Images of Hawaii 2013 – Part 3

Aloha all – here is Part 3 of my Hawaiian photo blog. These photos were all taken on the beautiful island of Maui.

My family has been staying in Kihei in South Maui for decades. Though it has changed dramatically in that time, it still is pretty laid back and the views are wonderful. This photo was taken while on a morning walk on South Kihei Road.

This photo of the last itty bitty bit of sunset was taken in the car – yup, I’m one of those people hanging out a car window with a camera . . . or two. I love that the lens focused on the horizon and everything else is nicely blurred. I also love that the orange just about matches the color of the rental car we had (mix-up at the rental agency awarded us an upgrade to a sports car with a rather loud bright orange paint scheme. We affectionately called it “The Monarch” after the Monarch butterflies found on Hawaii). Sigh, I miss that car.

We hopped over to Lahaina one day since I had to do some last minute shopping for Christmas. Doesn’t everyone need a box of cookies from Honolulu Cookie Company? We strolled Front Street and I snapped this photo of the sailboats on the water.

Taking a drive along the northern part of the island, we ended up at Honalua Bay. There was a single sailboat in the bay and you can even hike down to the beach for some lounging and swimming. I took several photos of the bay and the single rainbow. A few minutes later the second rainbow on the left started to appear.

We often wondered if these fields with the flowered tops were sugar cane and during our ziplining expedition, our guides did confirm they were sugar cane fields. The flowered tops meant the fields were already past the harvesting time. I took this photo from my vantage point in the Monarch and loved the lighting at sunset.

We visited the Maui Ocean Center which is a fabulous aquarium on Ma’alaea Harbor. They have a wonderful collection of sea life and beautiful views from the outside exhibits.

This glass tunnel through the shark tank is AWESOME! There is even a glass panel on the floor so you can see sharks above and below you. I did get rattled once when I failed to see a Hammerhead coming around me. Despite the heart-racing drive-by, I would still venture to dive this shark tank 🙂

OH – I also updated my storefront, so some of these photos are now available at Society6. Enjoy!

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Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific

When I was younger I wanted to be a marine biologist/dolphin trainer because I absolutely loved dolphins. My very first personalized car license plate was TURSIOP, which is a truncated version of Tursiops, the Latin Genus name for Bottlenose Dolphins. Yes, I was a geek . . . 🙂

My love for dolphins and marine life continued to grow even though I didn’t become a dolphin trainer, so it’s not surprising that I love aquariums.  One of our local aquariums is in Long Beach, California and opened in 1998.  Just before it opened to the public I went on a special tour of the aquarium with a few colleagues because of the movie we were working on and the need to see jellyfish up close for reference. Parts of the aquarium were still under construction and many tanks were vacant but it felt like seeing an empty movie set – you knew it would eventually be filled with life and energy!

Here are a few photos of the fantastic marine life currently on display at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific.

SHARKS!

JELLIES . . .

SEA DRAGONS (ooohh, I see a future colorway for yarn!)

A big CRAB dinner!

Beautiful POISONOUS FROGS

Various sea life

If you’re ever in Long Beach, definitely stop by the Aquarium.

OH, and in case you were wondering, the movie we needed reference for was the 1998 movie SPHERE, based on Michael Crichton’s book of the same name.