Hello from Wailea, Hawaii One Last Time<\/p>\n
Sunday afternoon \u2013 May 23, 2021\u00a0\u00a0 (Fifth post of this travelogue)<\/p>\n
Well, our stay in paradise is ending today.\u00a0 We have a 8:10 PM flight back to Denver.\u00a0 We are scheduled to arrive tomorrow at 6:34 AM.\u00a0 Stampin\u2019Up! was nice enough to arrange for a 4:00 PM checkout and then they will bus us to the airport.\u00a0 In effect we get almost one extra day!!<\/p>\n
Yesterday I did a shore scuba dive.\u00a0 It was a real challenge for me, as I have not done that kind of dive before.\u00a0 In addition it was a shallow dive (34 feet) so our oxygen lasted a long time.\u00a0 That is a good news\/bad news kind of thing.\u00a0 A long dive gives you lots of chances to see some great fish and coral, but our 50 minute dive (paddling with the fins all the time) really wore me out.\u00a0 I may get a chance to do a very special dive later this year.\u00a0 If I do, I will really need to do some conditioning.\u00a0 This old body is not what it used to be {grin}.<\/p>\n
Last night SU had a luau for all the demonstrators and guests (approximately 650 people).\u00a0 It was a great show and the food was fantastic.\u00a0 As has been the case for most of this trip, the weather was fantastic.<\/p>\n
Speaking of weather, this side of the island has two seasons: rain and drought.\u00a0 It rains quite a bit from Jan. through March and then it dries out with very little rain.\u00a0 On the other side of the island it is a rain forest.\u00a0 This side of the island gets about 12 inches of rain a year and the other side gets at least three times that amount.<\/p>\n
Up until about 2017, the primary crop was sugarcane.\u00a0 Large commercial pineapple farms left the\u00a0 island many years prior to that.\u00a0 The sugarcane farms were both loved and hated.\u00a0 They provided thousands of jobs, but they became so powerful that they controlled much of the \u201cpolitics\u201d of the island.\u00a0 In addition, they were not good caretakers of the land.\u00a0 After they left,\u00a0 the fields fell into weed fields.\u00a0 Recently a large corporation purchased a considerable amount of the acreage and they are planting a variety of fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 Most of that product will go for local consumption.\u00a0 They are also planting large fields of coffee bean trees.\u00a0 That product will be competing with Kona coffee for the premium coffee market. \u00a0All of the crops are being planted with a strong philosophy of sustainable and ecologically friendly farming.<\/p>\n
That is all for this trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello from Wailea, Hawaii One Last Time Sunday afternoon \u2013 May 23, 2021\u00a0\u00a0 (Fifth post of this travelogue) Well, our stay in paradise is ending today.\u00a0 We have a 8:10 PM flight back to Denver.\u00a0 We are scheduled to arrive … Continue reading