Waikiki beats the winter in Wellington

On Monday we got up early to get out to Kahului Airport for our flight to Hilo. We had such a great time in Maui but it seemed to go so quickly.

We picked up a rental car in Hilo and took the scenic drive around the coast to Kona. The resort we stayed at was located in a nice bay with heaps of restaurants and souvenir shops. This was a good chance for us to sit back and relax for a day or so, soak up a bit of sun and even squeeze in a bit of shopping at the new mall in Kona.

On Wednesday we drove down the coast and up the mountain towards the volcano. Unfortunately the weather changed pretty quickly and before long we were driving in torrential rain. It didn't let up and a lot of the roads were closed due to dangerous levels of sulphur and recent lava flows so we bailed and drove onwards back to Hilo.

Yesterday afternoon we arrived back in Honolulu. Our flight was interesting as the plane was mostly full with US marines coming to Oahu before they head off to Afghanistan.

Waikiki is a pretty mad place, there are people everywhere! Who said we're in a recession? The hotel we're staying at is just across the road from the beach and the view from our room is pretty awesome. It's really warm here - 30 degrees today so we hit the shops this morning and then went down to the beach later this afternoon. We'll try and get down to the beach earlier tomorrow before it gets too hot. Having a great time!

It's a hard life

Over the last few days we've explored all over the island of Maui.

On Wednesday we drove around the west side of the island and had a good look around the shops at Lahaina. The road around the NW part of the island was pretty narrow and a far contrast to the 4 lane highway that goes from Kahului to Kihei - well worth it though as the scenery was spectacular.

We tried to drive down the road to Hana yesterday but had to turn back as the road was closed due to roadworks - this was the perfect excuse to grab some lunch from the locals cooking some delicious teriyaki bbq chicken.

I've windsurfed the last 4 out of 5 days and decided to chill out today and watch some of the action at the Maui Race series. Yesterday I swapped the slalom gear I had rented for a freeride board and a few wave sails - this was heaps of fun in the 25-35 knots at Kanaha yesterday. I'm hoping to get a final sail in tomorrow afternoon before we head to the big island on Monday morning.

The place we're staying at is really cool - a nice swim in the morning and a bit of sunbathe to get things started has become a favourite of ours.

This afternoon we drove up to the Haleakala crater - it was really cold up the top but good to learn about how the island of Maui came to be how it is today.

We've uploaded plenty of photos for you to see more of our travels.

Fun times in Maui

Sheryl and I arrived in Maui yesterday afternoon. First stop was to pickup our rental van then we headed down to Neil Pryde Maui to get sorted with some windsurf gear for the week. What a cool shop, the crew there were really friendly and helpful too. Thanks guys!

Armed with some great gear, Neil Pryde MKII slaloms (the same as I use back home) and a JP Slalom board, we then headed down to the beach where the whole atmosphere was buzzing. Kanaha Beach Park is really cool, heaps of space for everyone to park their vans and wagons and plenty of lush grass for rigging.

I headed out on the 5.4 and was soon getting dialed in. The JP is a bit more full on than I am used to and my 2 months of hibernation prior to coming to Maui meant I was a bit rusty. Soon I was getting back in the groove and getting some good downwind runs and fairly decent gybes.

Shez got some nice photos and braved the wind for an hour!

We then headed down to Kihei where we checked into to our accommodation then went out for a nice relaxing dinner - we had some local fish which was delicious.

So that was our first day in paradise!

Here's a few more photos

A better way to build web apps

I haven't done a tech post for a while so here goes...

Google launched their App Engine project about a year or so ago and have just launched support for Java. I've always been a fan of Java & mySQL as it has always been up to the task with any problem I wanted to solve. Here are my thoughts on how this stacks up.

It rocks... I had to download the latest version of Eclipse and then install the Google plugin for App Engine. I followed the demo app and was up and running in the cloud in less that 30 minutes with a site working off my own domain. I can deploy a new version of an app in a matter of seconds.

In another 30 minutes I've learnt the basics of how to use JDO (persistance) and now can start thinking about building a scalable web app. Using servlets is very straight forward and with JDO I think the amount of code you need to write is pretty minimal, basically you can just focus on the task at hand.

The dashboard in App Engine looks pretty good so you can see exactly what's going on.

It will be interesting to see how many others choose App Engine to be their platform of choice. I think for a startup that wants to get something up and running quickly and not to have to worry about hosting costs initially this is a really viable option. Nice work Google.

Round the Bays 09

Well it was another epic Wellington days for the Round the Bays run today. Thousands of Wellingtonians packed the start line at Frank Kitts for the 7km dash around the bays. I wasn't quite keen enough to do the 1/2 marathon - we'll see what next year brings!

It was great to have a crew from work all keen to enter this year. I completed the race in under 32 minutes - we'll get the official times out of the paper tomorrow. I paced myself pretty well and went the same speed the whole way with a short sprint at the end in the usual Forrest Gump fashion. I'm pretty pleased at how I went - I didn't feel exhausted at all the whole race other than the dash at the end. It was really hot!

Its was a cool event and good to see so many people right on the pace - there is plenty of fit people in Wellington that is for sure!

Fun day at Eastbourne

After a great sail at Pauatahanui Inlet yesterday we headed out to Eastbourne for the Wild Winds fun day event. It was pretty strong breeze with most pretty comfortable on 4.0's and wave boards. I rigged my 5.4 on my speed board.

Sheryl took some awesome photos - the kitesurfers were pretty amazing with their insane air time.

Dave had a new RS Slalom MK III on the beach which looks pretty radical with the shortened boom length - will be keen to try one sometime soon.

Saturday fun

Went for a quick run round the bays this morning to get motivated for the day.
I then had another great sail in the Ditch, it was pretty windy - was on my 6.2 and 104.
It was a bit choppy so only managed 28.4 knots today - great condition for practising slalom gybes. I've uploaded a few photos to Flickr

Great fun!

Flying in the Ditch

Had a great afternoon sailing in the Ditch (that's Evans Bay) today. The southerly was around 15-23 knots so I had my 6.2 and 104 slalom board rigged. My best time of the day was 31.2 knots. A few more photos on Flickr