CASS Day 1
I'm finally in Honolulu! The flight was long and event less. I had a lot time to meditade on the landscape. My first idea was the Montreal really turned into a sprawl but seeing Los Angeles reassured me a bit.
My first day was relax since jet lag made me too sleepy to do anything. Just a bit of stargazing on the beech. The air is really dry in Honolulu. The beech is in dowtown Waikiki but you can see many stars. I don't see that many when I ride 45 mins away from Montreal.
On the second day we went surfing. Mahdi is a great surf teacher. I took a longboard (as recommended by Mahdi) and after 30 minutes I was able to catch waves and stand-up. When you look at surfers it all seems easy and relaxing but its actually pretty demanding. You need to paddle a lot, and fast, if you want to catch the waves. Friction with the board is kind of bad too. My nipples are still burning, I grabed one of those lycra shirts, lets hope that it will fix that. The beaches are really impressive (yes that me in the water). Temperature is perfect and the water is extremly clear.
The CASS schedule is kind of great too. The presentation are in the morning and we have the afternoon for personal work and exploration of the island. Yeah it sounds like vacations but its actually a pretty good place to learn about "real-time geology" and how life evolve where there are many different climats in close proximity. So the first day was mostly presention and of schedule and visit of the quite exotic campus.
In the afternoon Pascal took me for a hike on one of those breathtaking mountains. It was pretty hot but there is a constant breeze, the only real problem is the sun but we were ok under the trees. Flora is obviously exotic. But the most unexpected was the fact that there are no moskitos or other anoying insects at all. The trail wasn't too rough but still not that easy. We crossed many locals wearing only swimsuits and flip-flops. In fact, I can't recall to see an Hawaiian wearing anything else. At the end of trail was a waterfall with crazy people jumping from a ten meters high cliff.
I love this place. More to come...
update: removed some names.