I didn’t get any pictures of the whales. But they were everywhere off the coast of Maui this weekend, more of them than there were sparrows darting and chattering in the palms above Aimee’s parents’ condo.

The whales are birthing now, we were told. Or have, recently. They spend their days showing off to each other in the straits between Maui, Lanai, and Molokai. Our first sign was a tremendous whale jumping wholly out of the water, arcing its huge body though a jump that seemed impossible, or might at least require a cannon and anti-gravity waterwings, falling back with a huge splash white against the blue water.

Then they were everywhere, a few sightings a minute. A white puff of spray as one comes to breath. A splash as another appears to beat the surface with a fin, or a tail. All day.

Turtles too. Fish in iridescent yellow and blue. Tropical Iao Valley shrouded in mist, cliffs looming  on every side, cracks in the mountain worn by trickles of water. Kameamea’s forces attacked the Mauians here, and made the streams run red with their blood. The soon-to-be king had cannons. That’s cheating, if you ask me. Just think what *I* could do with a cannon.

Hawaii is a stunningly beautiful place. Maui is domesticated, landscaped to look exactly what the pictures of Hawaii look like. That’s recursive reasoning. A way of saying I like the wildness of Kauii better; but give me another week on Maui beaches, and I sure won’t complain.