All Good Things Must Come to an End

Okay, this is really my last Hawaii post, I promise! I've got other things on my mind this week and I'm finally out of denial over the fact that I'm back to reality! This will just be (I think) a short little recap of our last 2 days in Maui.

Of course we spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach and we also discovered how much fun it was to play in the ocean and body surf in the waves! I realize that probably sounds juvenile, and perhaps it is but we had the best time with it. The currents are so strong and the waves are pretty big -- unlike anything you'd see in the Gulf or the Atlantic for sure so this makes it perfect for body surfing and boogie-boarding.

I also joined Ben on the golf course at Kapalua on Thursday afternoon. When we decided to go to Hawaii and more specifically Maui, this was the one course that Ben just insisted he had to play. He did a good sales job on telling me how pretty the course was, how great the views would be, etc so I decided to ride along for his round. I hadn't ever done this before and I'm pretty sure I am now spoiled as this course sets a pretty high standard. I'll share this one picture which really doesn't even do it justice.

We really had a good time on the golf course. Ben lost a few more balls than he had anticipated, and had a tough time on the front nine but redeemed himself on the back. And I just enjoyed riding the cart, having a few drinks, and seeing the views. By the time we finished, the sun had gone down so we really weren't able a great picture of the two of us on the golf course but that's okay. We'd had a long day and were starving so we went out for pizza (!) that night and planned out our final day.

Friday, the last day, I woke up early as usual and took my daily walk down to Whaler's village for coffee. They had this little coffee stand down there and THE BEST cup of coffee for $2 so I indulged each day! We had a great view from our lanai so I would spend the mornings having coffee and breakfast and looking at the garden and the ocean. Man, I miss that place!!

Anyway, after breakfast we spent a little time poolside and when we got too hot we walked down to this place called "Black Rock" to snorkel. It was just down the beach from where we were staying, and supposedly had a good reef and was also home to a few sea turtles. According to the guidebooks, you have to look closely to see the turtles so I didn't really expect that we'd get a glimpse at them. I was wrong ....



We stepped out off the beach and into the water and probably no more than 10 feet off shore we saw a ginormous turtle swimming around. He didn't seem one bit bothered by people and the thing had to be 100 years old. Anyway, we were swimming along and Ben and I stopped to get a little self portrait when I felt a fin on my butt! I looked down to see THIS!!!!!

This guy was directly underneath us. It was awesome and scary at the same time. Ben will tell you that I nearly drowned him, but we got over our little scare and continued out into the reef. We snorkeled for about an hour and Ben started freaking out and yelling all of a sudden! Naturally my first thought was SHARK! and I immediately began planning my escape route. As it turns out, there was no shark but Ben had been stung by a man of war. He never saw the thing, but just felt it sting him several times -- on the back, ear, forehead, and arm and was in pretty severe pain. We swam for what felt like an eternity about 150 yards back to shore and looked at Ben's back. Of course every other word out of his mouth was "f*&k" and I was worried about him but didn't really want him dropping f-bombs in front of all the kids on the beach! (Lord knows, I say my share of cuss words but I try not to do it in front of kids) He of course just glared at me when I asked him to watch his language and somehow he managed to walk back down the beach to our resort. We talked to the lifeguard there who sprayed him with vinegar and told him to sit in the sun and the pain would go away with time.

When Ben felt better and we ate some lunch, I was finally able to convince him to rent boogie boards and get back in the water. I'll share one of my favorite pictures that I think does a good job at capturing the whole boogie board/body surfing experience.


We had our last dinner at a place called Leilani's in Whaler's Village. I even got Ben to try some sushi!!! As I've documented here before, he is an extremely picky eater (sorry, Ben, but its true) so this was quite an accomplishment for me.

We managed to get up early on our last morning and spent our last few hours on the beach before our long journey home.




I said this would be a short recap, and again I lied. BUT. That's it for Hawaii. Thanks for indulging me by reading my little blog!

If you want to see the rest of the pictures, and be forewarned there are lots, you can see them here

Hawaii - The Rest of the Story

Thanks to everyone for all the positive feedback on my blow-by-blow of our recent vacation! I'm pretty sure this will be the last installment and I'll be back next week with something different. I'm still too much in beach-mode to actually put much effort into thinking about other topics for my blog this week. (And obviously, in previous posts I was too lazy to run spell check or proof read as you may or may not have noticed!)

So, our first full day in Maui was Tuesday. This also happened to be our anniversary so we had initially planned to book a snorkeling excursion for the morning and to spend the afternoon at the pool and beach. However, before we left we heard about a hurricane (Felicia) headed towards the islands. By the time we were in Maui, the hurricane had died down to a depression and we weren't in any danger but because it was supposed to hit the island on Tuesday, we thought it best not to snorkel that day. Of course, we woke up that morning to a beautiful day, but it was too late as we would have already had to book the excursion. Soooo, we talked about it and decided that Ben should go ahead and squeeze in a quick round of golf at a nearby course since we didn't know when or if the bad weather would come. (Much to Ben's friends chagrin, the hurricane/depression turned out to not be a big deal at all. Sorry you didn't have anything to laugh at, assholes) Ben took the camera to the golf course that day, so I'll share one of those photos. He'll have to comment here on the Kaanapali golf since I didn't ride with him. I spent the morning on the beach while he golfed and the rain did finally come in late that afternoon.

We went out for our anniversary dinner at The Plantation House at Kapalua. It was FAAAANNNTASTIC! And beautiful. You get a nice bay view as well as a view out over some of the pineapple fields there in Maui. We didn't quite make it there before sunset, but I would imagine it to be an ideal place to watch the sunset. I really wish I liked fish, because that was obviously their specialty -- but since I don't I ended up going with scallops over orzo and Ben went with the NY Strip. We shared a wonderful bottle of wine, called Amavi, it was a Cab, and I'm pretty sure it was from California. Try it if you find it in your local wine store. One funny little story from that night though. We were trying to decide what to order and Ben was leaning towards steak. He usually orders fillet, but he didn't want the side dish that came with it and wanted to substitute it for the truffle fries, which came with the NY Strip. Now, most nice restaurants don't really appreciate you doing this sort of thing, but will usually oblige your request. Not this one! Ben asked our waitress, who in turn asked the chef, who said that he would do it but that he would charge us extra for it. Well, that obviously pissed Ben off because he just said "fine, then tell the chef that I will instead have the NY Strip which DOES come with the truffle fries". He basically did that just as a matter of principle -- if the chef was going to be a Gary Stevenson about it, then he was just going to order a less expensive entree. Just to make a point. (I do this type of 'on principal' stuff all the time, maybe I'm rubbing off on him too much). Despite chef Gary's tude' we really did have an excellent meal.

We spent the next morning walking around Lahaina for a few hours, shopping and seeing the town a little bit. We took a million pictures (of course) but one of my favorites was of us in the Banyan Tree. This tree was planted in the late 1800's and literally takes up about a city block. It really is quite a sight, and a nice place to take pictures. (Although the tree is so big and shaded that it is difficult to get the lighting right with a point and shoot camera). Then we rented snorkels, had lunch at our condo, and drove around the island a bit for some snorkeling.

Ben is driving our 'bad pony'

Our first stop was Honolu'a bay on the very westernmost tip of the island.


The bay was extremely crowded with snorkelers, so I felt that my chance at becoming a shark's lunch was significantly decreased. I always like to have other shark bait in the water with me. I really didn't think the snorkeling would be all that good here, but as it turns out it really was pretty impressive. I don't know the names of everything we saw, of course, but I do know that we saw lots and lots of different colors and really, some pretty large fish. (Isn't that how you rate your snorkeling? Based on how many colors of the rainbow you see and the size of fish?) This is also the place where we took one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip.

We literally spent about 30 minutes working on this photograph!

After Honolu'a bay, we headed to Nipili (Ben, is that right?) beach for another round of swimming and snorkeling. However, when we parked the car, saw nobody on the beach, nobody in the water, and this sign we decided it might be wise not to stay there.

We drove around the Western part of Maui for a little while longer, stopping at various beaches and then went back to our hotel to watch the sunset.

After sunset, we got dressed and headed into Lahaina for dinner at this great place called Cheeseburger in Paradise. I know it sounds like we went to some cheesy Jimmy Buffet (uugggh) place, but a) this one is the original CiP and b) I've been here on both of my previous trips to Maui and they really do make a fine hamburger.

Okay, I guess I lied in my first paragraph because I said this would be the last installment but I feel like I'm getting a little wordy so I'm just going to finish later.