Vacation

Bridget and I took the day on Friday to drive around and explorer The Hamptons, since we have never been there before and were on Long Island for Brian and Alicia’s wedding.

Here are some pictures that I took:

You can see all of the pictures here.

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Bridget, her mom and I just got back from our vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We stayed in Corolla, just above Duck, which was very nice. We all enjoyed the beaches, wildlife and lighthouses, and of course I got plenty of pictures. You can see them all here.

Wildlife, including some Egrets:

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I finally got caught up with everything and now have all of our pictures posted from our vacation in Maui, Hawaii.

The first day it was overcast… it was raining very heavily with strong winds for almost a week the day we arrived. Most hotels were even without power for 24+ hour periods, it was so bad… we met many people that were very upset since they had been there a week and stuck inside the whole time. Thankfully the weather was very nice for us, with just scattered showers here and there but never all day, and the temps stayed in the 80’s.

We went to the Maui Ocean Center for our first outing, here are some fish pictures:

We also took advantage of the ocean, which was perfect for swimming, snokeling cruises (we went on 2 different ones!), and whale watching:

The view from our oceanfront room at the Maui Prince was beautiful, we were treated to sunset views every evening:

We also throughly explored the island, including some places you aren’t allowed to drive a rental car to, and we very impressed with the beauty of Maui:

And beaches:

Here’s a lava flow on the one side of Maui:

And here’s a large Green Sea Turtle, about 3 feet long and at least 100 pounds, that I was able to get very close to:

And more sights:

And for our last night, we switched hotels to stay at the Grand Wailea. This hotel has one of the largest and most beautiful pools in the world, including all kinds of slides, rivers, and even the world’s only water elevator (which was lots of fun to ride!):

You can see all of the pictures here.

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Well I got to get really close to another green sea turtle today. Bridget and I first swam with a few on our first snorkle trip, run by the Pacific Whale Foundation (we chose them since they use biodiesel to run the boats and are a very environmentally freindly company). One of them was huge, maybe 400-450 pounds, which is about the largest that they can get to be, and was trying to surface for air very close to where we were swimming at!

But this time I found another turtle that was on land so I was able to get some great pictures. We were down the street from our hotel in Makena, also known here as “turtle town”. This guy was up on a very secluded small beach landing, made out of all lava rock. He was at least 3 feet around, and easily weighed at least 100 pounds or so.

I climbed over a rocky area and some trees to get to him, but it was worth being able to see him so closely and to get some many great pictures! He was happy (well at least tolerated) me about 1-2 feet from him for over 5 minutes, before he decided he had enough and went back into the ocean for a swim.

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Bridget and I are enjoying ourselves very much here in Maui, Hawaii.

The trip started out with a few problems… it had been raining here in Maui, with some pretty significant rainfall and flooding and 24+ hour power outages at most of the hotel resorts. It was still looking bad when we landed and for the morning of the first day here.

But ever since then the weather has been wonderful for us… Sunny skies without any more rain and tempatures in the 80’s.

We also had a problem with out first rental car… they gave us a Mazda 5 wagon, but the driver’s seat didn’t work in it. So we were then given a Mazda 6, just like our car at home. In fact, it was even Dark Cherry, the same color! It’s great being able to drive around and already be familar with the car, since it’s just like at home!

When we checked into the Maui Prince, they gave us a room with a double bed. We tried to pay to upgrade to another room with a single king bed, but the only one they had was mildewy smelling. The next night they still didn’t have a king for us, so I complained to the manager about it, and he got us upgraded to a very nice oceanview room! It overlooks the ocean in the middle of the hotel, and we can see the sunset from our balcony every evening which is always very beautiful (as you can see from the pictures).

I’m sure we’ll have more when we return, along with lots and lots of great pictures! Here’s a few to get started:

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Here are some pictures from Mom’s trip to Ireland with Bob Degnan:

You can see all of the pictures here.

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Here are some pictures from Mom’s Honeymoon trip in Italy:

You can see all of the pictures here.

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Well we’ve been back from our sailing trip and vacation for a little while now, but with everything that has been going on with being busy at work I haven’t had a change to post about it yet… sorry about the delay.

The boat was very nice, the Arabella. It is a 3 masted staysail schooner, 160 feet long, 24 foot beem and 12 foot draft.  The boat has 20 staterooms which can hold up to 42 passengers, but our cruise had 17 people and 8 crew, which made things nice… you have room to move around since it wasn’t crowded at all, and the crew were very helpful and attentive to everyone’s needs.

The Arabella was actually previously owned by Kelly McGillis, who had the boat docked in Flordia.  There was another boat next to hers which caught fire and damaged hers, so the insurance company wrote it off as a loss, and sold it to the present owners at auction. 

The boat was 115 feet long, but they cut the hull in half and added 45 feet of passenger cabin space in the middle of the boat… along with completely rehauling everything else on the boat.  They did a great job as you would never know the boat had that much work on it, and it was in outstanding condition.

We got St. Martin, Anguilla, and St. Barth’s.  All of the islands were very nice, and the weather was nice for the beginning of the week.  Unfortunately it rained the last few days so we were stuck on the boat with not too much to do.

You can see all of the pictures here: Arabella Sailing in the Caribbean

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Just wanted to let everyone know we’re safe in the Carribean and having lots of fun!  So much fun that we won’t be logging into the computer anymore during the trip!  The boat, the Arabella, is very nice and spaceous for a boat, and the islands are beautiful!

We’ll have pictures to post when we return!

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