Monday, September 24th was the 50th anniversary of my debut on this planet. I started this post but ran out of time to finish it on “the day,” and we’ve been busy every day since then. Things are starting to slow down again as we near the end of our stay.

---

It’s really the point of this trip, but when I first started talking about it, Mom was still with us, and I visualized the whole thing with “hope Mom is feeling up to air travel then” as she’d had some problems following her last few trips.

So she’s not here to help us celebrate, but many places I go I’m reminded of her, as my second trip to Hawaii some years ago was to help my sister Timmy celebrate her fiftieth, though I won’t say exactly how long ago that was. My friend Debbie was on that trip too, as well as a bunch of my other family members and another family friend. We’ll be going to a restaurant tonight that we just happened upon during that first trip; back then, it was just starting out, but now it’s one of the best restaurants on Maui, and has won numerous awards. Going there is always an occasion – but last time, it was just this restaurant down the road from our condo. When Mom was there, we were out on the deck and she performed her spoon trick – she could hang a spoon on her nose longer than anybody. As she got older, she enjoyed pulling that one off no matter how posh the setting – rather than thumbing her nose at snobbiness, she’d hang a spoon on it.

She was a lot of fun at parties, and I wish she was here for mine, but I know she’s with us in spirit.

This morning I went snorkeling just off the point here and although it was murky, it cleared up quite nicely once I got past all the sandy surge and came over a couple of rocky ridges of coral. I toured around with David, and then he went in as he hadn’t worn his wet suit and was getting cold. I was fine for a bit longer and so I circled around and went up and back, exploring all the ins and outs and canyons, seeing a banded urchin for the first time, and then 3 spotted eagle rays flew slowly and gracefully by. They turned to check out my bona fides, and we observed each other. One of the smaller ones came quite close to me, so that I could clearly see its “face” and eyes looking at me. Then it flew below me, and from above it looks very comically like a duck rather than an eagle, as they have a kind of flattened bill shape to their mouth. The biggest one was about 5 feet across, the smaller ones about a yard across. Only the two larger ones had the long, whiplike “sting.” It was more than twice the length of the body.

Only saw one big turtle, and he was headed down the beach and not stopping to pass the time of day. I swam around some more, listening to the clicking sound the underwater denizens make as they feed on the coral, and to the sound of my own breathing. Although I’m not that fit and quite overweight, I feel comfortable in the water and can more than hold my own puttering around with my big fins.

I came out to find that my father-in-law had come down for a short swim, and David came back in to greet me and help me with my fins. He was pretty envious of my ray encounter.

We all went our separate ways for the afternoon – David, Debbie and I went up to Makawao for lunch, stopping in at Hot Island Glass to watch them make a few simple “plumeria” bowls for the tour-group trade, and had lunch at Casanova’s. Debbie got one of the pretty little glass jellyfish like the big ones we had seen at the Maui Ocean Center on Saturday, which were part of an exhibit in the jellyfish section on “Art Inspired by the Ocean.” I chatted with the one guy and told him about the photos I’d take of him working on a large, elaborate piece a couple of years ago – I have to remember to email him a link, or send him attachments, of the photos I took then.

Dinner was at the Waterfront in Ma’alaea, and the service was wonderful as always – we had a waiter named “Gerrrrrrraldo” who was funny and personable. Debbie had elk chops, but thought the sauce was too much of a too heavily flavored thing. I had sauteed ono, island style, David had cajun style fish. David’s parents had filet and fish, and also we shared one of the elaborate, old-school Caesar salads (coddled egg and all).