Maui Day 2 (Sorry No Pictures)

We have been having trouble uploading pictures since we came on board ship. Either the connection is too heavily loaded, or it just isn't powerful enough to let us load them.

We will put up some pictures again when we can.

Connie and I went up to Iao Needle in the Iao Valley in the morning. Iao is pronounced like eyaooow. The tour guide said the name came from the end of the battle to unify Hawaii when King Kamehameha pushed the last guy off the needle and he made that sound on the way down! She was a native and we are not entirely sure how much of that was a joke. Apparently, Kamehameha fought a fairly modern conflict for the early 1800's complete with cannon and massive bloodshed. Today, the area of the battle is a park with beautiful gardens which we enjoyed immensely.

Afterwards, we went to the Maui Ocean Center where we saw most of the fish I had seen diving plus several others, including a young tiger shark. We got to walk through a clear tunnel under the large aquarium and watch a diver feed the rays.

We have been wondering about a mystery fish I spotted on my first dive and got pictures of on my second. According to a book of Hawaiian fish I bought, there are no anemones nor any anemone fish in Hawaii because they would have to survive a 1200 mile journey and it is just too far. At the Ocean Center, we found out that is not entirely the case. It turns out that there is a variety of coral that fills the anemone niche which does exist in the Hawaiian chain. The species of clown fish Cassie mentioned in a comment a few days ago has a symbiotic relationship with the coral just like anemone fish (clown fish) have with the "true" anemones. At that point, we figured that the fish I had seen was a baby one of them. Eventually, however, we came to the Hawaiian Dascyllus exhibit. In the exhibit were examples of the fish at all stages in its life cycle. As babies, they are almost exactly identical to the saddlebag clownfish. The babies even hang out in corals. When they get older, first the grey band and then the white spots expand. The adults look nothing like the babies. According the naturalist on hand, current speculation is this prevents the adults from identifying the babies as future competitors and eating them. Thanks again, Cassie for the suggestion. That was a really good guess from a physical description.

In addition to the fish exhibit, there were whale (pictures) and live sea turtle exhibits.

In the evening, Connie and I went to a luau. Our bus driver told us how to eat poi. Poi is the infamous "goo" that is a staple of the Hawaiian diet. It is nearly pure starch and is made from the taro root. Eaten by itself, it tastes like paste which also is basically pure starch. It is more typically a food additive or a dipping sauce. I found it to enhance the flavor I was eating very nicely and tried it with roast pig, pineapple, cantaloupe, and some stuff I had never seen before. Don't try it with rice -- it enhances the starchiness! It was also in the sweet potatoes, which Connie tried and I didn't get to, and baked into the buns which tasted good even though both were kind of purple.

There was much hula dancing and a real cool fire dance.