Maui pictures

 
While my mother was here, we went for a car ride around the island, and saw many things.  This is a close relation to the Afghanistanian Death Pepper.  I believe the species is Afghani-Uzbekistaninian Death Pepper.  It should be noted that the ADP, while not actually native to Afghanistan is highly poisonous, even fatal, as the name suggests.  It grows wild in the high mountain slopes in the pacific northwest, and is known by sight to only me and my mother.  My brother thinks he knows it but does not.  Nuh-uhh!

We also saw some waterfalls, but only a little  bit of them...
 This next shot is looking down from up on Maui, looking at Molokini.  it is a little crater that sunk into the ocean, and has fantastic visibility.

 There are a few species of Cardinal, and here is a picture of one of them.  Pretty, right?  Alien as well...

 Someone said this was a California Pepper.  And this next thing is a Jackson.  Three little horns for fighting off the T-rex, and eyes that can go every direction at once. 

 There are nice sunsets in Lahaina.  Looking west (up) and east (down)

 And sometimes the big waves come in at sunset...

 This is the waterfall at the top of the seven sacred pools.  It is really cool up there.

 So With Dad we went along the east side of Lanai, where there are some nice high cliffs, and the flowers are from somewhere else.  Its dry on Lanai, so not much for flowers.  But Lanai has beautiful beach, (since there is only one.)  I surfed a really steep hollow scary left on that beach.  It breaks over coral and you can see the gnashing jaws of the reef coming to get you when the waves suck out and it gets shallow.  I had a lot of trouble with the hollow parts, since my board is wide and I am a chicken.  There was some large swell, so eventually I could catch the outside waves that were about head high or a little overhead.  It was fast and fun, but you have to get out before the beach or else you drop on the sand and it gets way overhead and then slams down.  I saw a broken board coming out of there and heard some ambulances later on. 
Before that, Dad and I were going to go to Molokini, but the winds came up and it was blowing over 50 knots at times, with a waterspout!  Dad was feeling sick from the plane ride, so I had the boat to myself, but Altair was performing wonderfully.  I put a reef in the main, ran the small jib up the front and was trucking along when the wind came up some more... Then I was heeling over like a sidehill gouger on the wrong slope, when the wind came up some more!  The angle of heel was so much that I couldn't really make headway, I could see my slick coming off the back of the boat at about 45 degrees, so I was pointed upwind but going sideways...  So I did something I have never done before.  I pulled down the jib, and ran up the storm jib.   When I pulled down the jib the boat behaved very nicely, that is the "heave-to" position, where you sit if you want to weather a storm without trying to go anywhere.   Except I wanted to go somewhere.  So with the storm jib up everything was hunky-dory, and I made good headway to where we anchored.  Except the wind soon died off and then came again in heaving gusts and it was frustrating to the point that my mainsail tore in half. 
I need to get a new one now.  I repaired it, but the shape is just so sad.  The winds came down a little a few days later and we headed over to Lanai, went to that beach, surfed a little, then went to a little place around the corner and dove for a few days and now have come back to Lahaina.  Tomorrow my brother arrives and we will drive around Maui some more, then we will sail some more after that.