Oahu To Maui By Hawaii Superferry, #73

Early Afternoon In Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, October '08, artistic view, click to enlarge.

Aloha.
A Hawaii Superferry has been in operation for a while after many previous delays. Now things are pretty smooth, and you can enjoy trips between Oahu and Maui several times per week. It is always a good idea to reserve seats ahead of time. From Honolulu to Kahului, the departure time was around 6:00am the day we chose to travel to Maui. This means waking up in your hotel around 3:30am in the morning, after going to bed around 1:00am, you see why buying tickets ahead of time is a good idea. Whether to take your car with you is a decision you have to make, we will give you some hints. For about $10/day you can leave your car at the Pier, and not to worry about it. The downside is that now you have no car to drive in Maui and have to rent it, again preferably ahead of time. Inside the Superferry, there was plenty of room to seat the day we traveled; only about half of seats were occupied. Be prepared for a very cold inside, so a thick jacket is mandatory. The low temperature is supposed to keep people away from getting seasick. You are going to read a lot about that with plenty of remedies how to deal with it. I could count no more than four people being affected by it. It is a very unpleasant feeling, especially bad if you happened to have a good breakfast, since now the breakfast tends to come out! Our advice to deal with that problem, is to simply skip the morning breakfast and have only few sips of water. There is plenty of food to buy on the Superferry, this may not be the best of ideas, and it is up to you to decide. The Pacific Ocean between islands can be very rough, so the seasickness is one of the possible outcomes, another one is that the cars on the Superferry can move and get damaged. The are reports of this indeed happening. We told you to leave your car at the Pier, didn’t we? The Superfurry does not travel very fast, we are talking over three hour travel time, something closer to two hours would be more tolerable. The rough Pacific Ocean does not allow for that, at least for now. Apparently, a new model is being built and tested, hopefully a faster one.
If you forgot about something thick to wear, you will be coughing after the trip, but that is the only downside we can think of. During the trip, it is mostly water outside the windows, so watch a movie or two played on many big screens. If you happen to sit closer to windows, need to figure out which one, you can watch both Molokai and Maui provided you travel during the day, at night only some island lights are visible.
When you arrive, you are going to be hit with 80+F temperature, a very nice surprise after sitting inside in cold for over three hours.

In summary: (1) skip morning breakfast, or don’t eat much about four hours before the departure time in the afternoon or evening, (2) leave your car at the Pier, (3) sit in the center of the large room toward its back, (4) skip all food during the travel, (5) definitely have something warm with you.
With those points in mind, you can enjoy two beautiful Hawaiian Islands, and in the near future additional islands as well. Only pleasant things remain in our memories.
Mahalo everyone.

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#66, When Wall Street Goes South

Small Boat At North Shore, Waimea Bay, Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view, map.


Small Boat And Lava Rocks, North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view, map.

So it happened! The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) suddenly stopped working, shortly after it was switched on. Some expected things to quickly become vary dark, as in black holes, but initially nothing happened, than a transformer blew up and helium leaked. Now everything is quiet again, and will stay that way for many months to come. No new particles were found, no black holes created – at least that we know about, just another transformer got fried. So for now, let us move this subject of the front pages.

You have heard of another meltdown, this time on Wall Street. And this one is indeed very serious; the well-known financial institutions are collapsing indicating that the whole financial system is in trouble, perhaps reminiscent of 1930’s. The federal government is offering help, assistance, and bailout – whatever you want to call it. Should not troubled institutions be allowed to fail, especially since the failure happened mainly because of their own mismanagement? Why prop something that is not worth much any longer, and is only draining huge amounts of money? Apparently the federal government thinks different, and talks about pumping more money into the bankrupt institutions. The news now is that even Warren Buffett is trying to save another institution in trouble – Goldman Sachs, in a move very uncharacteristic for that extraordinary investor. And truly, what are we supposed to think about this country if Wall Street is beginning to crumble?

Aloha everybody!
Another subject. The Hawaii Superferry is in full operation, after many long delays. We thought we write a word about it, since in the past only troubled news was available. Not anymore, from Honolulu on Oahu to Kahului on Maui the service is working fine, with $49 to $59 fares, twice daily. If only people were visiting Hawaii as often as they used to! So the Superferry and Wall Street are linked together after all, we are not talking here about isolated events.

You already know that the weather in Hawaii can change dramatically in a very short time. It never changes that fast in California, for example. You need to be prepared, or you can find yourself in a dangerous situation. For example, flash flooding is one of those situations that comes to mind. Same is true when swimming in some places, North Shore east of Haleiwa, and Sandy Beach are two places from our own experience, that can be quite unpredictable, and where one should take appropriate precautions. If you follow several simple safety tips, things can be very enjoyable. Now wash all the sand of your body, actually this seldom works well at the beach, drive back to the hotel, and keep washing away all remaining sand that refuses to go away. The places it tends to stick to, we are not going to write about on those pages.
Mahalo everybody!

Book: Steve Caplin, Art & Design in Photoshop, Focal Press, ISBN 978-0-240-81109-3. My favorite art book at this moment.

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