Maui – Day 6

So far we had already spent quite a few days laying on the beach. Mostly we really wanted to just relax on the beach as much as possible on this trip, but we thought we should maybe do a little sight seeing, too. So, Thursday morning we decided to go see the Nakalele Blow Hole (we found out about it through the Maui Revealed book). It is a natural lava shelf that is over the ocean up on the North end of the island. There is a hole in the shelf and when the waves come crashing in the water shoots up like a geyser. We had to take a windy road to get there and then there was a little bit of a hike past some strange little rock altars. The wind up there was POWERFUL. It nearly knocked me over. I was a little too scared to get very close to the edge of the cliff.

 

 

Afterwards we stopped at Kapalua and hiked out to what is called Dragon’s Teeth. We also found this through Maui Revealed. This is where the wind had blown the lava up into an upward curved shape. The waves were big and fun to watch.

After we were done with our sight-seeing, we hit the beach again, of course. We went to our beach at Napili and swam a little and just laid out in the sun – it was so sunny and warm!

After dinner on the lanai we went down to walk along Front Street in Lahaina and see all the night life. On the way we stopped to take some pictures of the beautiful sunset over the harbor.

 

We got a shaved ice at Local Boys – it was soooo yummy, with ice cream on the bottom and some cream on top. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

We stopped to see the Banyan Tree – this tree is just huge. It has grown out and planted down what appears to be additional trunks. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life! Unfortunately there were some local kids smoking marijuana there, so we left and didn’t get to enjoy as much as I would’ve liked to.

We spent the rest of the evening walking up and down Front Street. On the way home we stopped to take a picture of this sign we saw over a little church or chapel we saw near the Old Lahaina Luau. There was a man preaching away inside and a few people were in there listening to him. :)

Maui – Day 5

Wednesday morning, we thought we would go down to Lahaina and do a little souvenir shopping before it got too crowded. It was practically deserted compared to night time.

Time to get back to the condo and hit the beach! This day we went right outside our condo at Napili. When we snorkeled we saw the biggest sea turtles. We came up on one and then saw a bigger turtle come swim right over the top of the smaller one. I thought maybe it was the Mama protecting her baby. The smaller one (and I use the term lightly, ‘cause it was almost as big as me!) then swam away and we hung out with the Mama for a while. The fish were so pretty, too, and then coral. When the sky is clear the visibility in the way is so much better. It made the colors of the fish so vibrant!

After the day at the beach we had to get ready for a nice dinner. We had reservations at the Hula Grill in Kaanapali. The only bummer was – it rained that night! It wasn’t too bad of a rain, but we were hoping to watch the sun go down from our beach front seat. Well, at the least the food was good. Kurt had the Seared Tuna and I had the special which was Mahi Mahi and Swordfish.

Later back at the condo, we rented Star Trek and had some Ben and Jerry’s. Perfect day again!

Maui – Day 4

On this day, we decided to take a trip down to South Maui. The first place Kurt had booked for this trip (before he found out about Napili) was down in Wailea, plus Kurt had been to Maui in the ‘80s with his family and they stayed in Keihei, so I was curious to see what it was like down there.

We went to a beach called Palauea for the first part of the day. We snorkeled there and saw some sea turtles. We could see Molokini from where we were – that’s where a lot of the snorkel tour boats go. We also saw LOTS of whales from this beach. They were pretty close and it was really fun to watch them ‘play.’

The surf was coming in pretty good when I was coming back in from our snorkel and one of them knocked me right over. My mask was pulled off and we never did find it. :( So I am now the (not so) proud owner of a sixty-some-odd dollar snorkel mask that lies at the bottom of the ocean just off South Maui. What a rip-off – literally ripped off my head, but also they charged us WAY too much for that if you ask me. And that was supposedly a discount. HA!

For the rest of the afternoon we took a little drive all around South Maui. We stopped to see this really cool church building that had a little grave yard looking over the ocean – so cool.

Next we went to see Makena Beach, Wailea and we drove through Kehei.

Back at the condo we watched the sun go down from the lanai and had dinner in the condo.

We then rented the movie 21 and watched it in the condo before turning in for the night.

Maui – Day 3

On Monday morning of our trip we decided to take a short car trip up to Flemming Beach and watch the locals surf on the big waves. It was sooooo amazing to watch and listen to the pounding surf. They had lifeguards there and tons a warning signs so that the tourists like us didn’t try to boogie board on a beach like this and end up dead!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next we went and packed up our beach stuff for the day – we were heading down to Kaanapali to snorkel at Black Rock and see all the resorts. We had a tough time finding parking and so eventually just paid 20 bucks for a good spot. It was so pretty there. Definitely a different feel with the resorts all around. I think I prefer the quieter setting at Napili Bay, but it was a great beach for sure!

After we got our fill of sun, sand and snorkeling – we went back to Napili to watch the sunset and have dinner in the Condo. Later that night we went into Kahului to see Avatar 3D.

A day doesn’t get much better than this!