Diving in the Deep End - or Not.

I’m on vacation; I don’t want schedules, plans, timelines or deadlines. My husband and I have adopted a “we’ll get to it when we get to it” attitude.

Yesterday, we stopped in at Maui Dive Shop’s Wailea location, looking for a little excitement. Everett, the sales rep suggested ,maybe, we’d like to get dive certified. It only takes a few days and we would be certified for life. (That’s dive certified ;-))

My husband is ready to go with the flow, sign up, pay the man our money.   I, however, am only ‘interested’.  I want to dive; I just don’t want to commit to three consecutive days in which I would have to get up early and actually DO something and be somewhere at a specific time.  It goes against the grain of my vacation philosophy of ‘I’ll get to it when I get to it.’

So I thought it prudent to “test” the waters, so to speak.  I challenged myself – if I could get up, get mobile and go snorkeling three mornings in a row, then I could surely get up, get mobile and go diving three mornings in a row. Today, day one of my personal challenge, saw me get out of bed bright and early, and armed with a map indicating good snorkel spots, head off to Olowalu, south of Lahaina on Route 30. I’d packed a lunch the night before and even though the unusually loud crashing of waves on shore in front of our condo had kept me awake much of the night, I hoped my energy levels would pick up once I hit the water.

The map said cars often got stuck in the soft sand in the parking area, so I made sure to park on solid ground.   At Oowalu, waves crashed mercilessly on shore, just like at the beach at our condo.  Today is the first time since we arrived we’ve seen swells this big on the south west coast (see video below).  In any case, that wasn’t going to stop me. I was going snorkeling come hell or high water.

Or not.

It wasn’t the hell or high water that stopped me. It was the sign – the one that said “WARNING: Sharks May be Present”.

Of course, Dean was ready to ignore the sign’s message as if it were a highway speed sign.  To quell my obvious concerns, he sought the opinions of some local divers who were just coming in off the water.  “No big deal,” says the diver, “Sharks are like Labrador puppies, curious and playful most of the time.”

Nope. Not gonna do it. Not putting a big toe in the water.

Reluctantly, Dean agreed to find a ‘safer’ snorkel beach. But with such big swells, we decided to call it a day.   When we arrived home, a neighbour told us there'd been a shark attack yesterday at the very Kihei beach where we’d spent most of the day.

I’m still undecided about the diving thing.  It all depends on whether I can get up, get mobile and go snorkeling tomorrow morning.

The beach in front of our condo has been a wonderful place for a morning dip ... but today conditions were less than ideal - unless you are into body surfing, like these fearless youngsters.