May 4, 2005 - Day 303 in Maui, Hawaii, USA

We woke up early for surfing lessons but not early enough. Kai, our instructor was pissed that we were late but he warmed up after we displayed our instinctual surfing talents. Everyone managed to get up on the board for almost every wave despite the fact that the second instructor Willy said we were the group “full of blind people” (referring to Charles, Sarah and Laura). In fact the group got so good that we started to ask Willy to hold on to our boards until he spotted a big wave. When a big wave was headed our way Willy would yell “PARTY WAVE!!!” and push us forward as a group. It was “radical… man”. Afterwards Charles and Laura “took one for the team” and volunteered to attend a 90 minute presentation about timeshares on the island. Since they agreed to attend, we were given a major discount on the activities we booked on the island. No one else wanted to go, knowing there would be pressure to purchase something, so the group agreed that Charles was the best person to attend (being the one who is virtually unresponsive to pressure). After the presentation, Charles convinced us that we were able to enjoy the beach facilities at the Ritz Carlton (including towels). Peter was skeptical of Charles’ “all Hawaii beaches are public” shpeal. Of course, we were not approached by anyone and Micheala even helped herself to a green fluffy towel at the end. Then five of us did one last big shop to gear up for the camping trip in the volcano known as Haleakala. We had a fancy Hawaiian fish dinner which we considered our last supper before camping, savoring every bite since we were not convinced by Charles that we could sustain ourselves on granola for days on end. At night, Trip Director Charles checked our backpacks to make sure we had packed appropriately and we crashed hard in anticipation of long nights ahead.