Last day! Boo hoo! Spent it on the beach, no whales this time, and then home to pack. Evening walk and then Taco Tuesday at Moose’s. Tomorrow is travel day all day – and overnight – hopefully the snow won’t be too bad for our connection at Dulles – but they’re calling for 8+inches. Joy! Back to winter!
Our little winter respite is over….on to other adventures…ciao for now!
Last two days. We’re taking it easy and just relaxing on the beach, finishing our library books. Today – we make it to the beach around 10am. A little late for us – but it’s not quite as crazy as normal.
We’re hanging out, reading, when we look up…and get the greatest whale show we’ve seen yet!! These guys were SO close to shore.
Just hanging around out there in the surf – and then breaching. Right by the kayakers!! OMG – that would have scared the you know what out of me!!! Right next to a kayak this huge thing jumps out of the water?
Aw – experience? Yeah. Frightening? Oh totally! But amazing as well.
We watched the whales for almost an hour…just lost in the majesty of the huge creatures. Truly amazing!
How do you beat this?
You don’t! Home for lunch. Emails, fighting with the cell phone that has died an untimely death. Reading in the yard. Happy Hour at Lulu’s. Dinner of Poke (sashimi marinated in different things – shoyu – soy sauce and sesame, garlic, wasabi, etc.) and marinated tri-tip steak. 2nd to last night. Sigh…..
It was a good day for us in terms of teams! Steelers and Packers in the Superbowl. We spent all day watching great games, then happy hour at the Moose. Afterward, home for buffalo chicken and a relaxing night. Yay football!
More laziness, more beach, more reading. You have to head out early though, if you want a parking space. We get to the beach around 9:30, and within 1/2 an hour, it’s jammed. It’s like the bus let off – there’s a constant stream of people heading out into the sun. We have corralled our place in the shade – where the breeze makes it really lovely.
At noon exactly, the stream of people start back to their cars – lunch time you know! But even still, when we leave an hour later, the lot is still jam packed. We chill at the house. Then head into Kahului for happy hour at Casanova’s. Talk about great happy hour! $5 for a carafe of Pinot Grigio – which equaled out to about 4 glasses! And great pupu’s – the kalua pig on a roll was smoky and delicious. Ed’s calamari was perfectly done, and a huge portion. Great place, highly recommend this for happy hour – and probably dinner – the menu looked great – but we were only interested in snacks.
Back at the house, relaxing evening anticipating…..football Sunday!!
We’ve been watching the weather, and the ocean swell forecast – and you know? It’s hit or miss, so we decide to go ahead and schedule our 2nd Whale Watching trip today. We joined the Pacific Whale Foundation, and got a free whale watching trip for one of us, so we want to make sure we fit it in before we leave.
They are calling for large swells and wind, but we’re taking our chances. The day dawns beautifully – a mix of sun and clouds, light breeze. We head over to Ma’alea Harbor (we aren’t driving all the way to Lahaina when we can go out of the harbor which is 30 minutes closer to us), check in at the center, then grab some Vanilla Macadamia Nut coffee while we wait for the tour.
It’s pretty packed on the ship again today – but once we get going, it’s easy to get a spot on the railing right up front by the captain. The water isn’t all that choppy and the swells are small, so I’m a happy girl (but I do have my Dramamine with me, just in case!). We head out into the water, and almost immediately start to see whales.
It’s late in the season, so there are mother whales with their calves as well as male whales who are competing to mate with the females. Most of the whales we see are in pods – either a mother, calf and a male escort, or a female with males which are called competition pods (or com-pods for short). There is a ton of activity – and we sail all over the bay area after whales we’ve seen breaching or chin slapping in competition.
The pictures don’t do it justice. We are really close to a lot of these mammoth creatures. And they are just amazing. The naturalists are great as well, full of all sorts of interesting information. Telling us how the males can actually beat each other up when they are in competition. They have barnacles on them and when they chin slap or pectoral slap and come down on the other whale, they can actually cut them.
After an hour or so, we stop near where we’ve seen some whales so we can drop a microphone into the water to hear the whales sing. You want to talk about amazing? We watched them drop the mic and set it on the speaker, and still it was really hard to believe what we were hearing was real. Incredible!!!!
Definitely a great 2 hour trip! Just fantastic!
Back home, we eat, then head to the beach for the afternoon.
Much later, we hit Kahales for Kenny Roberts who plays acoustic guitar, with the help of a bongo drummer, and sings a hugely wide range of songs – from country to pop to easy listening. Cheap beer, cruddy wine, but hey, I’m getting used to bad Chardonnay! Other than that, it’s a great way to spend Friday night, and watch the local crowd ebb and flow!
Today we are exploring the only part of the island we’ve not been – the Waikulu area where Iao state park is located. It’s a little north of Kahului and an easy 30 minute drive. Waikulu looks cute – but odd – it is obviously the county seat and there are a couple high rise office buildings that look out of place considering nothing else in either town is more than 3 or 4 stories tall. The main town center looks interesting – like an old main street, but we take a left at the main intersection and head up into the wilderness.
The park has a nice little walking trail that gives you great views of the Needle – a huge rock that points up into the sky. The area was once a sacred burial ground in early Hawaiian days – now it’s a beautiful, bucolic park with the Iao stream bubbling down hill through its midst.
We wander through the little trails, soaking up the scenery and the heat – it’s really hot in the sun. Even though on the way over it looked like rain, the clouds aren’t in this area of the valley. It is amazing the different micro-climates here! Within 2 miles you can be in sun and clouds with 10 degrees temperature differences!
After the park, we head to the Maui Tropical Plantation – a gorgeous 60 acre agricultural “park” where you can take a little tram ride through the plantation and learn about the crops in Hawaii (again $14 – NOT!) or just walk around the manicured grounds with a little lagoon and plenty of pagodas. There is a huge restaurant here where you can envision the receptions of the many weddings they have here. We didn’t see any wedding parties while we were there (Gee, Thursday, early afternoon, not exactly prime time for weddings I suppose!), but you can just imagine how gorgeous a ceremony and/or pictures would be here.
Back home. Lulu’s for happy hour sunset. Another beautiful day on the island.
Work, laze, beach. It’s two days of laziness, interspersed with walks in the park, reading at the beach, HUGE snails on the patio and lizards on the bike.
Plus Taco Tuesday at Moose Mcgillycuddy’s with yummy Kalua Pork tacos, and Mahi Mahi tacos and even calamari tacos that Ed loved!).
And of course, sunsets – with the added magic of watching whales breach on the horizon.
(A whale breaching below on the horizon – it’s that little shadow that looks like the silhouette of a ship!)
They are calling for rain. And wind. But then, when are they not? It’s supposed to be pretty heavy downpours today – but when we get up – it’s not bad at all. A little rain overnight, but now it’s sunny – and there’s not a cloud over Haleakala. So – we decide to handle business fast and head up the mountain.
Good decision – it is an incredibly beautiful day! Picture perfect as we drive around the island to start our journey “upcountry”. Since we decided to do this spur of the moment, we’re a little later than we’d normally be. It’s about 9:00 by the time we start out and we’re a little concerned about the NCL ship tours (NCL is in Kahului on Sundays and Mondays and we try not to do anything then to avoid the crowds). But – up we go. The roads are surprisingly empty – except for the bike tours coming down the mountain. No way Jose! That looks really scary to us – and we are still in awe that Marti actually did it and rode down that mountain!!!
The countryside all around us is verdant and colorful. Houses. Ranches. Gardens. Nurseries. As the road continues to wind uphill, the foliage changes and there are pine trees and forests and the fields become a little less lush. But still green enough for cattle. The whole road is an open ranch, so there are signs that tell you to watch for the cattle – and quite a few cattle themselves – right near the road.
We are heading up to the National Park where we can hike down into the crater. On the way up there are lots of pull outs and overlooks – we stop at a few – but our strategy is to go all the way to the top, then to back track down and make our stops – this is especially important since we’re a little late on getting started.
In the end, being late worked to our advantage. There were a few tour buses way ahead of us, so we ended up missing them everywhere we stopped.
First real stop was the summit of Haleakala at 10.023 feet. Here we go again with altitude adjustment! It’s cold up here with a wind, probably in the 40’s. But we’re lucky, it’s not as cold as it could be when the wind is really gusting and it’s only in the 30’s. I bundle up – Ed – well, he’s a polar bear, so he’s only in his windbreaker.
The views up here are fantastic. We can even see the big island with snow capping the highest reaches of Maunaloa. We’re above the clouds and it’s really totally amazingly cool!
And there are tons of Silversword plants here. They are really wild. Don’t even look real. They are so brightly silver – it really looks like someone spray painted them.
After the summit, we head back down to Haleakala visitor center where the Sliding Sands trail head begins. Here you can hike all the way down to the floor of the crater (ok, so it’s not really a crater, but it’s more a valley that’s been carved out by erosion from water and wind – but you know – whatever!). There are some great views from inside this valley – where you can really see the cones – lava cones? erosion cones? who knows? but they are an awesome site.
We decide to be brave and hike down the trail a bit. It’s a 4.5 hour hike to the floor – we’re not that brave – but we decide to just keep going to see what we can see. Remember the altitude though! Going down is fine – but coming back up? Aw man…painful…and we think we’re in shape! We hike down the trail about 45 minutes and then give it up. Still, we’ve probably dropped 1000 feet or so into the crater. Views are great – it’s like the moon down here. Rocks and brown and red clay/mud/soil. Moonscape! So different than the lush countryside on the way up – and the even more verdant greenery on the other side of the ridges – where Hana is located.
We KNOW going back up is brutal – so we turn around after our 45 minutes, and yep, we were right – it’s brutal. It’s mostly the altitude. You want to just hike right back up the hill, but that’s not happening. One whole bottle of water and lots of rest stops later, we reach the top of the trail in a little less than an hour. Which honestly isn’t that bad – considering.Back up top we take what we are calling the OPL (Old People’s Loop). This is a short little hike up to the top of a rocky mount that gives you excellent views of the crater. We figured its for people who don’t want to or can’t hike down into the crater itself. OPL, ha! This one beats us up too. It’s all up hill with steps to boot. It’s got to be the elevation, but still, it’s a chore getting up there. The views are great – a whole different perspective than being inside the thing.
We come back down, get our stamp at the Visitor’s Center and them head back down the mountain, stopping at all the various lookouts and overlooks. They are all wonderful vistas – and as we continue down the mountain, we see the clouds have rolled into the upcountry.
Normally in the afternoons, the clouds cling to the sides of the Volcano, shrouding most of it from view. Nothing different today – but being up here is really different. We’re above the clouds, in perfectly gorgeous sunny weather. Then we’re driving through them. You can actually touch the clouds! And they are cold! It’s eerie, really. Like a shroud of thick mist that just rolls over you and above you on the winds. Eerie but cool – literally!
We take the long loop back to the valley – and stop by the Lavender farm. this is tourist heaven, but it’s kind of neat. Fields and fields of lavender, a lovely little botanical type garden to meander through (or take a $14 guided walking tour, $14 each that is! Not!). They have a gift shop with lavender coffee (ick) and tea (didn’t try) and all sorts of really pricey lavender candy and cookies. It’s beautiful, so we just soak up the scenery and the weather, then head back down the rutted pothole filled road to the main highway back into the low lands.
Back at home, we freshen up and hit Lulu’s for a sunset happy hour drink. Then home for dinner and a relaxing night after a very full day.
Yes, we are in Maui. But you know – it’s also the playoffs – so what can you do? Watch football with our coffee and take halftime breaks in the sun! Pretty much the whole weekend was spent that way. Pretty nice – especially since all the teams we wanted to win did!
We did manage to get out and see the sunsets though! There was that at least! :)
Then capped off our Sunday night with an amazing dinner at Cuatro. Great little restaurant just up the street with 25% off early bird specials. So of course, we trooped up there at 5:30 and got our discount on the amazing food – starting with incredible Spicy Ahi tuna nachos (spicy tuna sashimi on top of crisp fried tortilla wedges)and calamari that was done just right. Main courses we didn’t even need. Ed had Mahi Mahi which was delicious, I had a Hawaiian steak, most of which came home with me for lunch the next day. We staggered home with totally full stomachs and vegged on the couch for the rest of the night. Good day!
The Pacific Whale Foundation is very big here. They run all sorts of eco-friendly cruises, whale watching, dining, snorkeling and dolphin excursions. They are an international non-profit organization dedicated to protecting whales, dolphins, coral reefs and the ocean environment. We’ve read a lot about them, and they get extremely good reviews from just about everyone.
So, in our research, when we found their sunset cruise – with drinks, snacks and Reggae music – well – we were sold! We made our reservations online and then also joined the Organization as a member. What the heck – it’s a great cause and we get extra discounts. That’s a no brainer.
Tonight’s sunset whale watching cruise is packed. Literally sold out. And there are tons of locals – which made us feel even better about our choice. And I’m feeling EXTREMELY happy because the water is flat calm – the guides are even commenting about how odd it is – Ma’alaea harbor is one of the windiest harbors in the world, and tonight – flat calm. YAY! No Dramamine for me tonight!!!
The cruise is great! I don’t have any seasickness issues (always a huge bonus), the music is fantastic – it’s Reggae, but he’s playing all sorts of different songs, like Walking in Memphis – great rendition – never heard it in Reggae before! As well as all the typical stand bys. Really fun. Beer and wine flowed. Food was great – artichoke dip, rolls, crackers, pork BBQ, meatballs and veggies and dip. That’s dinner!
And the whales? We were so close to a mother and her calf. Maybe 100 yards away, which is the minimum that any ship can approach. It was totally cool! Never breached or slapped her tail, but just seeing her out there – she looked like a submarine! Huge! And with her calf. Way cool.
Then the sunset. It was a perfect night – the clouds rolled in – but above the horizon, so we got to watch the sun sink into the ocean. No green flash – but otherwise – a pretty perfect ending to a great cruise!
The storm has passed and the sky is perfectly clear – and dare I say it? It’s actually hot and humid – and it’s only morning! A very bizarre week here in Maui. The mud still remains on the roads and in the parking lots. They are blowing it off the lot at the grocery store, so now there is mud dust in the air. But some lots are still caked with it, and we see plenty of people shoveling out of their drives and stores/shops. Mind boggling.
We don’t have anything planned for today, so we decide to hit the beach. We pack our lunch (yes Marti, we are following your lead!) and head out for Po’olenalena beach – where we sat on the rocks the first day here. We know there is shade there, and that is what we are after in this heat.
We hit the beach a little before 10am.
There are plenty of people already there, and we stake out our shade claim. Thank heavens for being early birds, because the cars and the people start piling in. By noon – the cars are parking on the street way up the hill and there’s nary a spot to be had in the shade – and you’re fighting for beach space too. Wow!
We hang out, read, watch the surf (no whales today) and people, and generally have a wonderful day. Munch on our sandwiches, eat our apples, read more, and then watch the exodus around 12:30 when people decide they’ve had enough sun and/or are hungry and weren’t smart enough to pack a lunch like us.
We head home a little after 1 too, so we have time to cool off and clean up before our sunset whale watching cruise! Note for our next beach excursion: you get plenty of sun even if you are under a shade tree. So we are lathering up next time!
Monsoon. That’s the only way to describe this. It wakes you up at night with it’s ferocity, the winds howl, the thunder claps, the lightening illuminates the sky. This is a tropical event! We wake up – for good (after the 4:30 thunderclaps and 5:30 rain pounding, wind howling episodes) and it’s all over the news. The schools are closed, the main road where we are staying is closed – the roads to the crater are shut down. It’s incredible!
The deluge finally lets up around 9am – and we go out to explore. Oh wow! There is mud everywhere – all over the streets, which they are scraping with bulldozers, all over the park, in the ocean, turning the surf brown. The street we walk down to get to the park (with the martini driveway) is under water. 
The little beach that we would cross to get from one side of the park to another – it’s a rushing gulch filled with muddy water and the erosion is just incredible! Amazing!
The Princess ship that normally comes into Lahaina couldn’t even make it there – probably because of the winds. So it’s anchored off of Maalaea harbor – but we don’t think they can launch the tenders because its really windy. We’ll see. 
So- what is today going to bring? Clouds, winds, but no more rain fortunately. We sweep off the patio, and after wiping off the washer/dryer, we actually get the laundry done. Then – since the weather is so volatile, we just hang out - doing work, reading, when the sun comes out – hanging out in the yard reading. A nice little relaxing day – even though it started out as a wash out!
The day actually turned out nice. And we’re happy to get out and do some walking. The cottage is great – but getting out and stretching our legs is even nicer.
After dinner we head up to the Barmuda triangle and hit Kahale’s. Nobody’s there – no music tonight – probably because of the flood. Kahale’s was under water this morning too, and they’ve been mopping and cleaning out all day. Jason, the bartender said it was bad, but not the worst he’s seen. That’s saying a lot, because we’re thinking it was pretty awful.
We try to do a pub crawl – but after hitting Dog & Duck – we decide we’ve had enough. It was fun – they had quiz night – which we’ll do for sure next week. But for some reason it was REALLY hot in there – and it kind of sapped us – so we headed out – and enjoyed the fresh breeze on the walk home.
Tomorrow – we’re hitting the beach! Yep – the beach! Oh – and sunset whale watching cruise…..more later!
