Maui 2011, day 25

Today the alarm watch was set for the first time in four weeks. Who inveted alarm watches anyway? Well, we stood up at 06:45 and at nine we were all set and in the car heading for Haleakala Crater.

It is 36 miles from the highway exit to the summit at 10.000 feet. After an hour and a half driving through the different climate zones we finally reached Haleakala National Park. You pay $10 to the Park Ranger and then you can drive all the way up to the crater. We knew it would be cold so we put on our jeans and hoodies and stepped out into the scilence. Some clouds had started to build but the sun still shined through and the view was spectacular. From up here you can see most of Big island which is actually only 45 miles away. We could even see the snow on Mauna Loa.

Haleakala is just over 3000m but the volcano actually sits on the sea floor, which is over 6000m down. This makes the volcano more than 9000m high from foot to summit which is a few hundred meters more than Mount Everest!!! The volcano is active although not erupting for the moment. The last eruption was in 1790 and the next one could happen within our lifetime.

At around 1PM we headed back down the serpentine road on low gear. The clouds had started to build up below us and when we went into the first one the kids wanted us to open the windows "to let the cloud into the car".

At 2:30 we arrived at Kanaha and the wind had just picked up. Karin went out enjoying the flat water with 5.3. I stayed on the beach, Lukas went in with the boogie board and Rasmus, who had a small wound on his knee climed up a tree and made a cross-word. Later, Rasmus got in a better mood and he and Lukas built a huge sand castle, with flag and all.

On our way home we stopped by the Hi-Tech store to say bye to Alex. I also got myself a new pair of O'Neil split-toes since my current pair has been perforated by urchins lately. Yes, the foot still hurts like hell and I'm limping around like some veteran. Today I will try the white berries in the neighbour's garden that Julie recommended. Some sort of hawaiian voodoo-cure. I hope it won't kill me...