlet (to pull myself out of phone/camera screens) and sketching impressions of my surroundings daily, which I hoped to include in my travel journal in a higher quality manner than just cell phone snapshots of the pages.  This was also my first trip with an increased emphasis on film photography, which (for obvious logistical reasons) cannot be included in the blog real-time.
Of course, I've shot film on past adventures and always *meant* to come back to the blog to update the pages with film images, however I have yet to achieve that particular goal.
But I digress...
Having not managed to cobble together a full post by day 3 of my trip, I made the determination that I would take notes during the trip, then fill in the details - complete with film photos! - upon arriving home.
It was a grand ambition which I *meant* to do last summer, and then other projects beat their way to the front of the line, and here I am... gearing up for another trip while realizing that my last trip has yet to be properly chronicled.
To that end,  I've made this blog a priority to complete.  Our 2018 trip was our first time island hopping - we began our trip on the island of Maui, which was new to us so we spent a majority of the trip there, then took a short flight to Kauai to spend a few days at our condo in Kapa'a.  Packing for this trip turned out to be a bit confounding, as we have storage cupboards in our condo on Kauai but we were traveling to Maui first, and so would not have access to our beach supplies for the first (and longer) leg of the trip.  In the end, we decided to concentrate on what we would need for Maui and let the Kauai stuff just be ready and waiting for us.  This approach mostly worked out, except that D and I both forgot one crucial element.



Sunday June 24th, 2018

My bookshelf near my bed, finally done packing on June 23rd.

Our jet lag on this trip has been comical.  This is the first time we've flown to the islands in the daylight, and I believe that has a lot to do with our internal clocks being rigidly set to mainland time.  After waking at home at 5:45 a.m., we showered, locked up, caught our shuttle to the airport, checked our bags, and made our way through airport security with an hour and a half to spare.  (I was surprised that my unusual camera gear did not raise any questions through TSA... I suspect it would have been a different story if I used my lead-lined film bag)

Breakfast in the airport was... bad.  Coffee was... warm.

As passengers boarded, our luggage rode conveyor belts into the belly of the airplane.

We passed the time on the 6 hour flight alternating between eating snacks and watching movies, landing at roughly 1:50 p.m. Island Time.

I was very happy to see land after such a long flight over the ocean.

My stomach felt it was 4:50 p.m., and we should have been preparing for dinner.

We gathered our checked bags and searched for the rental car location.  Being in an unfamiliar airport, we were disoriented at first, but eventually discovered the kiosk where we waited for a shuttle to take us to the rental car lot.  G and I stayed with the luggage while D signed us in, and after a short 5 minute wait we were introduced to our Jeep for the week.

Our route to the condo took us south through the valley of Maui and then north along the west coast.

The island is made of two mountains connected by a low valley

We spotted a fruit stand on the side of the highway and quickly pulled over to investigate.

Mangoes and papayas in season - had I realized Hawaiian papayas are better than what we have on the mainland, I would have picked some up.  

G and D enjoying snack time

After sampling a few items, we picked up some fruit and coconut snacks and continued up the highway to The Whaler on Kaanapali Beach.

The Whaler resort is a two tower collection of studio-two bedroom condos located directly on Kaanapali Beach.  The grounds between the two towers house a swimming pool, fountains, a large koi pond, and tropical landscaping.  We stayed in unit 751, a one bedroom two bath unit located on the 7th floor at the very end of the tower overlooking the ocean.

Our floorplan was "D", the staircase was at the end of the building facing the ocean, so the kitchen window and large sliding glass door of the living room faced directly towards the ocean.  The lanai wrapped around the side of the building to the sliding glass door off our bedroom.  The living room had a pull-out couch where Gayle slept.

Our room was in the tower on the right, 7th floor.  The low buildings to the right are the Whaler's Cove shopping center.

We were greeted by exceptionally friendly concierge with shell leis, and led to our ocean front room in tower 2 of the resort.  We spent a little time unpacking and settling in, then - with all of our mainland-stomachs growling intensely, we walked to the restaurant next door - The Hula Grill - for dinner.  We shared an appetizer of kobachu hummus (which I didn't photograph) and I had the two fish dinner special - seared ahi and grilled ono with jasmine rice in a black bean sauce.

The path leading to the Hula Grill from the beach

Mai Tai

Dinner was excellent, and more than made up for the poor breakfast.

The Whaler resort is located directly adjacent to the Whaler's Cove shopping center, which made it very convenient to shop and pick up snacks for the room.  After dinner we stopped through the ABC store for coffee, creamer, and more sunblock.

Upon returning to our room, I unpacked our small bag of groceries and by that time I was ready to drop.  We opened the side door to listen to the live music wafting up from the restaurant next door, which was being slightly drowned out by the sound of the waves washing ashore.  As I began to drift off to sleep, D tapped my shoulder and said... "What time does it feel like?"

"I don't know," I replied, "it's probably 11 by now, right?"

It was 8:00 p.m., and we were all exhausted and ready to sleep.

Later in the night, I heard D laugh... he'd woken up thinking it must be 3 or 4 am.. and it was only 10:30.

Over the last 4 months or so, my body clock became accustom to sleeping from roughly 11:00 p.m. to 5:45 a.m., so when I woke feeling like it might be about time to get up, I checked the clock...

2:22 a.m.

D, who sleeps much less than I do on a regular basis, was by that time done with the night.  I found him out on the balcony propped up on a lounge chair overlooking the ocean.  I stepped out to look at the moonlight's reflection on the water for a few moments and then decided to try to get a little more sleep.  As I had snuggled back under the covers my mind pondered the purchases we'd just made, wondering if we had forgotten anything, then a flash of realization came to me...

I forgot to pack the keys for our storage cupboards on Kauai.

We have two sets of keys, on two key rings - one for each of us just in case one of us loses them in transit.  If I didn't have my keys, chances were extremely high that D also didn't pack his.

How did we forget the only way to get to our own stuff on Kauai?  I remembered the keys six months prior, when we made the reservations for the trip, then concentrated so much on Maui that the concept of needing keys for anything totally slipped my mind.  I bolted out of bed and ran back onto the balcony, breathlessly asking (with very little hope) if D had, by any chance, packed the keys?

"You mean, you didn't pack them?" was his response.

The worst part is that I know I opened the drawer where those keys are kept about 4 times on our last day in the house, my eyes must have passed over them each time, and it just never dawned on me to grab the keys.

The sense of doom settled in, then quickly shifted to calculating how to deal with this hurdle.  We'd had to have the locks drilled and replaced by a locksmith when we first took possession of the condo, I supposed we'd just have to incur that expense (in both money and time) again.

It was now around 3 a.m., so I crawled back into bed, and as I laid down I joked, "we should just have your brother fed-ex the keys to us."

Then I sat up in bed.

"WE SHOULD HAVE YOUR BROTHER FED-EX THEM TO US!  We just got here!  Do they overnight to Hawaii...."... I grabbed my phone and did a quick query...   "THEY DO!  WE'RE SAVED!"

There would be a fee involved, but far less than that of a locksmith, and only a few minutes of time to retrieve the package from the front desk.  Thus ended our arrival day on the island.

February 5th - Getting out of town

I have this pattern of anxiety whenever we pack for any sort of trip, but the longer the trip... the worse my anxiety. I perpetually feel as though I've forgotten something vital, and I spent the final half hour before leaving home going over bags, opening and double checking, and then re-checking all the doors and windows in the house, and then wait... did I remember to pack my sandals? My anxiety was eased a bit on the prep for this trip as I could remind myself that we were not leaving the country – as exotic as the plants and weather might be in Hawaii, it is another state. I told myself “it'll be more like Santa Cruz”, (where I used to live) “just the other side of the water.” Knowing that a Safeway and Longs Drugs were both within walking distance of the condo, I reminded myself that if we forgot anything, we would likely be able to find it easily enough at our destination.

To spite all this, I was still in scramble mode with the totally easy-going shuttle driver arrived to pick us up. (I believe they might be trained to deal with anxious passengers?) 20 minutes after our scheduled pick-up time, we were finally on the road with myself in the front seat trying to reassure myself that I really did lock everything. Twice. Though traffic, a new system of bag check-in, airport security (my first time through the fancy transporter looking machine!) and after re-checking my bags to reassure myself that I didn't forget my camera... I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The flight was interesting. D was able to upgrade us to first class with our saved-up credit card miles. D and G sat together and I sat in the aisle seat across from them. For the longest time I thought I'd have the seat next to me empty, but the airline bumped a couple up to first class and just before the plane took off a pleasant gentleman took the seat beside me. I figured this wouldn't be so bad, however he started the conversation with “I made myself sick, but I don't think I have anything that is contagious.”

I can't begin to describe the Niles Crane level of paranoia I've had regarding germs leading up to this trip. G had a cold start 10 days prior to our departure, and we spent a whole week shoving herbal teas down her throat, insisting on steamy showers to clear congestion that wasn't even there yet, and didn't touch doorknobs without Clorox wipes in hand. We killed off her cold without spreading it. Then the day before the trip the news warned us of another case of measles in our state, listing the airport as a possible point of contact, so I did not touch one surface with my bare hands through the entire airport. And now, in the midst of a measles outbreak, and when airplanes already make me feel like I have a sinus infection just from the air pressure... I'm seated in a flying tin can of recirculated air next to Sniffles who starts out by saying “I don't think I'm contagious”??

Apparently he was over on the mainland for a ski trip and he spent a day going from a hot spring to a freezing river... back and forth, back and forth, and he thinks that might have caused him to have cold-like symptoms. (ya think?) Thankfully he knocked himself out drinking wine and slept with his head leaned up against the window for almost all of the flight. I kept myself occupied leaning towards the aisle watching movies on the little digital players they gave us on the plane. After the 6.5 hour flight, my bad hip was a little sore from sitting for so long, but I exited the plane otherwise unscathed. I didn't even have very much sinus pain (probably because I skipped the wine and drank hot tea for the duration of the flight. Note to self: I don't care if the wine is free in first class, I'm better off no dehydrating myself with alcohol on flights)

The movies helped me keep my mind off of imagining the intro to the TV show “Lost” and the fact that our flight number was 815. Then Sniffles woke up, looked out the window, and said “Huh... normally the plane approaches from the other angle”. Dude. SHUT UP. But we landed safely nevertheless, and as I exited the plane I was immediately struck by the feel of the air – heavy and moist, but not oppressively warm. My head was grateful to be out of the dry airplane air.

After finding the rental car shuttles, we took the short drive up the road and pulled straight into the condo complex. We got a little turned around trying to find the right elevator, but after hauling our bags up and down a few unnecessary hallways we figured out the best route and finally, around midnight, stumbled into the condo.

I, of course, immediately double checked all my luggage to make sure I didn't somehow magically leave anything behind in any shuttles, airplanes, or rental car lobbies.

True to my nature, I packed more camera gear than clothing.

The three sealed pouches are my clothes... everything else is camera gear.  Priorities.

March 28-29... getting in and getting settled

The time leading up to are departure was the most frantic we'd experienced... and it was not helped by the fact that I had not reset my watch for Daylight Saving (because I hardly wear it) so I operated under the delusion that we had an extra hour of time up until about 5:00 p.m. But, with a great amount of team work and coordinated effort, we managed to be packed and sitting by the front door a full 5 minutes before the airport shuttle arrived. We hit a little traffic on the way to the airport, but arrived with plenty of time to check bags, print boarding passes, get through security, and have a leisurely dinner at Anthony's in the central hub of Seatac Airport.

The frantic day had in large part been due to the discovery that our flights had been changed without notification to us. Our flights over were pushed out by nearly an hour, but had not had the numbers changed. Our flights back, however, were completely different flights and had been pushed back by half a day. We spent the morning on the phone with the airline trying to understand what happened and why we weren't notified of the changes (they were apparently changed back in December) and trying to ensure that our reservations were indeed secure and we would not be stranded on the island at the end of our vacation. Throughout the day, D suddenly began receiving frequent updates via text and phone about the continually changing flight out of Seattle. All told, we were incrementally pushed out nearly two hours from our original departure time. This turned out to be a good thing, since we were able to push our airport shuttle out an hour and take the time to finish straightening up the house before we left.

Given the disruption of the sudden changes, and to spite the delays, the airline travel itself was incredibly smooth. I was able to sleep on the plane for a few hours, and the Seattle delays meant a shorter layover in Miami. The second flight was not full, so I had the unusual pleasure of sitting by myself and being able to choose between the aisle seat (for snack time) and the window seat (for the view)

Gayle in the Miami airport, catching some zzzz's

Looking back at the engine as we approach Montego Bay

Looking straight down from the plane, a large coral reef off the beach

The flight also landed early, and we ended up meeting up with my sister and two nieces the entrance to the immigration line. After winding our way through the ropes to the counters, down the corridor and through customs, we arrived in the hustle and bustle of baggage claim... half filled with weary travelers looking for their bags, and half filled with energetic taxi drivers looking for a customer. D had arranged for us to be driven by Errol, of Errol Flynn Tours, so he walked ahead of us to meet up with our driver.

Almost everyone who comes to stay in Negril will land in Montego Bay and be driven along the coastline to the beach, roughly a 90 minute drive (or so). This time, though, D had been researching some different restaurants and he heard about a great jerk place up in the hills, so he asked the driver to take us on the inland route to Negril so that we could stop there for lunch.

This is Border Jerk

The girls digging in

We ordered large portions of jerk chicken, jerk pork, and festival (a fried bread) which were brought out to our table in foil pouches along with a few bottles of sauces... jerk sauce, spicy ketchup, and a mixture of scotch bonnet peppers and vinegar. We dove in, enjoying it too quickly for me to get a picture of the food. Once we had reduced the piles of meat down to bone, we cleaned up and piled back in the van for the rest of the journey.

On our way down through the hills, Errol stopped in several places to get us samples of the local fruits. 

Our driver, Errol, jumped out of the van to pick up some fruits for us to sample

 We tried jackfruit, naseberry, and a custard apple. I will have to get photos of the jackfruit on this trip... it tastes something like a dried apricot that has been rehydrated in pineapple juice. The naseberry is a small, brown, round fruit with brown flesh and tiny black seeds... it tastes like a bosc pear that has been cooked in brown sugar. The custard apple was my favorite... it broke open similar to a sour sop, and also similar in appearance, with large black seeds and fleshy white interior. You scoop the fruit outo f the skin to eat it and it melts in your mouth, leaving you with a black seed to spit out. It tastes something like a peppery banana (peppery like allspice, not black pepper) with the texture of custard (hence the name). 

Half a custard apple.. it is better than it looks!

 We also picked up some super sweet tiny bananas, and something called an otaheite apple, which we haven't tried yet as we were warned to wash it before we eat it.

A short drive out of the hills and we were in Negril. We made a quick stop at the cambio to exchange money and pick up a few drinks and snacks at the Hi Lo grocery store, then headed over to our hotel right around check-in time. We had a little wait while they finished preparing the room, and G took the time to show her cousins around the property a little big. Once we made it to the room, bags were dropped and some of our crew headed straight out to the water. I had just taken my camera gear out of the bag when a thunder storm began to roll through... so I put it away and instead spent some time with the unpacking. The fatigue of travel crept through the room, and we took advantage of the down time to unpack a bit more or take naps. We were still waiting for the final 2 of our party to join us (their flights were changed around at the last minute as well) so we decided to just stay on the property and have dinner in the restaurant.

The food here is really excellent... I ordered the jerk shrimp which was amazingly spicy, I believe I drank 8 glasses of water just throughout dinner.

Tonight will be a relatively early turn-in for myself... I had about 3 hours of sleep on the plane last night and no nap during the day. Looking forward to our first full day tomorrow snorkeling on the cliffs.