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A FISHY EXPERIENCE!

    There is so much one can say about and do with fish.
    Outside of catchin' and eatin'--that is.
    And on Maui there are many attractions which involve fish, outside of catchin', eatin' and seein'.   Of course there are the glass bottom boats, well, even a submergible experience one can have.  To say nothing about swimming until you fins are worn out.  There are places where the strong and active can become one with the fish kingdom, moving through the waters, like a creature of the deep, and seeing the surrounding wet world in a very personal way.
    I, for one, have never been all that excited about fish.  They are, to play with a pun, just too fishy for me.
    Eat 'em --if they are fresh and mild.
    Catch them--well I hate the idea of hookin' a worm as bait.  Call me a worm if you wanna, but I never got a chance to discover the delights of going off to some mountain stream and tossing in a line and hopefully sinkin' a fish.  Give me a break: maybe I'm just soft hearted for the worm Kingdom.
    The closest I ever came to fishin', as a child, was on the beach at the local peer.  Big thrill; no fish; no deal.
    Going out to sea to see the fish be caught, off guard, in their own territory, hardly seemed a fair game, to me.  All things are balanced against the fish and for the Sportsman. Hardly seemed fair to do battle at the bow of a boat with some super shark or mammoth whale, using modern technology.  Not my idea of being a good sport.  Certainly not sportin' for the fish, anyway.  They either got caught, killed, cooked and eatin' or ended up with one heck of a sore mouth, ripped brutally open by the fisherman's baited hook.
    Dolphins and such seemed more like friendly, smile pets.  One has to wonder about the truth concerning these somewhat fishy creatures.  There's so much research and rumor concerning their ability to think, and/or communicate.  They are, at the very least, smart enough to be trained to do many useful and entertaining things.  Dolphins are popular attractions at most "fish" shows.   And just look at the smile on any dolphin's face for the whole human race.
    Well these friendly smilie fish-folk may someday turn out to be an intelligent life form that actually shares this planet with us homo saps.
    Perhaps as the dominant species?  After all, that smile is somewhat smug, all-knowing, maybe even all-caring--horrors or horrors could they be even smarter than we might guess?  Intellects?  Masters of the Deep!  Super minds that secretly rule the planet from their watery domain?
    Frightening stuff--and just a bit too fishy for me!
    Still...
    Talkin' fish?  Communicating with one another, with other fish, perhaps even with us?
    Let's not go too far!
    Interspecies conversations?  With a fish?  That's heady stuff.  If not down right fishy!
    Yet according to the latest and most advanced research, fish communicating with fish isn't all that much sci-fi.  In fact, just about on target!  At the very least, simple communication--which could imply far more intelligence than we would like to admit--might lead us anywhere!
    Well, maybe my imagination has gone south into some illusional sci-fi depths.  But who knows?
    First speech!
    Then communication!
    Then the world!
    Now that's a fish story for you!
    Nonetheless the Whales of Maui demonstrated their ability to sing songs and to communicate with one another.  As we were told: their travels span the planet's oceans.  They seem to follow the human habit of spending romantic family moments in Hawaii.
    How about Whale Hotels offering romantic interludes along the shores of Maui.
    Bring the fam and have a ham of a vacation under the tropic sun.  Experience the thrill of swimming the warm clean waters of Hawaii, holding the fins of your current lover!
    How about a new, watery tourist development.  A smart promoter might suggest Human Watch--as opposed to Whale watch, you see--where whales could be taken to special places along the shore to...
    Okay.  So I have gone a wee-bit north of normal.
    Yet the fact is that the whales do come south to Hawaii.  Yearly.  But not for vacations in the sun, or romantic interludes (that we know of).  They come here for the birthing of their babies.
    Can't remember all the details they told us on that whale watch trip.
    Guess there's something fishy about my memory concerning all thing called fish.

    Brigitte, of course, has a far better attitude concerning fish and things of Nature.  So I made it a point to bring her here, on the very last day of our stay in Maui.
    She wanted to see the wonders of our ancient birth place.  The ocean.  From which all life sprung.  According to the latest scientific information, that is.

    Now if you get the idea that I'm a louse of grouse concerning the birthplace of living creatures on earth, thick twice.  Biblical text aside, I tend to accept any serious study of things living and dead.  And, strangely enough, I'm willing to be open-minded concerning all possibilities, real, imagined or inspired by man, spirits, ghosts, goblins or, Heaven forbid, even God(s).  How can little ol' me know anything for sure.  Even the greatest minds on earth are struggling to discover the final explanations of the universe, and Planet Earth, wet or dry.

    The center made no effort to offer all the information concerning the aquatic creatures of earth or even the Pacific Ocean.  They were, according to the cover of their brochure, dedicated to expose the public to the "spectacular underwater world" of Hawaii, which "you never knew existed ."
    This is Maui's Hawaiian Aquarium, and really a great place to make friends of the strange creatures of the deep.
    The visitor is given a prime example of the marine life of the islands.  And they've done an amazing job in the way they magically offer up such natural views of this undersea world.  You feel as if you are part of it, stepping through "tunnels" that stretch though underwater tanks filled with the local aliens of the deep.
    Nameless, to me, fish swarmed around us as we walked through the place.  It was a totally new watery world, stripped naked, so to speak, right before our eyes, left, right and upwards.  We were surrounded on all sides.  All I could do was "float" though these corridors, gasping in open wonderl.
   Amazing stuff; breath taking.  You've heard of fish out of water--well, I felt like a human out of land.  Stunning experience.  Sadly locked in memory only.  I was so stunned that I forgot to capture it all on film.
   But those that were snapped are offered here as prime examples of what can be experienced at the Maui Ocean Center.
 
 

    I won't even hint at the difficulty I had in putting even these two pictures together.  Without a little PC magic, even these two shots might have been lost in some dimension far removed from the waters of the Pacific.

    This mean lookin' fella was fascinating to watch; but I wouldn't want to meet up with it in the flesh.  For a fish it was huge!  A child could have rode this fella like an alien  underwater-stealth bomber.  Imagine sittin' on this creature's back, saying your bubbly: "Hi Ho, Oh Maui!"