Day 16 of Our Tour of Maui, Hawaii - Kanaha Beach, Kahului, Maui - Maui Hawaii Landscape Photography, Maui Hawaii Portrait Photography

For Day 16 of our Tour of Maui, Hawaii, we leave the Southside of Maui behind and travel to Central Maui, to Kanaha Beach.  Kanaha Beach is rarely seen by tourists.  I think I was only one of maybe three or four haoles on the beach the day that my family was there.  It is a local beach that is difficult to locate, unless you know how to get there.  It is a really beautiful beach that goes on and on forever.

The park has an endless expanse of grass covered areas set up for picnicing, camping and planning group activities.

I promised you that someday I would introduce you to my husband through this blog, and this is a good post to do that in, because the Tongan's set up a huge group activity the day that we were there.  They had a cookout and activities scheduled throughout the day.  My husband is the one in front, in this picture, the one with the white T-shirt on.

They are loud and boisterous and like to stir up trouble, the Tongans.  They are super funny, when it's just them - a group of Tongans.  My husband is usually the one causing the most mischief.   I had just arrived not too long before I looked up to see that they had tied him to the end of a rope.  Always put the big bull on the end, if you want to win a game of Tug-of-War.  Put a big bull like T in the front, and stick the other guys in the middle.  That's how to get it done.

Tug-of-war wasn't the only activity set up for the men that day.  Here are some grown men playing chase.  They thought up all kinds of ways to humiliate each other.  You thought Rugby was the sport of choice among the Tongans? Nope after all these years of being married to Siaosi (sea ow sea,) I've learned it is humiliation.



Tongans love to sing; usually, it is in churches in groups.  On this day, they decided to host their own American Idol contest, with some judges that would make Simon Cowell look like an unopinionated pansy.  See for yourself.

The first contestant was shot down immediately, and he looks like he really knows how to sing too, doesn't he.  His wife is the lead soprano in church and one of the judges.  Yup, he was shot down immediately with a healthy dose of  that humiliation I spoke of.

Here they contemplate just how much humiliation to give him.  He's a Tongan man; so of course he needs a lot, and they don't hesitate to apply it.  The poor soul is left to sit down under a tree with his tail between his legs.



Next...Bishop will take a stab at this singing contest.  Surely those women will love him.  He's a brave soul, and our leader.  He has no choice but to take one for the team.  He too looks like he's no shlump in the singing department, but watch...

Humiliation will soon be his fate also...see!  Poor soul!!

Could there be any others brave enough to step up and face these intractable judges?  Our best male voice stands up, bravely (not really) he steps forward.

Those darn judges show him no mercy...

and humiliation is quickly his.

 
 

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...does it!   Grown Tongan men love to rough house and so do the younger generation.  Little Tongan men looking for some trouble... 

 

Big Tongan men looking for some trouble...



Because I can't understand Tongan, I usually spend a lot of time down at the beach watching the kids.  The kids will speak English to me, and my girls are among my very favorite things to photograph.  It gets to be more and more fun the older they get.

The scenery at Kanaha Beach is incredible, and I just loved being out there on that beach, just me and my camera.  It is one of the happiest times of my life, when I'm out at the beach observing what there is to take pictures of.

This is how young Polynesians teach themselves how to swim.  They just throw themselves out there, and the older ones teach the little ones and help guide them into learning how to swim like a fish.  I imagine my youngest daughter spent most of the day this way.

You can walk for a long, long ways and see so many different things. One of my favorite things that day was the canoe club.  It looks like the buildings built by the Maori people of New Zealand.

I met a very interesting young man that day who wanted to be part of this blog.



Here's my oldest daughter again.  She's really not as old as she looks.

See this guy's red and bleary eyes.  That is a sign that someone has been in the water WAY to long!  I've seen this same face on my second son so many times.

My Siua!!  Love you, Little Guy!!!  Mommy is crazy about you!!