It's kind of a special feeling... When you're out on the sea alone... Staring at the full moon - oh!  ok, I'll stop singing now and start writing.  Ok, I'm a full day behind because I was just too tired yesterday.  Here's the skinny -- I've been fighting a cold for about the past 5 days; waking up at night coughing, plugged nose, plugged lungs, plus the fact that since we got here I just haven't had one good night's sleep.  I don't know why -- I usually sleep great anywhere, but not here.  I'm starting to get over the stupid cold today though -- at least I didn't feel half dead when I woke up this morning!  That's why I've been so tired, just in case any of you were getting any ideas!

Ok, yesterday we did the catamaran trip!  It was a lot of fun.  It was super windy yesterday still (though not as bad as the day before), so we couldn't go to Molokini because the wind was just too bad and the waves too big.  (Molokini is a  little horse-shoe shaped island just west of Maui where a bunch of turtles hang out).  We were quite disappointed at first, but we went to a place called Coral Sands, which is on the southern part of West Maui and it was actually really great.  There was lots of beautiful coral, lots of different varieties of fish (we even saw a foot-long trumpet fish), and we found another sea turtle and followed it for a little while again.  Unfortunately, I was utterly freezing the whole time in the water (I even had a half-body wet suit on).  Especially my head -- I would swim along and my head was freezing along the water line because it would get wet in the water and then even colder when the cold wind hit it!  So we didn't stay snorkeling for very long.  We got back on the boat and had lunch!  And it was great!  If anyone is reading this and wondering which boat to Molokini is a good one, the Trade Winds II was awesome.  The captain and staff were all really friendly and obviously enjoyed their jobs, they were really well organized and had everyone ready to snorkel as soon as we got there, and the food was great and lots of it!  And someone's ball cap blew away in the ferocious winds and they even turned around to rescue it from the ocean!  And then on the way home we stopped at a little turtle haven right by the harbor and saw a couple of quite large sea turtles come up for some air.  All in all it was really fun!  We ate so much lunch that we came home and just had healthy snacks for supper...  You know, oranges, fresh peas, popcorn, chocolate, chocolate ice cream...

Today was another awesome day.  We took a sail on the America II, which is a 12-meter sailboat that came in 2nd place in the 1987 America's Cup (although it's been so retro-fitted that it barely resembles the original).  It was really awesome.  Unfortunately, we had to motor out to the trade winds (which was about half an hour), and then we sailed for about an hour and then motored back.  We got quite wet, but the sail was just fantastic!  I only wished it could have been longer.  We met a great couple on the boat - Sara & Chris McLean from Calgary.  We started talking and found out that Chris grew up at the church we currently attend!  Small world...

When we got back to Lahaina we decided to just enjoy the beautiful weather (today was the first truly beautiful day we've had - all the other days have been cloudy or windy or cool or rainy -- not that I'm complaining, mind you -- it's still been a wonderful trip and beautiful weather!) but today was absolutely perfect weather.  So we went out for supper in Lahaina (and remembered half-way through that we have frozen chicken and hamburger at our flat that has to get eaten before Monday morning!) and then we sat on the warf and watched the sunset.  There were lava rocks below us and we noticed a crab, and then the more we looked, the more crabs we saw!  They were black crabs so they were totally camouflaged against the black lava rock.  And then we noticed that they were actually climbing the wall we were sitting on!  Aagh!  But none of them climbed very high - the highest one came up to about a foot below us. 

And then, because it was such a warm beautiful night, we came home with - you guessed it - the car top down!!  heehee!  Only two more days to enjoy that convertible... gotta take advantage of it while we can!!