A tiny bell jingled cheerily as the door swung open. A girl wearing a nose ring and too much eyeliner sat on a stool behind the counter, chewing gum and leafing through a well-worn chemistry textbook. She stared at the newcomer with the kind of sarcastic glare only teenagers know how to produce.

“I’m here–”

She put a finger up to silence him. She slid off her stool and came around the counter to get a better look at him.

His tweed jacket was a little bit too small for him, and his shaggy hair was in desperate need of a trim. He self-consciously tried to smooth it down with his free hand.

The smell of artificial strawberries and bananas wafted towards his nose. She was blowing a bubble with her gum, almost the size of her own face, but her gaze never wavered from his.

When it popped, she stuffed the gum back into her mouth and yelled, “Grandma! It’s for you.”

He frowned. “I’m just–”

“Don’t tell me,” she interrupted. “Tell her.” She gestured with her thumb to an old woman entering from the back of the shop. “She’ll be able to help you, guaranteed.” She grabbed her book and walked towards the front door. She opened it, paused, and turned back to face him. “I suppose I don’t have to warn you to be careful what you wish for?”

“But I–”

The bell jingled again as she shut the door behind her.

Confused, the man turned back towards the counter. The old woman was now sitting on the stool her granddaughter had previously occupied. She was knitting something — a scarf or a sweater, perhaps — and she had laid it out on the counter to check her work. The design was intricate, and the detail mesmerizing.

“May I help you?” she asked.

He cleared his throat and put his briefcase on the counter. “Ma’am, I’m here from the Bureau of Buildings. The new City Ordinance 278.23, also known as ‘Beautification of Main Street,’ states that every business that has a storefront must have…” his voice trailed off as he looked back at the knitting. Did one of the designs just move?

The woman reached across the counter to gently touch his hand. Her skin felt warm and dry. “You didn’t really come in here for that, did you?” He knew she was staring intently at him, but he avoided making eye contact.

“I can assure you, ma’am, I did.” He cleared his throat again and tried to pull his hand away to open his briefcase.

Her grip tightened. “Oh no,” she said. “You can’t lie to me.” She reached up and put her other hand on his cheek. “Look at me, Walter.”

As she spoke his name, he raised his eyes in surprise. As their eyes locked, his mind was flooded with memories and feelings, dreams and fantasies. Carol. All he could think about these days was Carol, even though he had only met her a few weeks ago. Even though she didn’t know that he existed. Image after image of her played through his mind like a silent film: there she was in the park, now at her desk, now walking her dog. Her smile melted his heart. He would do anything to get her to love him.

She released his wrist, and the images faded away. He looked again at the old woman, but now there was nothing more than a wrinkled face staring back at him. “Poor boy,” she murmured. “You’re not her type, you know.”

He fiddled with the lock on his briefcase. What had he come into the shop for, anyway?

“I can help you, though.” She turned away from him and began to root through drawers behind the counter. “I have just the thing.”

She was all business now, bustling about the shop and humming a gypsy tune. “Here we go, dear.” She placed a bottle of blue liquid on the counter in front of him.

The sunlight from the outside shone through the glass bottle and cast a small rectangle of blue onto the old woman’s knitting. The designs on the yarnwork seemed to shift in response. He leaned in to take a better look.

The old lady quickly gathered up her project and set it under the counter. She touched the back of his hand again. “Tell me, Walter, do you like your life? Or do you think you could stand a change?”

His life? What a joke. Nobody would like it. He was a lonely bureaucrat with no family and very few friends. Thoughts of Carol flitted through his mind again. “I could use a change,” he admitted quietly.

“Here’s the deal, Walter. What’s in this bottle is guaranteed to transform you into the kind of person who Carol can be with. I give you this — I give you true love — and you forget about silly things like ordinances and the Bureau of Buildings. Sound good?”

Walter looked at the woman thoughtfully. Her wrinkled face belied years of laughter and happiness. Maybe when I’m old, my wrinkles will be like that, he thought. Maybe. I could walk away from this dead end life and start again. Maybe that’s what she’s offering me.

His hand wavered above the bottle. Or maybe this is all a crock. He sighed. The sunlight glinted off the glass neck, making it look like the bottle was winking at him. But if it’s nothing, I could come back tomorrow with a couple of cops and shut the place down. “What have I got to lose?” he asked. With that, he opened the bottle and poured its contents down his throat.

No sooner had the sweet licorice-ginger taste of the liquid touched his tongue than he felt a change coming over him. Things in his body were shifting; his ill-fitting clothes felt looser, except around the hips. His fingers became more slender. His hair was still shaggy, but slightly longer. But his legs — there was something incredibly different about his legs. Horrified, he reached down to his crotch and felt a distinct absence of what made him male. Instead, he found–

“I’m a woman?!” Walter cried accusingly.

But the old woman was nowhere to be found.

The store had been on Main Street for as long as anyone could remember. Nobody ever admits to going inside, but somehow, even in this economy, it remains open for business.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Chaos Mandy challenged me with “Transforming for good or ill,” and I challenged Bewildered Bug with “why the dung beetle dances.”

Standing at the edge of the balcony, she gazed out at the city. The skyscrapers cast long shadows over the streets, but the reflection of the rising sun illuminated even the darkest corners as New Yorkers hurried along the streets to work. She was one of them yesterday. Now she was…not one of them at all.

Victoria was Suzette’s best friend; they had been best friends since the third grade. Suzette knew even at the tender age of eight that she would need a best friend to get her through some of the tough times of her life, and she had chosen very carefully from among the available children in her neighborhood. They were perfect foils for each other: Victoria’s impulsiveness provided opportunities for them when Suzette’s cautiousness might have closed them off, and Suzette provided security when Victoria needed it.

When Victoria had arrived at her apartment unannounced last night, Suzette took it in stride. They’d shared wine as Victoria told the story of her most recent tragic romance, then decided to go out on the town to drive away Victoria’s sorrows. It was a weekend, and Suzette was fine with moderate recreational activities on the weekend.

A car below honked, and Suzette was startled out of her reverie. Last night was last night, she told herself. Just forget about it and move on. But her well-manicured hands were still shaking, and the scent of blood and bleach still lingered in her nostrils.

They had come back here, she and Victoria and “Noodles,” the guy they’d picked up at the club. Victoria had given him that moniker when he refused to give them his real name. She had said she hoped he didn’t have a wet noodle in his pants, and he had responded with a slow smile. The three of them had stumbled in, a tangle of drunken kissing and groping, leaving articles of clothing on the floor as they made their way through the apartment.

Suzette had made a pit stop to the bathroom to pee and freshen up as Victoria and Noodles continued to the bedroom. Even in her inebriated state, Suzette was making sure she took as few risks as possible. She had grabbed a few condoms from a drawer and looked at herself in the mirror.

Her reflection had smiled at her knowingly.

The sounds in the apartment had gone silent. Instead of muffled laughter, she’d heard nothing at all. She had opened the bedroom door and found Victoria on the bed, straddling Noodles, her hands around his neck. “He said he likes this,” Victoria explained. “He says it makes the experience more intense.”

This was not a part of the plan, she had protested, but then got lost in the rush, the anticipation, and the feeling of power. Oh, God, that power of holding a person’s life in your hands. “There’s nothing like it, is there?” Victoria had whispered, watching Suzette’s irises dilate with pleasure.

When it was over, they both knew they had taken it too far. Noodles was dead, but strangely enough, neither of them had reacted with shock or dismay.

“We’ll have to clean this up,” Suzette heard herself say. Her voice had sounded cold, calculating. Is that what she really sounded like? “Nobody can find out.”

Victoria had nodded and pulled out her phone. She spoke a few words in Russian to the person on the other line, then gazed out the window. “Someone will be by in a couple hours,” she’d said. “I’d help, but I need to get out of here soon. You know, just in case…”

“I get it.”

“I…had fun.”

“So did I.”

“I know.” Victoria had smiled that same lazy smile Noodles had given them. She hugged Suzette tightly. “We’re in this together, okay?”

Together. That’s why she had chosen Victoria all those years ago. She had somehow known that they shared this…darkness, even when they were children.

A sharp knock sounded on the door, and Suzette shivered involuntarily. From the balcony, she called out, “Who’s there?”

“A friend.”

She let him in and showed him the body. He was very efficient. Watching him, she realized that this kind of thing would probably happen again. Her pulse pounded in her ears. It must happen again.

And it was important to be prepared.

“Sir?”

The man paused and looked at her with annoyance.

“Can you show me how to use that saw?”

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, DimDom challenged me with “A friend has just offered you a solution to a problem that you have shared, in strictest confidence, with your best friend,” and I challenged Lance with “Alchemy, dinosaur egg, petunia.”

Things I wish I had known ahead of time:

1. Airlines no longer provide meals with their flights. I think I heard about it when other airlines began adopting the Southwest food model, but I clearly didn’t pay much attention. There’s now an a la carte selection of overpriced, tiny-portion snacks (or as they term them, “tapas,” to make you feel better about spending your money), of which there are very few vegetarian options. If I had known, I would have packed my own meals.

2. In Hawaii, it’s illegal to provide plastic bags at stores. If, as you are shopping, you forget to bring your own, you can buy a bag for 50 cents. I actually think this is really cool, and I didn’t mind forking over the money…but if I had known, I would have packed a couple of canvas bags.

3. If you want to take a tour, book at least a day in advance. It’s better if you book a week in advance. We were kind of surprised (and I was disappointed) by the number of things we couldn’t do on a whim because by the time I called the reservation desk, the tour was completely booked. In hindsight, that shouldn’t have been surprising at all, seeing how much of Maui revolves around the tourist industry, but it was frustrating nevertheless.

Rants:

1. Signs and grammar

Everywhere we drove around the island, we were bound to come across a sign cautioning us to “drive slow,” which slowly drove me up a wall. Doesn’t anyone in Hawaii care that “slowly” is the correct form of the word?Anyone? Bueller?

2. Hana and its food service industry

Okay, look: I know Hana is a remote part of the island, hidden away in miles of jungle and cliffs. I saw the signs on those one-lane bridges, proclaiming, “maximum 12 tons,” then a few miles down, “maximum 8 tons,” and finally, “maximum 5 tons.” We wondered: what would happen to the 8-ton truck that came barreling around the corner only to stop, unable to travel further?

So yeah, I get it: it is hard to get supplies into and out of Hana via road, and with its tiny airport and rough waters, it’s probably really expensive to get stuff delivered by air or sea.

And I knew from reading my guides that there wasn’t much in the way of dining establishments in Hana. One online guide even said, “Just about the only standalone restaurant in Hana is the Hana Ranch House, which is renowned for marginal food and indifferent service. When there are no competitors, what else can you expect?”

So I had low expectations. And I was pleasantly surprised at the food and friendly service at Hana Ranch Restaurant.

There actually are other places to eat, but not many. If you don’t count the numerous fruit stands peppered along the highway every mile or so, there are several sandwich shacks in town, including:

• Uncle Bill’s, which serves only breakfast. From what we could see from the road, Uncle Bill has set up some cheap patio furniture up under a plastic awning, and he serves his guest through a window from his garage. Not the most sanitary-looking setup, but most of the reviews I read were favorable. Still, we didn’t eat breakfast out while we were there on account of the plethora of fruit I still had.
• Tutu’s Sandwich Shack, which serves beach fare, like burgers, hot dogs, and “loco moco,” a local favorite. However, there wasn’t much in the way of vegetarian options, and we wanted a sit-down lunch, so we skipped it.
• Pranee’s, which, according to one of the kids who works on the orchid farm, has “the best effing Thai food on the planet.” Trouble is, Ray doesn’t much like Thai food.
• Cafe Romantica – we passed this vegetarian sandwich stand on our way to Ohe’o Gulch, but we had already eaten.

The only comparable competitor to Hana Ranch Restaurant is Paniolo Lounge, at the Travaasa Hotel and Spa. The grounds, website, and prices all boasted the resort’s “luxury” status, but the food and service were just shy of mediocre. The waitstaff all seemed apathetic and poorly trained (I ordered a tuna niçoise salad, and the waitress never asked me how I would like my tuna cooked), and the food that came out of the kitchen was incredibly disappointing: not only was my tuna well done instead of rare, it was smothered in dressing and olives; Ray’s Margherita pizza was more like a cheese pizza with flecks of basil. This fare was something I might have expected from a tiny establishment not set up to serve this kind of food, but at those prices? I am so. Incredibly. Disappointed.

Give me a Fresh Catch Sandwich at Hana Ranch Restaurant any day; it might still be a little pricey, but at least they know how to prepare it.

I guess the long and short of this rather long rant is that Hana is a tourist destination. Perhaps it’s a lack of ambition, passion, or steady supplies that has prevented a large restaurant industry from growing in that town, but I believe someone who has all three of those things might just make a killing there.

“I think we have a monkey on our roof,” said Ray.

“There are no monkeys in Hawaii, silly.”

“A velociraptor, then.”

Just then, we heard a strange bird call: something neither of us had quite heard until then.

“Yep,” said Ray. “Definitely a velociraptor.”

Despite his concerns for my safety, I ventured forth on the second day of our stay to explore the grounds.

Our cottage is on a working orchid farm, and although I did not take the official tour, I did find a labyrinth and some sacred looking stones, as well as lots of spiderwebs with large, forbidding spiders.

Ray’s voice echoed in my mind. “If there is one thing that Uncharted has taught us, it’s, ‘Don’t piss off the spiders.’”

I kept on the pathway and made my way back to the cottage.

We decided to go to Wai’anapanapa State Park, where there are supposedly numerous caves and lava tubes. We walked along the black sand beach and followed a path around the cliffs to several more black rock beaches. We assumed the caves and lava tubes were just ahead, but the path just led us further and further down the beach, until we were in the middle of a lava field.

The desolate landscape made us feel we had been dropped into some alternate timeline. Please, I prayed, let us not get dumped into that godawful show, Terra Nova. Anything but that.

We must have hiked for at least a mile before we could go no farther, but I, in my sundress and sandals, was not exactly dressed for a hike. My purse, weighted down with cameras and various other electronics we did not want in the car, was beginning to make me lopsided.

When we returned to our starting point, we saw a sign saying “caves” and pointing uphill.

I sighed and looked at Ray.

“There’s water in the car,” he pointed out.

I nodded, and we headed back to the parking lot, then back to our cottage for a nap.

Hana is in a subtropical climate; the air is much more humid here than anywhere else on the island, and the vegetation is more lush. At dusk, mosquitoes reign supreme. Every night it rains, and the chorus of myriad birds and other animals assail our ears in the morning. Our new home for the next few days was truly in the rainforest.

Yesterday morning we decided to drive past Hana to Ohe’o Gulch, or the Seven Sacred Pools (named as such in the 1940s to attract visitors, even though they are not considered sacred, nor are there seven of them).

Nine miles of twisty turns and one-lane bridges later, we arrived.

Ohe’o Gulch is a series of waterfalls and pools that lead to the ocean. The view is spectacular, and the water is quite comfortable for swimming. Between the fresh water and the diving rocks (despite the multiple signs forbidding diving), I would have to say it qualifies as a swimming hole, although I never grew up around swimming holes myself.

The first waterfall is fairly small, but I was still pleased to be able to swim up to the falls and dunk my head under for a little shower.

The pool just above, which empties into the one everyone was using, was more difficult to reach, the path made up of precarious rocks and narrow ledges. Only the daredevils ventured that high, and even fewer of those kids swam in the pool above. It was probably colder and more slippery…plus there was the added risk of getting swept over the falls. Most of the kids who climbed that path jumped back into the first pool with a loud scream and splash.

We stayed there for a while, watching the kids climb up and jump down. The breeze from the ocean was warm and salty, and the sun shone merrily on the scene.

We were pretty far east on the island, and I wanted to try to see the Big Island from where we were. After all, we could see Maui when we stayed on the Big Island; why wouldn’t we be able to see the Big Island from Maui?

So after I had sufficiently dried off, we wandered the cliffs, searching the horizon for some land mass.

And there it was! It was hard to see through the veil of vog that usually surrounds the Big Island, but the telltale snowy peaks of Mauna Kea peeked up above the clouds, and the observatories winked in the sun.

After a while, the shadows told us that the sun was getting lower in the sky, and we made our way back to town before the drive became too difficult.

And as night fell, the rainforest took over.

• Start early and pack a lunch
• Take your time to enjoy the scenery
• If you see a long line of cars behind you, pull over.

Some people actually suggest taking two days for the trip, spending the night in Hana to make the whole experience last. And that’s what we decided to do.

We said goodbye to our huge house in Makawao and set off a little later than most, having stopped off for brunch (“second breakfast,” Ray called it) in Haiku (Colleen’s has really yummy food). By the time we hit Hana Highway, it was almost 1:00.

The first bit wasn’t bad at all; hardly any twisty turns, and no one-lane bridges. We were beginning to think that it was going to be smooth sailing.

That is, until Hwy 36 turned into Hwy 360.

I’m not precisely sure how the state of Hawaii came up with its numbering system, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense at all. All the state highways in Maui start with 3, which makes things MORE confusing, not less. Not only that, but a lot of these roads go around in circles (because they are following the island coast). But instead of switching to another number when moving from north to east, the number stays the same, but the direction changes. You can be happily driving along 30 South, when all of a sudden, you discover you are on 30 West. Same road, same mile markers, different direction.

The mile markers seem to change when the highway number changes. For example, the first part of Hana Highway is 36 East. When it switches to 360 East, the miles start back at zero. This can get confusing if you are following ANY Road to Hana guide, since they all point out stops by the mile marker.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to get lost; there really is only ONE road. Once it turned into 360, though, the twisty-turns began in earnest.

There are lots of points on the road where it is not wide enough for two cars. In this case, one side has to yield to the other, although often both directions have yield signs, just for good measure. Because we got a later start, I think we actually missed most of the crowds, and most cars we encountered along the way pulled over right away (we did the same for others).

Our first stop was the Garden of Eden. Even though the guide I was reading said it costs $10 to get in, the actual admission is $15. Curse you and your false information, Maui Driving Guide! We ponied up the money and drove onto the grounds.

The first thing we encountered was the duck pond.

You can park your car and feed the birds here, which we weren’t much interested in doing, but the birds had other ideas. One duck walked over in front of the car — while we were moving! — and sat down.

This is what I imagined them saying to each other:

Redbeak: It’s about lunchtime, don’t you think? There hasn’t been a car by here in at least an hour.

Peahen: Totally! Hey look, here comes a car. Get in formation, guys.

Peacock: I am NOT debasing myself by standing in front of the car. Look at what happened to my tail the last time!

Redbeak: Don’t be such a wuss. Look, I’m going to sit right here. I guarantee they won’t move.

Me (getting out of the car): Hi, duck! Shoo! Get out of the way!

Redbeak: Not gonna happen, lady.

Peahen: Look how pretty we are! Don’t you want to feed us?

Whitetail: See? You put your money in here. Here, lady. See?

Ray: Can I at least move the car to the side of the road?

Redbeak: You realize I’m only going to move if you put money in the food thing, right?

Me (sighing): Okay, okay. Come here, birds! I have a quarter. Or two.

Peahen: Took her long enough.

After we had satisfied the birds, we made our way through rest of the gardens on foot. The grounds are stunning, with a bamboo forest, banana orchard, and gorgeous views of waterfalls and the valley below. The map they gave us (an artist’s rendering, not to scale) was completely useless, but we were happy enough exploring on our own.

We spent so much time there that we only stopped at a few of the other stops we had planned. However, we will be here in Hana for a few days, so we have plenty of time to explore.

Where we stayed: a vacation rental in Makawao (we are going to stay at another rental in Hana, so I’ll give you another report when we get there).

Pros:

• Far away from people
• Quiet
• It is HUGE
• There is a frickin’ jacuzzi on the back deck and a fireplace in the master bedroom
• The landlady was very nice and communicative.

Cons:

• Far away from people
• It is really far up the side of the mountain, with a lot of twists and turns to get here. Not so good if you are tired or prone to motion sickness.
• I think there might be a mold problem in this house. My sinuses go nuts whenever we step inside the house, and I can’t stop coughing.

Tours:

So far we have only taken one tour: Trilogy’s whale-watching tour. That was a really great experience (not for Ray, though), and I would definitely recommend them to anyone else.

I wanted to go on a zipline tour, but there were too many obstacles in our path. First, they were all booked up on the day that we wanted to go. Then, when we finally did find an opening, it turned out to be more expensive than we thought. But the most important impediment to our adventure was the requirement for closed-toed shoes, like sneakers. Ray only had flip-flops, and I didn’t want to spent the $190-per-person (!) fee if they were just going to turn Ray away at the gate.

If I ever come back here, I would love to take a cruise out to Molokini, a little half-crater island that apparently is a great snorkeling spot. They also call it “Turtle Town,” so I’m bound to see turtles there!

I would also love to explore the lava tubes on the southern part of the island by boat or kayak. But I have a feeling Ray wouldn’t be so keen on such an experience, so I will just have to plan a trip with lots of friends!

Places to Eat:

We have now eaten at lots of different kinds of places, from heavily-advertised restaurants to little holes in the wall that we just discovered in our wanderings. My favorites were
Kula Lodge and Market Fresh Bistro. Kula Lodge not only has a great view on the way to Haleakala, but they had some gorgeous gardens to wander while waiting for your table to be ready. It is a little pricey, but totally worth it.

Market Fresh Bistro is a smaller restaurant tucked away in a corner of Makawao. We almost missed it because it lies behind the Makawao Steak House and a big glass blower gallery, but I’m so glad we wandered into the little nook, because the food was fabulous! Apparently the chef is a bit of a rising star; I overheard someone congratulate him on winning some award or other, and I am not the least but surprised.

Both places used a lot of fresh, local produce and meats, and the menus were creative, healthy, and extremely delicious. I would say you should not leave the island without visiting both of these places. You will not be disappointed.

So that’s my midway summary. We go on the Road to Hana today, so I’ll have much more to tell tomorrow, I’m sure.

This is what vacation is supposed to be about: sleeping in late, moving from one comfy spot to another, reading books that we have put off reading for ages.

We ventured into the town of Makawao for lunch, and then headed over to West Maui to do some touristy shopping (hey, where else are you going to find that many humuhumunukunukuapuaa t-shirts in one place?), then decided to have dinner at the Maui Brewing Company.

Turns out that the Maui Brewing Company has two locations but only one restaurant. The first location that Google Maps found seemed like a short walk away from us, but when we got there, we realized that it was only the brewery itself. We could have taken a tour, but the last tour had already come and gone, so we were left to try to find the actual restaurant.

I plugged in the address into my GPS, but the dang machine started taking us toward that scary part of the road where we had our adventure on our first night here. We turned around while we still could and checked Google Maps again, which showed us that we had driven right past it.

Success! We had a nice dinner, drove back to our house, and ended the night with a dip in the jacuzzi (yes, our rental house has a jacuzzi). Not much to report, but all vacation-worthy activities.

On recommendation from Fodor’s Maui, we decided to take a whale-watching tour with Trilogy Excursions, which uses a smaller boat than the Pacific Whale Foundation (holding only 35 people, versus PWF’s 100 or so), but who also give a portion of their profits to help sustain the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary as well as the Blue Aina reef cleanup program.

We boarded the catamaran at Lahaina Harbor, after a light lunch a few blocks away in the touristy part of town. The crew was friendly and informative, but they warned us that they had no set destination; we were just going to sail around until someone saw a whale. “Humpbacks are the biggest things in the ocean around here,” the naturalist told us. “So if you see something that looks like a whale, it probably is.”

The first part of our tour was fairl uneventful, other than getting my pants soaked from a hug wave that crashed onto the front of the boat right where I was sitting. I began to despair that we would see any whales at all.

Then someone shouted, “Thar she blows, five o’clock!”

Sure enough, there were a couple of whales, far away, engaging in what our naturalist called “aggressive male behavior.” Apparently the males, when in competion for the females, tend to do lots of tail slaps. Which is good for us!

We couldn’t get too close, though, since both whales took off really quickly as soon as we headed in their direction.

Now we all knew what to look for, though, and everyone had their eyes trained on the horizon, scanning for the telltale spout.

We saw about 10 whales in all, but none of them came really close to us, and by law we could not come within 100 yards of these protected creatures. When a whale breaches or slaps its tail, it only spends about 2-3 seconds in the air, and that is barely enough time for your brain to send the signal to your finger to click the “shoot” button on the camera, and for the camera to make its own adjustments. I spent the first part of the trip just trying to figure out the best way to capture these moments, when I remembered that my iPhone shoots in HD!

So I spent the rest of the trip with my phone in the air, pointed at the horizon, hoping it would capture something. And amazingly, it did!

Poor Ray wasn’t able to enjoy any of it, I’m afraid. Sea-sickness was his companion for the entirety of the trip, and he spent most of the time in the back with ginger, water, and ready access to the railing.

After we made it back to land, it was to say goodbye to my mom. She had to go back to Oahu for work, even though Ray and I still have several more days left in our adventure here.

Ever since then, in each of our successive trips to Hawaii, I have not seen any turtles in the water. Ray says they have all heard of me and stay far away.

My mom and I decided we were going to go snorkeling while she was in Maui, but we didn’t have any definite plan; not being a Maui resident, she didn’t know exactly where the good snorkeling spots were, the way she does on Oahu. So we figured we would drive around in one general area and see if we could find a good spot.

We all got a late start, and we took a little detour to the Alii Kula Lavender Farm, up the mountain, rather than on the way down. It was a pleasant spot, but it is such a strange thing to be on a tropical island, breathing in clouds of lavender. Nevertheless, there it is, and they have a breathtaking view as well as some lovely gardens (and, randomly, a paragliding course!). My mom and I were hoping they had a restaurant open for lunch, but all they had was a little cafe that served lavender coffee (???) and scones.

After wandering around for a bit, we made our way back down the mountain towards the ocean for a bite to eat and then snorkeling!

BUT…

The service was really slow at the restaurant, and then we had to wend our way past all the rich residences again, blindly looking for a good place to snorkel. We stopped at one place where Ray and I had seen turtles resting on the beach a few nights before (“You snuck up on them,” he said. “If they had known you were going to be there, they would have taken off.”), but there were a lot of people on the beach, and my mom said the rock formation wasn’t ideal for snorkeling.

So we drove on.

The next few beaches were more of a park-and-walk deal, far from the road, and we weren’t entirely sure they would be good places, so we kept going.

Past all the residences, into the lava flow.

Before you get too concerned, this lava flow had cooled off and dried up in the 1800s, when Haleakala last erupted. So there weren’t any rivers of lava that we had to cross. Rather, we drove for two miles down a rickety one-lane road (there are a lot of them in Hawaii!) through a barren moonscape riddled with signs warning not to park or walk on the rocks.

At the end of the road is La Perouse Bay. There is a “beach,” of sorts, made up of mostly rocks. It was the right kind of rock formation for a coral reef, but the waves were banging against the rocks pretty strongly, and I was a little worried about getting tossed around. My other concern was that there was nobody else in the water.

My mom pointed out a small cove that was protected from most of the waves. We began to walk over there, but were stopped by a sign declaring the cove to be protected by the Ahihi Kinau Natural Reserve. We decided it would be best to turn around and find another spot.

Back through the lava flows we went, and around a couple of idiot tourists parked in front of a “no parking” sign (hey, dummies: if you are on a one-lane road, it probably isn’t the best idea to stop and take pictures while there is a line of cars behind you).

There was one parking lot right after the boundary to the natural reserve, and we pulled in. It didn’t look like much, but the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, and we figured it was our best shot.

A man and woman were walking up the path from the beach carrying snorkel gear. “That’s promising,” I told my mom. We asked them if the visibility was any good.

“Oh yes!” cried the woman. “It’s a little choppy now, but still worth it.” She proceeded to give us directions on where to head once in the water. “You should have been here in the morning; the water was really clear, and the whales swam right by here.”

Emboldened, we made our way down the rocky path to the beach, put on our snorkel gear, and got in the water.

The water was warm, but the waves were strong. We didn’t get very far before realizing that it really was too dark to see anything. I did see some fish and a bunch of beautiful coral, but it was pretty far down, and the sun, now at 4:30, was no help to us. I couldn’t take any pictures with my camera in its fancy waterproof case.

We swam back to the shore, and I tried to sit on a rock in the water to remove my flippers. The waves were relentless, and made it almost impossible for me to even move, much less remove my gear. My mom’s snorkel got swept away. My own snorkel would have been lost, too, if I hadn’t been so quick to see it floating by.

So I didn’t see any turtles, which made me sad. But now I know where to go…and I know that next time, I should go there in the morning.