Awesome Day of Snorkeling! 
We woke up pretty early today. Joe went out to get cereal (we went to a grocery store the previous evening). He tried to be as quiet as possible and still apparently managed to wake everyone else up... Which, people keep appearing out of nowhere. This place is huge!

Today, we decided to head out snorkeling. There was a place just north of where we are that was supposed to be decent snorkeling. All we had were goggles, but we figured that was a good starter. It was a bit freaky getting in, but once we got comfortable, we realized the water was super clear! As we got a little farther out from the sandy beach, we spotted coral and a lot of different kinds of fish. They were everywhere! At one point we even spotted a Green Sea Turtle! It surprised Joe. :D It was a little tough with just goggles, but it was still tons of fun.

We headed to Kihei after that, which is supposed to have some great snorkeling areas. We had lunch and headed farther south to the end of the road. On the map it showed snorkeling, but it looked like you had to go for a bit of a hike. It was through an old lava flow from 1790. The area was very neat, but all the little alcoves weren't quite protected enough and it was really rocky to actually get into the water. So we just hiked in, looked around some and hiked back out.

Since the sun was still in a great position for snorkeling, we stopped at Makena Landing. Notes on that said it was a great post so long as the waves weren't up. It looked really calm, so off we went. It was great! We saw a ton of fish and about 5 sea turtles. The first one we saw was pretty small. The second one came out a cave heading straight for me! When I swam a bit off to get out of its way. Totally freaked me out. This turtle had to be at least 4 feet long. It was huge!

After that adventure, we found some dinner and headed back to the house. Now we're just getting some work done and heading to bed. One problem with this place is there are windows everywhere. In the bathroom, in the bedroom, etc. No blinds or shades at all. So, we have to shower in the dark and people can see in the bedroom, which is kind of weird. The owner said he's going to get some shades at least for the bedroom in the next couple days, which would be nice if we're still here then. One pretty cool thing is two of the windows/doors are actually disappearing doors. We haven't been around during the day yet to really utilize them though.

-Miranda


The lava flow.

A section of the beach on our walk. I believe the white stuff on the rocks is old coral.

The disappearing door.

The bedroom.

The bathroom. Crazy shower! Nice windows, huh?

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Ore-Be-Gone Scuba Diving Encore 
Joe needed to go up north for work and Matt was in town, so the three of us went scuba diving at Ore-Be-Gone. There's a lot of neat stuff down there to look at, plus we saw fish all over.
-Miranda

Miranda got frightened by a railway cart underwater!! Giant man-eating-pit-sharks dont bug her, but an old rusty immobile cart does?! gofigure.
-Joe


We don't look very enthused...

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Ore-Be-Gone Scuba Diving 
Today we went Scuba Diving up at Lake Ore-Be-Gone in Gilbert. Miranda's Dad came with and helped Miranda learn how to get down deep.. Since I am unable to clear my ears properly yet. Miranda did great, going down to around 30 feet with her dad. I only got down to around 20 and my ears are still hurting.. We used up all of our air in about an hour and a half. Chased fishes and navigated underwater trees, along with viewing some of the "scuba sights" of old railway cars and boat motors. It was Miranda's sister Sara's Birthday, so we had some of her great strawberry pie and ice cream cake after. Boy she is "Big".. (Almost Due! less than month).

Afterwords, we used Sara's son Hudson as a subject for testing our cameras. He's very swift and agile prey.. We decided Miranda's camera is much less "Grainy" and far better at catching "Action" shots.. (I could never get him while he was in the air).
-Joe


Purple line shows our short path from the beach.

An Hudsonian action shot. (He thinks he can fly!). Wow he can fly!!

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Submerged Concrete Building Jumping 
Went out to an old concrete building sitting out in Lake Superior off of Canal Park in Duluth. My brother Tim and Miranda came. It's a fun place to swim around, climb, and jump off. Water was COLD today though!! Our tiny little 1mm wetsuits didn't do much to help, the others were all hanging out on top, because they didn't want to get back in until time to swim to shore...
-Joe


A lot of people had swum out to the building today.

Tim and Joe simultaneous midair, nice shot Miranda!

Sister Laura & Miranda in fancy pants. - Brother Tim in cold water.

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Scuba Diving Practice at Buhl's Stubler Pit 
Miranda, my mother, and I practiced scuba diving at Stubler Pit in Buhl, MN. We mostly just stayed in the beach, eventually going into about 12' of water. We practiced clearing ears and bouyancy. Good time. Miranda and Mom did great. Forgot to take pictures, so I scribbled red on an aerial photo of where we went.

addendum:
And afterwords we stopped at Luke & Sara's and had some FANTABULOUS PIE!!!
Thanks sara!

-Joe


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