Is it the 11th Commandment that the vacations must go by so fast? Seriously, it barely felt like we were there a week and then it was over. Needless to say, we have a great time and were able to do most of what we were hoping to do. In short we dove six dive sites including two sites at Lanai: No-Name Paradise and the Second Cathedral.
Day1: Our trip started with arriving at in Maui around 1:00p on Friday afternoon. After getting our bags and rental car we headed south to Wailea to the Marriott Resort & Spa where we were treated a great suite with two balconies over looking the ocean. During the afternoon we headed just south of Wailea to the Lava Shores at Ahihi Bay. The setting was great for pictures, but the lighting due to the large cloud lingering above us made capturing the shot against the bright ocean damn near impossible. After enuring the rough roads out to the park, we headed back to teh resort to tour the beach and lounge at the salt-water pool. Later that evening we headed up into the shops at Wailea at ate at the Cheeseburger in Paradise, which was surprisingly good considering how touristy it appeared.
Day 2: Taking an opportunity to sleep in a bit, which means we awoke around 6:00a because that it is 9:00a PST, we headed over to the Longhi’s Restaurant in the same shops from the night before. All I have to say was the french toast good, the potatoes good, the juice good! We didn’t have to check-out until 11:00a, and when you wake up at 6:00a that leaves you plenty of time for snorkeling. Natalie and I heading down to the point and got in a good 90 minutes of swimming before having to head back. We checked out of the hotel and headed back to OGG to pick up Dan, Sarah, and Katie as they were set to arrive soon.
Day 3: Spend most of the day chilling at the resort or diving.
Day 4:
Starting the morning by grabbing some more tanks and heading to Mala Ramp for one of the most amazing dives we have ever gone on. We were treated to sharks, turtles, noodle people, and more fish than I could possibly keep track of. Later that day we toured the town, and ate once again at Cheeseburger. That night we ended up playing one of the most die-head games of Gloom ever! Might have gone better if it was not for all the Mai Tais, thanks Dan!
Day 5: Decided to head back to Wailea for the day to do some shopping and of course more diving. Some of the wet weather was coming down from the North Shore, so it was nice to escape a bit to the better weather of the South (well as south as you can get on a small island). We wrapped up the day with a 2 1/2 hour whale watching trip that was incredible. We witnessed a group of males competing for a single female, who herself was with a young calf. Seemed like the female was generally uninterested in the males, but they were quite content to beat themselves up over her.
Day 6: Oh yeah, boat dive day!!!! This year we took a boat dive to Lanai, despite all the warnings about it being a very rough ride. It was a bit rough, but really nothing to be concerned over. We started the dive at Nowhere site which was a massive reef formation just 40 feet down. It featured a few little crevasses and an abundance of life. Our second dive was at the 2nd Cathedral which is a huge rock formation, allowed for some extensive cavern diving. The caverns were home to many fishes, and reef formations.
Day 7: The road to Haha. . .was very wet. The bad weather finally stopped teasing us and went for all its glory. The trip was quite wet, ask Dan. But nonetheless we toured a few falls, and made it to Hana only to discover that there really were no good restaurants there. Since some people we dying of hunger, we had to head but on the mostly-single-lane road to town. This was too bad, Hana was quite beautiful despite the weather, I did wish we could have spent more time there.
Day 8: Time to head home. If we weren’t depressed enough about that, we decided to head to our favorite kabob place only to find out that they were closing up shop due to the economy. Hell of a way to end!
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http://www.andyandnataliepics.com/v/andyphoto/maui2009/
