Tuesday started with a great Daddy/Daughter snorkeling adventure. Seven turtles in 20 minutes of snorkeling right in front of the condo! It was awesome.
We decided to venture out from the confines of Kihei to visit Paia for lunch followed by surfers and a pursuit of waterfalls on the Road to Hana.
We had a good meal of fish tacos in the hippie com surfer town and then headed to Ho’okipa to watch world class surfers, wind surfers, and kite surfers, as well as turtles that you can see in the surf from the cliff’s above.
Ho‘okipa surfer
Tawny and Clara @Ho‘okipa
Ho‘okipa kite surfers
Ho‘okipa kite surfers
Ho‘okipa surfer
Ho‘okipa surfer
We had heard that if we continued on the Hana Highway (I’ve driven this road several times before) that we’d come to a road side parking area where we could hike to a waterfall and swim. I remember being there a few times as a kid and perhaps again as a 20-something. But it proved to be farther along the 68-mile windy and narrow road that makes up the Hana “Highway”. At mile marker 9.5 we pulled to the side of the road thinking this was the spot. But as we got out of the car we saw a sign that read “No waterfall access”. Dejected we headed back to the car…
But in the turn out there was a “coconut cowboy” (as he’d describe himself) who was selling coconuts and other fruits of the land from the back of his pickup truck (covered with animal hides) while his girlfriend was preparing a meal with a camp stove on the tailgate. It was only us (my family, my sister and her kids, and a Japanese couple) engaged in getting a coconut from the “cowboy”. Another car pulled up (a mustang) and another family stepped out of the car and came to see what was going on. I looked at the woman and thought “I know her”. But from where? Wait! I know! “You work at Salesforce.com don’t you?”. “Yes” she said. I pulled off my sun glasses and hat (to show my bald head) but I didn’t have my goatee (I’d shaved it so my snorkel mask would stop leaking). “I was in San Francisco 2 weeks ago today and we had drinks and tapas together at Michael Mina’s R74!” I had been in San Francisco visiting Salesforce.com to do a dry run of my Dreamforce presentation. Afterwards we had gone out for drinks where my Salesforce.com host ran into a few colleagues who invited us to join them. I spent an hour talking to this woman (a French Canadian transplant to San Francisco). It was very small world.
Suzanne (the SFDC Account Executive) left and we engaged the Coconut Cowboy for our coconuts.
This guy was great. What a nice guy. You can find him on Facebook at Coconut Cowboy on Maui. He spent a lot of time with us (no cost, only donations) opening a few coconuts so we could drink the nearly 1L of coconut milk.
Coconut Cowboy explaining the coconut
The kids loved the coconut juice – and it had the extra benefit of keeping them regular!
Yarrow with her coconut
Yarrow drinking coconut water
He also showed us a jackfruit. Apparently it was the original flavor of Juicyfruit gum.
Heath w/Jackfruit
After the milk was all consumed he split the young green coconuts in two (after making a spoon from the husk) and you then ate the “jelly” from the coconut before “bowling” the husk into the bushes.
Coconut Cowboy Tailgate (and kitchen)
Cutting “spoon” from husk
Spooning the jelly
Coconuts for kiddos
Bowling with coconuts
It was a great time with the Coconut Cowboys. We learned a lot about coconuts, jackfruit, bamboo (he made us bamboo whistles), and the history of the Hana Highway. A wealth of information and fun with the kids.
We returned to Kihei just in time for another spectacular sunset…
Sabbatikos 
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