In search of dinner (fishing Hawaiian style)

The hardy souls of the Arnold clan boarded a fishing boat at 5am and headed out into these beautiful blue waters to procure our dinner for this evening. When you arise this early, you are treated to this:

It was a slow morning, but the group eventually got lucky and pulled in two lovely specimens. First, Mike hauled in a yellow fin tuna. 

And then Sean pulled in a local fish known as an Ono.

A couple dolphins joined in the fun, too. 

While our anglers were out angling, Christine and Karen and Ada stayed behind and were treated to observing coconut tree trimming professionals in action. They use the same technique that we remember the telephone line repairmen of old using. 

You can see one of the tossed fronds:

Oh, here's an interesting fact: those wide metal bands on the trees...

...are an attempt to prevent rats, yes, RATS, from climbing up and nesting in the coconut trees. 

It looks like Sean is about to prepare another amazing dinner with today's catch. Aloha. 

 

A Tale of Two Hikes

We headed out this morning to Iao Valley State Park in search of some hiking. Ada was ready and raring to go and enjoying her view from 6 feet up. The map at the trail head illustrated various trails of varying, unspecified, squiggly lengths. Prepared for a hearty adventure, we set off to climb up for a view of Iao Needle. 

Sean & Mandy in front of The Needle

On another trail spur we found this:

Not quite sure what they are (Offerings? Prayers? Feats of engineering?) Regardless, they are pretty cool.

This tour was over quickly (trail map evidently not drawn to scale) as we conquered the entire park in 30-40 minutes. A little dissatisfied, we decided to seek out a more challenging hike. Thirty minutes of switchbacks later, we found the Waihee Ridge trail. We should have given more consideration to a write-up that said, "...the initial incline will have you almost hating this trail before it even begins--but keep going." Although clouds hid a lot from the camera, the views certainly were spectacular, if not slightly dangerous to achieve. Ada happily narrated our journey and served as official lost member beacon by joyfully calling out names. 

Caroline: climbing trees all over the world. 

By the end, we looked like this:

We have a LOT of cleaning up to do before our family photo session this evening. 

Lahaina. At last.

Super Mike!

Scenic overlook #1

First Lahaina snorkel expedition. 

Luau

Chill out Saturday, standing out at church

Uncle Lee and Aunt Kiki got Ada time while Mike, Amy and Claire went stand up paddle boarding. 

Yum!

We were asked to introduce ourselves to the congregation before mass and then we were each given these necklaces so that we could a) stand out even more than our skin tone and b) enhance our tourist look. 

Claire managed to make friends with a sea turtle. She shot this on her GoPro.