Feeding the Fishes

So, I'm back online finally.  It only took almost a month to get internet to our new house.  

YES, it was BROADWEAVE again and their incompetence that made it take so long to get us online.  

I could go into a rampage, but I'm exhausted from the daily rampages on the phone with them.

For now, I need to finish my account of our Maui trip.  

I also just added some pics to the last few posts about Maui.

Saturday May 16, 2009

We woke up at whatever time and had another fabulous buffet breakfast and then headed to our group event.  

All the managers and their spouses headed to the beach for our snorkeling trip.  

The Trilogy crew took our shoes and lead us to the boat where we would travel about 45 minutes to Honolua Bay.  

They turned on the engines and we shoved off. 

The crew brought us homemade cinnamon rolls and fresh pineapple juice while telling us interesting facts about the area.  

We even saw a sea turtle on the way there.

They brought us all kinds of fresh fruit to eat and then pulled into the Honolua Bay.  

We got a lesson on how to wear our snorkeling gear and then jumped in to go exploring.

After about 20 minutes of seeing fish of amazing colors and shapes, coral and underwater plants that you couldn't dream up, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach.  I was feeling a little claustrophobic in the mask, but I tried to ignore that feeling.  I couldn't ignore the nausea.  

One of the crew members was out on his surf board to help anyone and point out more sea turtles, so I hung on to his board and tried to regroup.  I asked him why I would possibly be feeling sick and he said that putting your face in the water can throw off your equilibrium and make some people sea sick.  He told me to take a few breaks but even breaks weren't helping.  

I headed back and could barely pull myself back onto the boat.  As soon as I got up and told the other crew member, he gave me ginger ale and some ginger pills to counteract the sea sickness.  It only took about two minutes for me to realize that none of that was going to help.  I quickly apologized to the people near the side of the boat and leaned over and fed the fishes. 

 Three times.  

The frenzy of fish was pretty cool and hopefully the ginger pills didn't poison any of them but I was also pretty embarrassed.  I had no idea I was going to be sick like this or else I would have taken Dramamine or something. They sprayed off the parts of the boat that got in my way and everything went on as usual.  The two people on the boat who witnessed the sickness shot me pity-filled glances and mentioned that they were sea sick themselves or scared of water and that's why they didn't go out snorkeling.  Of course, they just felt a little sea sick; they didn't actually get to feed the fishes like I was privileged enough to.

But wait, there's more!  

After the rest of the group got back, we had a BBQ lunch on the boat there in the bay.  I totally felt fine by then and ate a little BBQ chicken, salad, corn on the cob and fruit.  We took off to go back but the crew decided to head away from the shore and turn OFF the engines.  

And just sail.  

Rock back and forth and back and forth on the waves and sail.

I did okay for about 20-30 minutes but as the strip of hotels got further and further away, 

I kept screaming in my head -

"Turn the engines back on, you idiots!!  

This isn't FUN! 

You're going the WRONG WAY!!!"  

I was pretty miserable and trying to watch the horizon and stay focused but then I couldn't take it anymore.  I left everyone and went to the very back of the boat and fed the fishes about 5 more times.  The crew was so understanding and cool about it all and got me drinks, wet towels, ice and more water from the hose to spray off the stuff that didn't make it to the fish.  I laid down in the cabin for the rest of the time just trying to think of everything else but the knot in my stomach.

They finally turned the engines back on and the rest of the time back was bearable.  Getting off the boat, most of the people in the group had no idea that I had been sick the whole time.  Thank goodness, except that they knew as soon as I mentioned it.  

Then everyone felt bad for me and I was getting WAY too much attention. I just wanted to hide.

We went back to our room and took a long nap.  I still felt a little off, even after the nap and also on our way to dinner.  The tv in our room showed all the gems of Maui and one of them was Cheeseburger Paradise in Lahaina.  We rode the shuttle to town with a few other Spring Mobile couples and had a fun, delicious dinner.  I didn't eat too much, but had a few bites of a fabulous cheeseburger with avocado and pineapple.

Besides the hurling, it was another great day in paradise.