Maui – Day 6 – Kaanapali

Kaanapali is where we are staying; we did not stray far from the Marriott today.

We did go and attempt some beach snorkeling up the road at Airport Beach this morning.  Had mixed success; Christopher never really tried, Matthew had some issues but seemed to be happy just tooling around with his goggles on.  Kevin, as always, had a great time, and both Suzanne and I made it out to the reef and saw a bunch of fish. 

This afternoon was pool time; took some video of the boys in the pool that basically sums up what goes on for hours at a time….will probably get that uploaded tomorrow.  Suzanne and I had a quiet dinner at the restaurant here while the boys swam, and the boys had pizza later.  Suzanne and I also got some alone time in the evening shopping up at Whaler’s Village while the boys watched some tv; we’re both happy that they are old enough to allow this now.

Videos:

We had some battery/storage issues with the main camcorder late yesterday when we encountered the whales, but, Suzanne got some footage on her camera. 

Am slowly trying to edit and upload some of the footage from the last week; the trip to Iao Valley is done and Suzanne taped us at the Wailea beach (after I wiped out) and I taped the beautiful sunset.

Two leftover photos

Somehow forgot to post these, so, here they are

Matthew, at the corral, before we leave.

Christopher, on Dino, out on the ranch.

Maui – Day 5 - Lanai

Today was the 8 hour long snorkeling-sightseeing cruise.  Left Lahaina Harbor at 7 am; got back at 3 pm.  Circumnavigated the island of Lanai; stopped twice to snorkel.

• Kevin, far and away, had the best time on the cruise……always was standing near the bow of the boat and just had a total blast snorkelling.
• The weather, while still nice, was more cloudy than other days….this was a downer during the snorkel stops as there wasn’t as much light.  But, the views were still awesome.
• Both boys did way better at the second snorkel stop than at the first; Matthew went everywhere with Kevin and Christopher floated around with Mom and Dad making little whale-like noises.
• Both boys fell asleep on the way back.
• On the way back from Lanai to Lahaina we ‘ran’ into a group of humpback whales; a mom and a new calf (was still grey) and two males who were apparently fighting over the mother’s affections; they were very aggressive and it made for some good video, which, I’ll post later.   But they were very close.

Pictures below…just too many for detailed descriptions this time.  First twenty or so are from the cruise, after that are the ones from underwater.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Maui – Day 4 – Piiholo Ranch

The busy days continue…..Day 6 is supposed to be a ‘down’ day…we’ll see.  Today, we were up early, again, to head over for our activities.  Suzanne, and Kevin, went zip-lining.  They had a blast, but, since I wasn’t there, there won’t be much coverage here.

Fric and Frac weren’t old enough for zip lining, so, we had to do something else.  The zip-line was at Piiholo Ranch…..which also had horseback riding.

 

While both boys had fun, Christopher definitely had the most fun, and is already talking about doing this again (summer camp!).  The boys ended up with horses much like themselves, mostly nice to each other but every once in a while can act out towards the other…Christopher’s horse, Dino, reached out to bite Matthew’s horse, Diaz, once or twice.  You can see the wrangler next to Matthew above; she spend a lot of time making sure the boys were ok and doing well, and I certainly appreciated that.

Christopher, with Dino. 

Matthew, with Diaz.

My horse, Blackjack.  Did exactly what I expected him to do; he’s done that tour about a thousand times and just placidly walked along and did what he needed to do.

 

Came back to the hotel in the afternoon and headed out to the beach…..walked a little to the west of the hotel where the beach isn’t so rocky so close to the shore.  Surf is still pretty rough and the current is strong; a lot of pull out with the receding surf until the next wave hit and pushed you back in.

didn’t want me to take his picture

 

I had a blast with Kevin this afternoon getting tossed around by the waves and digging into the sand with our arms trying to stay on the beach as the surf would pull us back (you couldn’t stay there, no matter how hard you tried…).  Christopher and Kevin would get tripped by me, and would trip me, and loads of laughs and giggling would ensue.

 

King of the Boogie Board.  We were at the beach for two hours and I don’t think I interacted with Matthew very much at all; he was always nearby, on the board, while I was falling and playing in the surf with Christopher and Kevin.

Coming Attractions:  Need to try and get some more video edited and uploaded; have some really good panoramas as well as hike and horse video…..but tomorrow is our day-long snorkel cruise, so, our fingers are crossed that the cruise will be a success!

Maui – Day 3 – The Road to Hana

No blogging yesterday, was just dead-ass tired when we got back.

Sunday was devoted to driving to, and past, Hana….we essentially circumnavigated Maui, or, at least, the eastern most lobe of the island.  The road is a series on one-lane bridges, switch backs, and ups and downs.  Thankfully, none of the boys had, or have ever had, car sickness issues, but, we did pass one woman bringing up her lunch!

I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful the Road to Hana was; and the amazing things we saw.  Most of the pictures that are coming aren’t of the car ride.

In the morning, at a scenic overlook.

We peeled off the Hana highway, which doesn’t hug the coast but is actually up quite a distance from it (but, at times, is a one lane road RIGHT NEXT TO THE ROCKS that lead, straight down, to the coast.  The Kipakaone park was at the bottom of one road that led away from the highway; we stopped there.  Christopher found a prickly pear, and, as we were driving off, I spied on the side of the road something that the boys had been looking for all trip; a coconut.  Stopped the car, got out, grabbed the ‘nut, opened the back door, and the smile on Christopher’s face when presented with the ‘nut was better than any picture you’ve seen here!

 

Just short of Hana we stopped at the Wai’Anapanapa State Park to see the black sand beach.  I, bizarrely, have no pictures of the black sand, but, presume that Suzanne does.  I do have these pictures, including one of Suzanne taking a picture of Christopher (on the black sand) and Matthew up against the wall of a lava tube / cave near the beach

 

In Hana, we went down to this beach, on Kaihalulu Bay.  Again, Dad’s pictures do the beach an injustice, but this beach is known for its red sand.  Really, it’s black sand, mixed with some red sand, but, it is/was really cool.  Quite a hike/walk down to the beach, but, well worth it.  Kevin is standing on the lava pools; we were all out there checking out the fish swimming around in them.

   

Once we were past Hana we stopped at Haleakala National Park; the primo attraction here are the 7 sacred pools, and, both Suzanne and I were both extremely underwhelmed…when there is so much natural beauty around, the crowd of humanity around the pools sunbathing and swimming in them was a turn-off.  The family hiked the 1/2 mile up the Pipiwai trail to the Falls at Makahiku.

It hasn’t been rainy here, which has been a good thing for us, all sun for our activities, but, bad for the falls, which weren’t there.  But the view from the overlook was fantastic.

We continued up the trail towards the Waimoku Falls, another 1 1/4 miles distant.  This massive banyon tree is on the route….Kevin is leading the way and Fric and Frac are doing a great job of making their way upward (pretty steep at times)

About a mile in you walk through a bamboo forest; literally, at 3 pm, it’s almost dark as you walk on the path.  Had a hard time getting a good photo here with the flash going off.

 

And, these are the falls….not a lot of water, but, really really tall!

Kevin posed…Fric and Frac not interested in the group photo at this point.

Continued our way around the island to the east; lots of debate on the ‘net on whether you should go around past Hana (parts are unpaved and narrow and you are technically outside of your rental car contract if you go there).  We think it’s much ado about nothing….going around is the way to go.  You can see in this photo the stark change from rain forest and vegetation as we turned the corner to this…..

Another lava arch…..as the day grows long.  Got back to the hotel well after dark….a really long day, but, worth it.  Boys were troopers for the 12 hour ride and hike….they’ve, mostly, done quite a good job this trip behavior wise.

Maui – Day 2 – Iao / Wailea

Slow start to the day; had to see if we could find a charger for the camcorder since Dad stupidly left the one in the plug at home (did have success here, thank goodness).  Proceeded to go back over to Kahului for lunch at Da Kitchen; boys had teriyaki chicken and rice, Kevin had penne pasta w/ chicken, Suzanne had teriyaki beef, and I had a combo (the “braddah” plate) with the chicken, a pulled pork, and spam!  Gotta love spam!

Iao Valley State Park:  After lunch, we went up to Iao Valley State Park for a small hike.

The attraction of the Park is the Iao Needle, the rock formation shown here.

The hike takes you along the Iao stream as well; we’re staying on the southwest side of the island…when we look back to the north at the mountains it’s nothing but prairie grass and a few scrub trees as far as we can see.  On this side of the island (the north) it’s trees everywhere.  Quite a striking difference.

Hikes are a big hit with the boys; Fric and Frac frequently testing the limits of how far in front or off the beaten path they can go.  Boys will be boys….

Sometimes the boys can be pretty cute.

 

Like this one.

 

Real real serious!

  

Kevin has taken a lot of photos this trip; once he gets them organized we’ll have to feature a few of them.

Wailea:  After the hike, we went back to the hotel to get the snorkeling gear and see if we could do some of that at a beach on the southern side of Maui (where the waves were supposed to be less).  Learned a good lesson here; if people are surfing at your beach, you won’t be snorkeling, the waves will kick up too much sand for you to see anything.

Spend about 2 hours at the Ulua beach near Wailea.  The waves were the roughest I think we’ve ever been in; I was body surfing and got completely hammered at one point.  The wave flipped me over as I was coming in to shore and slammed me into the ground (actually heard a ‘crunch’ noise as my shoulder and face hit); the side of my face has a good scrape and I’m going to be plenty sore in my left shoulder and ribs tomorrow.  I’m very lucky it wasn’t worse; if I had hit somewhere with a rock outcropping instead of sand…still ended up staggering out of the water holding my shoulder and hoping I hadn’t broken anything.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the time dealing with the waves and getting crushed by them.  Suzanne had the water-camera out for a bit (before the battery died) and got a few photos of note:

 

Christopher and Matthew having fun in the waves; you can see the sand churning up turning the water brown and making snorkeling a waste of time.

When we were in full on wave-crashing mode later on in the day (after this picture) Matthew, after each wave would hit and fail to knock him over, would turn to the ocean and yell “I’m still up!” as loud as he could.

Not a lot of shells here…some coral though.

And this picture is awesome….Suzanne was really lucky to catch Kevin’s boogie boarding this well!

I took these two pictures of the sunset at the beach with the camcorder….Suzanne has a few like it on her camera as well.