stubsadventures

I live to adventure and when I thought about why I should blog, one of the main reasons was that my life has been one amazing adventure after another. I have laid eyes on more of this country than anyone I have ever met (Shane might be the only other one who might hold the title) and I’ve also met some of the most amazing people. Sometimes I travel with someone and if no one’s up for it, I travel alone.  Either way, it has always turned out to be a good time.

I am turning 30 and therefore a 30th birthday extravaganza was required. I left December 15th for Maui. When most go to Maui and rent a convertible, or a jeep, I … well I rented a rally car. My first night was in Wailea at a fairly upscale hotel. Note, I only stayed there one night. The hotel was beautiful and so were the grounds and I had a nice view of the ocean. I got a massage the next morning, then hit the road. The 50mile road to Hana is world-famous for its stunning views and windy crazy roads (hence, the rally car). The drive did not disappoint. Although, I did find myself forgoing some of the more popular stops just because of how many people there were, I wanted to observe this island without hearing the seemly endless complaints of other people. I found a few jems and risked my neck a few times to get some pictures but it was a great start to the adventure. Hana is the sleepiest place you could ever imagine, any town PEI haha. Generally, people don’t stay in Hana, they take the road up, maybe hit the beach and turn around and go back in the same day. Not me. Not my style. I stayed there for three nights. I had found a sweet little suite I wanted to stay in months ago, there was a bathtub on the deck and I was sold. My dreams all came crashing down about my tiny Utopia in the rainforest when I saw the spiders. These weren’t spiders actually, there were aliens sent to earth to test the strength of my heart. This is the biggest downfall to travelling alone. Generally, anyone brave enough to tough out a stubs adventure understands before the tires hit the pavement that arachnid killing is their responsibility, no questions asked. These particular spiders had bright yellow asses and I’m not going to lie, I stuffed a towel under the door every night and had nightmares about them while there. I went for a walk in a State Park to see a little cave and these other crazy spiders, club spiders were everywhere. Literally, everywhere. I couldn’t believe I did the walk to be honest, and later after finding out that they bite and it hurts, I regret ever even taking the chance. Sometimes, knowledge is not power.

On my third morning there, I started out early on a hike called The Seven Sacred Pools. Basically, a series of seven pools that run out to the ocean, when the water level is low, you can swim in them and it’s supposed to be pretty nice. However, if the water is at all high or has the chance to flash flood, they are closed up, as many people have died getting washed over the side of one of the waterfalls, or out to see when they get caught in one. One sign even said, if those two things didn’t kill you, the grey sharks off shore would be sure to finish you off. So badass. The pools were closed to swimming when I was there. On the other side of the park, there is a 4 mile hike that takes you up to Waimouku Falls. The best part is the section of the hike that takes you through a bamboo forest. That was one of those places on earth that changes you a little bit. When the wind would blow, it would make the most amazing sound, like being in a store with thousands of 40ft high wind chimes. It was breath-taking. There is always a couple of times on each adventure where I experience something so magical, where I feel so overwhelmed as to how full my life has been with these moments, it never gets old.

From Hana, I headed to Kehi where I would start two days of diving. I dove with Ed Robinson’s dive shop and the first day was a three tank day to a max depth of 135ft. I just in March dove my deepest, to 145ft in the Blue Hole in Belize. This dive was on the side of a sheer wall that bottomed out at 300ft on the side of a volcano now surrounded by the ocean, Molokini. On the drop down I couldn’t equalize one of my ears, which is really rare for me. I had to come up to be able to finally pop the right side, unfortunately, I think I didn’t react fast enough because my ear had a sharp pain in it. That aside, the dive was amazing, I love wall dives and I got some amazing pictures, which I’ll attach some in a few days. That day, I did three dives and all were awesome, couldn’t have asked for more. All of the divers had wet suits, some were wearing even the same suits that I usually wear in the Atlantic. I dove in my bathing suit and every diver both days thought I was nuts. I want to go my whole diving career without wearing a dry suit, so my theory is to keep it relative. I was totally fine except the last ten minutes of the third dive of the day, I was ready for hot coffee right around then. I saw two octopus, two eels and lots of little things on my first day. Day two is when the adventure was on. The dive the second day was designed to dive your own dives, your own dive tables, your own navigation. The first dive was to 130ft on Molokini again to a rock slide area, then the second dive was the Hell Diver site. This is the site of a 1944 plane crash, in which the pilot survived. He managed to land it flat on the water, so the plane is completely intact. It was my first plane wreck and excited wasn’t the word for what I was feeling. Visibility wasn’t too bad considering the winds were gusting up to 40knots on the boat. The wreck was amazing, I was smiling in my regulator. I was the last one to leave the wreck, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. When I did and started swimming towards the reef which was the second part of the dive, I spotted a sting ray with a huge tail and a huge barb.

From diving the wreck, that afternoon I grabbed a ferry to head to the second island, Lanai. On this island are some of the most beautiful resorts in Hawaii, starting at 450/night. I however, stayed in a tiny 11 room hotel, which used to serve as the hotel for when the Dole Plantation owners came to the island. The hotel hasn’t changed much and is such a cool piece of history that you can sleep in. It so looked haunted though. The only other thing to note about this hotel was the man in the room next to me. I have never heard sounds like that come out of another humans mouth. Outrageous is the only word for it. Honestly, it was so obnoxious, you had to laugh. He was staying there with his husband I couldn’t imagine sleeping next to that, there are no ear plugs that I have ever worked with that could tune that out. Honestly.

Lanai was fascinating. I learned a lot during my time there about the island (which is privately owned), its history, the people and Hawaiian culture. It was time spent talking to locals, eating at tiny restaurants, during one dinner William Shatner was eating in with his family and shopping. I did a tour of the island and got cool pictures of abandoned buildings.

Those are the highlights, pictures to come soon. Heading to Edmonton for Christmas and excited to see my Caper dog.

Stubs.

Working and living at site is like being the child of a divorced parent who shares their time. You have two of most things, and at any given time multiple things are at the other location when you really need them. My book of lists is at site and I am about to travel for 20 days without lists. I’m gonna give it the old college try. Either way, that plane is taking off tomorrow for someplace warmer than here, and I have no intentions of not being on it, lists or no lists.

So, after losing my lists, I had an epiphany, I have finally realized what blogging is all about and I’m happy it happened so fast. So, I realize that I have none of my beloved lists and what is my first thought? I should go blog… therefore blogging is what people do when they are trying to avoid all of the things they really should be doing. I figure I should be able to indulge because I don’t have cable.  Case and point. Right now, I should be running around looking like a crazy woman, doing laundry, cleaning, packing, working or at the very least making more lists and I’m standing at my island perfectly relaxed and content to pretend like none of those things really need to get done before I need to leave the house in six hours. Clearly sleep did not make the list.

And finally, today the greatest thing ever happened. So we fly back and forth to site from Calgary and a few other cities, and we are lucky enough to fly right into site. Where I live and work up north is considered by the gov’t to be a remote, isolated community. Badass, I know. Anyway, generally the conditions are fine for us to land right there at site but there are situations when we have to fly from Ft.Mac and take a bus which can take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on conditions. Last night the snow storm started, this morning it continued and there was no way that flight was going to land. That plane not landing and the delay it would cause would start a sequence of events in my perfectly planned “afternoon before vacation” which was essential to laying the foundation to a perfect trip. At some point I realized, if that was the worst that happened, I had nothing to complain about. Right at that moment, I saw a glimmer of blue sky. At first, I thought I was just seeing things but no kidding, 45 minutes before the flight was due to land, the skies cleared, the heavens opened and the planes landed at site. I did previously mention that I was the luckiest girl in the world.

I will attempt to blog from the beautiful island of Maui. None of my adventures will be delayed because of blogging though, rest assured. Nine days in paradise, here I come.

Stubs.

For years, people have been telling me to have a blog, which was ironic because when I thought about it, I wondered who would want to read a blog about me and then it occurred to me, probably the same people who were asking me to write a blog.

I am without a doubt, the luckiest girl in the whole world. I have great adventures, a crazy job, a hilarious dog and friends and family people would give their left nut for. Can I say nut in a blog? Anyway, I suppose I have lots of things to write about so at some point it started to make sense but the more I thought about it, the more stressed out I got. So many questions. Is there a blog etiquette (like can I say nut kind of thing), can I use names, do I have to censor my thoughts to try to spare the feelings of people, or just stop myself from being so blunt like I am in my daily life and taking the chance of offending people. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t really care, and that was a wonderful feeling. It’s like TV I figure, if you don’t like it, you can turn it off, or don’t read, you know what I mean.

In three sleeps, I’m starting the process of celebrating my 30th birthday. With a life like mine, that requires a 20 day adventure. I expect many hilarious things to happen there, so I’m really hoping for some sweet blog material. The first leg of the adventures is a nine-day trip to Maui, where I’ll travel solo for the most part and meeting up with a friend for a luau. Scuba diving, kayaking, hiking, spa time, four different hotels/cottages and many many miles in the rental car are all on the menu. After that, two days in Edmonton with the family for Christmas, then my best friend Amy arrives from Ontario, a crazy party in Calgary to follow, then an epic week-long trip to the west coast meeting up with my old friend Ceiby, where the three of us girls will rock Victoria before heading to a quiet cabin on the coast to ring in 2012 and more importantly celebrate my first day of being 30.

That’s the conclusion of my first blog. I wonder how you end a blog? There really should be some kind of guidebook. The sad part is, there probably is. Do I need a tag line? Who exactly do I expect to answer all these questions I have posed throughout this blog? I guess I’ll have to come up with some way to sign these off. Great, now I’ve gone from being stressed about my blog to now being stressed about coming up with a tag line. People better friggin read this thing.

Stubs. (this could work!)