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.

The morning of the big day started out fine. I hadn’t scheduled anything until 10 AM (breakfast), but because I was still jet-lagged, I woke up around 5 AM, much to Ray’s chagrin (he actually can’t complain, though, because he was just as awake as I was). So we lazed about for a few hours before really getting up and having breakfast at 8, and I was psyched to be ahead of schedule.

I had just gotten out of the shower when my MoH arrived at the bungalows. She was on the phone with Jan, who was at the flower shop in Honolulu, and there was some problem with some of the flowers (they had supplied one haku lei and one boutonniere instead of two haku leis for the two flower girls). I handled it pretty quickly, wrapped in a towel and dripping, basically telling Jan that if they don’t have two haku leis, then I don’t want just one, and they have to refund me the money. Somehow, another haku lei (albeit not the same color) magically appeared! Isn’t it funny how that happened?

So the only other snafu of the day was the weather. We should have known when we decided to get married in a rainforest that it would rain. Actually, we did know, which is why we had the Butterfly Pavilion as a backup plan.

The ceremony went by in a blur to me. I kept trying to hold onto all these memories, and they are still all there, but it’s so hard to put into words. My mom ended up playing “O Promise Me” on the violin while we did the lei exchange. A peacock walked into the middle of the Butterfly Pavilion during the ceremony. And the flower girls had so much fun dropping flowers they decided to follow me and Ray after we went down the aisle, dropping more flowers.

By the time the ceremony was over, the sun came out, although there were intermittent showers. It was a Hawaiian blessing, the officiant told us. Also, one of the butterflies we released ended up on my bouquet, so there were lots of pictures of my bouquet with the butterfly.

At the reception in Hawaii, which was also at Waimea Falls, just at their catering area (the Pikake Pavilion), my dad decided to surprise me with a band. We had planned on not having any DJ or anything, just a bunch of MP3s playing, you know, to save money. But my dad went and hired a band, unbeknownst to me or Ray, and I was totally shocked. I actually think it was the best gift he could have given me, though, because while he was totally nervous around my mom’s family, as soon as he stepped up to the mic and started playing and singing with the band, he was totally cool and comfortable. Everybody loved him, and everyone loved the band, too. I even sang a few songs, as did my brother Mike!

So both the day and evening were a success. I was really happy, and I couldn’t have asked for a better day, rain and all.