Oh boohoo boohooo....or maybe I should say yahoo, yahoo......just found our our flight home has been changed.  We are no longer leaving Saturday night.....the flight has been delayed until Sunday night!  Thankyou Air Canada!  Actually not that impressed with Air Canada.  They did not notify us of this change but Bill went on the website to check our flight (which he has a written print out of) and discovered there was no such flight listed.  He called the airline and was informed that the flight had been changed and that we should have received notification.  They did say we could go home a day earlier if that suited us better!  Not a chance!  An extra day it is!  We will grin and bear it!  (Don't hate me!)

Today's activity.....stand up surf board paddling.  Maureen and I are really good at this....Duane and Bill not so good!  A little hard on the male ego to be outdone by your wife in a new athletic pursuit.  Bill just said "Hmph....it's a girlie sport! Real me don't paddlebaord and Duane just keeps on trying and says real men can't paddleboard!  Honestly, I think it pays to be short with a lower centre of gravity.  In any case it was great fun.  There you are out paddling around with turtles surfacing right beside your surf board.  I have never seen so many turtles, and they are massive, as I have seen on this trip.  Today we went out to a site where Duane and Maureen had spotted some giants.  There is an under water scaffolding here where the largest turtles I have ever seen hang out.  There were three there today.....one of them, easily as long as I am tall and probably weighing twice as much as I!  I am not spinning a fisherman's tale.

Heard of another shark incident today at McKenna Beach.  Last week a person was attacked at the same beach by a Tiger Shark.  Today a guy was spear fishing and was pulling his catch along behind him on a line when a Galapagos Shark came after his catch!  The coward surrendered his catch and swam for shore!  Speaking of cowards....we are not planning to go to McKenna Beach!  Thanks but no thanks!
Here's some pics of today's activities......Enjoy!  (And please NO HATE MAIL).......

If you want to check out our bike ride look at this site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZytK_XtqCk

"YOLO"  YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE!

A beautiful day here today....91 degrees around mid day!  The nice thing about Hawaii though is that it never seems swelteringly hot.  Just pleasant.  We were all in bed bright and early last night as predicted and slept for a solid nine hours!  Got up and headed down to the beach to check out the snorkelling.  More turtles, a barracuda and assorted other fish but the water was a little rough and thus a little murky.  No problem....we enjoyed the beach and did some serious people watching.  Headed back to the condo for lunch then Maureen and I headed out to do a little shopping, Duane went for a bike ride and Bill went out to get us a new snorkel bag.  Maureen and I stopped at the store and bought an avocado.  They are mutant size here!!  Continue to feel really good but not looking forward to my return.  We get home Sunday at 6:30 AM.  I have to get my blood work done Monday, chemo Tuesday, Doctor's appointment Wednesday but leave again Friday to go to Vancouver for a girl's weekend with Kelli!  I suspect my doctor and medical team are getting a little tired of maneuvering my treatment program around my holiday schedule!  Kelli thinks otherwise....she thinks they are delighted I am leading the quality life I am!

Bought a new tank top today with a Hawian expression on it  "YOLO"  which stands for You only live once!  Will wear it for tomorrow's blog!   In my opinion we all need to live our lives following that philosophy!  I have kept in touch with my hospital room mate.  She is doing quite well but has periods where she is fatigued and sometimes has issues eating and drinking.  She told me she is envious of my travel and wishes she had done more travelling like Geoff and Lindsey are doing when she was younger.  She also told me she has always wanted to go to Las Vegas and is hoping that when she is "better" she and her husband will go.  I have been nudging her to go now telling her that if we have learned one thing through this experience it should be to not put things off.  There are no guarantees in this life!  If there's something you want to do, something you want to say......get on with it.  Not sure if she appreciates my prodding but if she's serious about wanting to do this....why wait!  I was so pleased when Kelli told me her friend from medical school who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is now in treatment decided that if I could be doing the things I'm doing, so could she.  She and her husband just took a trip to New York and had a blast!  Way to go Nureeen!  You go girl!  This treatment thing isn't fun so we have to make our own fun!  Glad to hear you are doing just that!

Up at 2 AM to go to Haleakala Bike Tours.  We were fitted for our bikes and Bill and I got those stupid motocross helmets with the chin piece attached.  Maureen and Duane had their own helmets so were spared wearing those goofy things.  I felt like a twelve year old and thought I should be on a BMX bike not a mountain bike.  We rode up the mountain in a van with just the four of us, another couple from South Carolina and our driver/guide.  Must confess I was wondering what the heck we were doing.  The last time I did this trip was about 35 years ago with three girl friends and the visibility was so poor at the top I vowed I would never do it again.  Today quite the opposite.  The views at the top were fabulous, the sunrise was beautiful and the ride down was fantastic!   We reached the top around 4:45 AM and had to wait almost an hour and a half for the sunrise.  We all opted to snooze and luckily Maureen woke up just as the sky was starting to get light.  Even our driver was sawing logs.  I would have been quite ticked if we had all slept through the sunrise.  Fortunately that didn't happen and we found our way up to the view point along with quite the crowd of people!  It was quite chilly up there but once the sun started to rise things started to warm up a little.  While we were watching I overheard a conversation behind me.  A couple of Canadian girls chatting up a couple of Americans.  The American exclaimed that he knew all about the dietary preferences of Canadians.  He had heard we all LOVE poutine!  At that point I turned around and said Canadians don't love poutine....poutine is from Quebec!  Every so often things come out of my mouth and even I have to pause and wonder if I really said what I said.  This was one of those occasions for sure!   The girl gave me the dirtiest look and said "Well Quebec is part of Canada!"  I said yes, I knew that but poutine was not a Canadian delicacy.  I thought I was going to get lynched!

We enjoyed the sunrise and snapped lots of photos then headed back to the van for a bit of a tour of the area up at the top.  Our guide was entertaining and informative and we enjoyed him tremendously.  We finally were taken to our bikes and set free on the ride down the volcano!  Fun, fun, fun and what a great way to get a feel for the countryside.  You get such a different perspective from a bike than you do from a car.  Not much of an aerobic workout as you basically go downhill for 23 miles!  There were only a couple of short stretches where we had to peddle uphill and then back to the downhill cruise.    We stopped for breakfast at a place called Higher Ground continued on and were done by 11:30!  Headed home and stopped to view some fabulous surf along the way.  Went down to the beach for a bit but the sand was blowing so wandered back up to the pool in the complex.  We have just finished supper and are all in fade mode and it is only 8 PM.  Don't think any of us will make ten o'clock tonight.  Tomorrow we have a quieter, more laid back day planned.  A little snorkelling, a little beach and maybe a little shopping.  Will be nice!

Getting ready to start the ride down the volcano!

Wow!  A great day AGAIN.  I said to Maureen today that my teacher friends were going to be getting sick and tired of hearing about my "wonderful" days when they are stuck back home doing report cards.  Report cards on top of Halloween.....brutal, brutal time of year for teachers!   In any case I will talk about my day knowing that those of you who can't stomach hearing about the sun, sand and surf any longer just don't have to visit this blog.  Kind of like turning the TV off when you aren't interested in a particular program.

We were up at the usual early hour, had breakfast on the lanai and headed down to the beach shortly after 8 AM.  I stopped at the snorkel shop to check out a snorkel I had read about in an add.  It is a two chamber snorkel that claims you get more oxygen per breath as the fresh air comes in a separate tube from the air out tube.  I was a little sceptical about it but could rent the snorkel for $3.00 so wanted to give it a try.  It seemed like a pretty good deal because they gave me a brand new snorkel to try out and said "if" I decided I wanted to purchase it they would knock the $3.00 off of the price.  Took the new snorkel down and attached it to my mask.  Headed down to the beach and just as I was about to go into the water Bill commented on my morning attire.  I had my bottoms of my swim suit on inside out!  Oh well.....just making a fashion statement....or not!    We were in the water off of Kamaole Beach by 8:30 AM.  Although the difference in the snorkel wasn't dramatic I did notice instantly that I wasn't making as much noise when I was breathing and breathing seemed to take less effort.  We headed out onto the reef and were instantly rewarded with close up sightings of several large turtles.  I was nose to nose with them so many times and was able to swim along beside them.  They are just the most amazing creatures.  We also saw a barracuda which I have never seen before, an eel, as well as many other types of fish.   It was a wonderful morning snorkel!  Duane took lots of pictures which I will attach to this post. Swam for about an hour then headed back to the snorkel shop.  I decided that even the small difference the snorkel made was worth the purchase so decided to buy it.  Well, what a deal.  Although it was a new snorkel, because I had used it they sold it to me for the used price which was $8.00 less than the new price.  On top of that they deducted the $3.00 rental charge and told me that if at any time during my vacation I decided I didn't want the snorkel I could return it and they would refund my money!  Incredible!  Don't run into deals like that very often.

"Hi there big guy!"

Beautiful turtle over the reef!

Headed back home to shower and change into our golf clothes as we had a 11:30 tee time at Kihili Golf Course, not far from here.  The first few holes we were all feeling pretty warm but about halfway into the first nine the winds picked up a little and the temperatures moderated.  Maureen was feeling a little chilly as it was only 79 degrees!  It was a fun course and we all had our moments!  The round was slow but we didn't care.  Finished up happy.....my score was on the right side of 100!  Headed back home for Duane's specialty, iced coffee which is really putting the screws to my "no sugar resolve."  They are delicious.  He makes them with his special Kauai Coffee, coconut milk and chocolate sauce.  They are to die for.   Got changed and went out to dinner to the 808 Bistro.  Food was awesome!  We are now back home and will be going to bed shortly as we are getting up at 2 AM to go up to Haleakala to see the sunrise and then to ride bikes down from the top!  I know.....crazy....but it's going to be FUN!  I am sure tomorrow afternoon will be a quiet time for all of us!  Bill has already gone to bed but Maureen, Duane and I are still up.  I can't go to bed until at least two hours after I eat so am writing my blog and watching the clock. Hope you enjoy today's pictures!

We arrived in Maui yesterday afternoon and were picked up at the airport by Maureen and Duane.  Came back to their beautiful home.  Maureen has a flair for decorating and they have done an awesome job of creating such a lovely place.  We were all up bright and early this morning.  Bill went for a run and Maureen, Duane and I took our coffees and headed off for an early morning walk along Kamole Beach.  We saw turtles all along the shore feeding.  Huge turtles, much bigger than the one's we saw when we were on Hawaii.  Returned home for breakfast and then headed of to Honolua Bay to do some snorkelling.  There is a beautiful reef here and Maureen and Duane have had some amazing snorkelling there.  There were fish, but not as many as we expected.  We did however see a giant (and I do mean giant.....probably 4' long) eel.  We also saw some large turtles.  Great swim......probably the longest swim I have yet done!  I was breathing pretty good by the time I got back to shore.  Left Honolua Bay and headed into Kannapali for lunch, picked up a few groceries and returned back home for Duane's speciality....iced coffee with chocolate and coconut milk.  Delicious.  I told him he could always get a job as a barista if money ever gets short.  We are now all just relaxing.  Plan for tomorrow is to snorkel of Kamole Beach and check out the turtles.  Maureen says they have seen so many turtles this year.  Then we have a tee time booked in the afternoon.

Maureen talked to her son in Calgary today and I really must apologize for sending you these pictures and descriptions of what our days are like here.  Am not looking forward to returning to the land of winter and really don't understand why Maureen and Duane just don't stay here until next spring!

Here is one of the guys we saw on our snorkel this morning.  He only had three legs.  Probably lost one to a shark is my guess.  It was quite amazing how well he swam through the water with only three fins. You'd think he'd go crooked but he had no problem whatsoever.

I'm sure I have this very same photo from other trips we have been here but never get tired of the view.

Me and my friend Maureen!  She's awesome!