Before going on, I want to reassure the gullible among you (you know who you are) that the tiger shark story was completely fabricated. Dave's equipment ended up on the bottom of the ocean as a result of both bad luck and stupidity (both mine).

After an unsuccessful search the previous night, Dave and I returned to the scene bright and early in the morning to resume the hunt for his lost treasure. Eric represented me on the Sea Spirit, as I had to cancel my dive with Ed Robinson that morning.

The story had a happy ending this time. After only eleven minutes of searching, Dave found his equipment and sent it bubbling to the surface of the water, where I snatched it up into my kayak without incident.

However, someone had to pay for my mistake and that someone was a poor little gecko who had been sunbathing on the back of Dave's truck. After loading the gear, we heard a small crunch as Dave closed the glass half of his shell. I looked up and saw the body of a gecko stiffen and then slowly relax. It had had its calvarium crushed and neck snapped, resulting in, no doubt, irreversible, devastating parenchymal injury and complete transection of its spinal cord.

No amount of neurosurgery was going to save this little guy.

Afterwards, Dave and I parted ways (much to his relief, I'm sure) and I made my way back to downtown Kihei to wait for the Sea Spirit to return. With a Jamba Juice smoothie in hand, I walked along the dock and the rocks, looking for things to photograph. I ended up taking some pictures of some of the local birds, some crabs, and some people in the water.

After Eric came back from his underwater excursion, we had lunch with Angela and Garrett in the nearby town of Paia. This being my last day of vacation for the rest of my life (or at least that's what it felt like), Eric said we could do whatever I wanted to do. The island would be my playground.

So, I did the thing that I had been wanting to do the most since I arrived.

I slept.

For several hours.

Garrett showed me some of the local reptiles abound in the greenery surrounding his residence after I had woken up and I took some photos. Afterwards, Eric joined us for dinner at a delicious Vietnamese restaurant.

And then we went back home. As I lay in bed, waiting for the Sandman to take me away, I thought about work and how much I didn't want to go back to it. This vacation had been nice, but more importantly, it had been too short. Tomorrow, I would get to sleep in until 8:00 AM before heading off to the airport. I would arrive in Seattle at 10:30 PM, only to have to drive three hours to Portland. After retrieving my luggage and such, I would probably get home at around 2:00 AM Monday morning, only to have to wake up less than three hours later to get ready for work.

I knew one thing. I was going to sleep like a baby on the plane ride back.

| SELF | GUESTBOOK | E-MAIL ME | SEARCH | KENNYLIU.COM |