The daytime of the night.

I've spent a lot of time outdoors in the nighttime. I've driven a lot of miles in the middle of the night with the moon so bright that sometimes I've just turned off my headlights (when there weren't other cars around) and driven by moonlight. I've always enjoyed hiking by moonlight, and I've been quite surprised by how well you can see, and how much you can see, by the light of the moon and stars. So a couple months ago when I was looking at the dates for our trip to Hawaii I was quite pleased to see that the full moon would occur during our trip. So I spent a few nights wandering around the resort and the beach with my camera and tripod. Here's some of the cool stuff you can see in the middle of the night at the Marriott's Maui Ocean Club.

the view of the pool from our balcony

palm trees leaning out over the beach, lit by tiki torches

a little farther away from the torches

hiding the moon to see the stars

amazing how much color you can see in the dark if you look long enough

the beach melting into the ocean

looking down the beach toward Lahaina

tiki torches + long exposure time = pretty cool

pretty cool how far stars move in 20 seconds

a little time lapse of the moon rising

Hawaii Highlights

I like Hawaii. A lot. Although I don't surf or boogeyboard, and I'm not a super-great swimmer, I _love_ the ocean. And it just so happens that Hawaii is smack dab in the middle of a great big, blue ocean. Very blue. I have always loved spending time outdoors. Having grown up partly in the South while my dad was in the Army, and partly in the desert and the mountains in and around Orderville, I have a little bit of a schizophrenic ecological preference. I like swamps. I like forests. I like deserts. I like mountains. And awesome-ly, Hawaii has all of that. And jungles, which I didn't grow up with, but which are quite cool nonetheless. I remember not quite knowing what to expect the first time we went, in 2003. Driving across the desert side of the island to the western side of Maui, you see a lot of brown grass, scrubby bushes and lava rocks. Sound familiar? Yup. Looks just like home. Only with an ocean. So now that we've established that I like Maui, here are some highlights:

sunset over the ocean. from my seat at dinner. yup. love that Lahaina Fish Company.

the daytime of the night. at the resort.

for some reason I like taking pictures at night.

not quite sunset from the boat.

closer to sunset. still on the boat.

apparently I like sunset pictures.

bridge on the road to Hana.

Wai'anapanapa. near Hana.

waterfall by a bridge on the road to Hana.

sunset at the resort.

the edge of a very hard seat. on a canoe.

patterns in the sand. Lahaina.