Maui

Yes it's a week of multiple posts! You lucky folks ;-)

On Saturday night Brent and I returned home from our last plane trip before we start travelling as a family of 3 (even though we know things will be irreversibly different after her arrival, we both refuse to refer to this as our last "hurrah"!).

Strangely, I didn't feel a huge urge to go to Hawaii before this trip, mostly because so many other destinations are already at the top of my (never ending) "as soon as time and money allows, I have to go there!" list. Well I stand corrected -Maui was fabulous! Much more than an over-touristed collection of luxury hotels and golf courses out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Maui was not only scenically beautiful, but had surprisingly (to me at least) varied terrain, and despite our trip coinciding with the height of tourist season, it was fairly laid-back!

A play-by-play of our 9 days would take a little too long, so here are some highlights, with photos to do most of the talking:

Beaches (of course)...

It's what most people go for I guess - the beaches. And I have to say, they are pretty nice. Not as crowded as I'd feared and often aquamarine with coral ridges encircling most of the island.

The snorkeling was good at most of the more sheltered beaches we found, and on the rest, the surfing (had I been in a condition to try it) looked like it would have been great (though a bit intimidating to try amidst all the pro-looking surfers).

Rainforests...

For some reason I didn't expect Maui to have rainforests (thinking any former foliage had long been cleared for condos, resorts and pineapples). Go figure. We rented a condo in the small beach town of Napili, at the foot of the tropical foothills of Maui's jagged north-western mountains. That range contained the Iao Valley state park, where the few meters of paved boardwalk failed to satiate us, leading all 6 of us to climb railings, ignore signposts and venture off on a (very well-worn but nevertheless forbidden) trail amidst the luscious, cloud-covered peaks.

Our other major excursion into tropical rainforest was on the must-see (but highly discouraged by car rental companies) 6hr+ out-and-back trip to Hana. The

road is the destination, with 45 miles of winding switchbacks along one of Maui's most rugged and exposed coastlines. If you keep your wits about you and stay ON the treacherous road, waterfalls, black sand beaches, monster waves and world- (or at least Maui-) famous banana bread await you!

However, there was one notable exception to the sopping greenery covering most of the island: Haleakala "Crater."

Venturing to the top of the volcano in the south east of the island was well worth the over 1hr switchback climb up to the 10,028 ft peak.

The 19 sq. mile "crater" (actually caused by erosion, rather than eruption, but filled with many smaller craters) looks more like a moonscape than the "volcano" archetype of active bubbling magma found on the Big Island. I was careful to not gallivant around too much at altitude, but the freezing wind left none of us really wanting to do the 3-8hr hikes at the peak.

Whales whales and more whales...

(look carefully, the photo below is a breech not a tail...)

I expected the sun, sand and surf, but what I didn't realize was that we were arriving smack-dab in the middle of whale season! And while I've been lucky enough to grow up around whales all my life, I have never seen such overcrowded abundance as the humpbacks mating and calving off Maui. As we watched the sun set on the beach our first night in Napili we couldn't believe our luck when we glimpsed a whale breeching a ways offshore. The next morning we were on our way to another part of the island and along the coast road we started seeing more splashes and spray fairly near to shore. Like typical tourists, we quickly pulled off at the nearest viewpoint. Well after about 10 min we'd lost track of all the spouts, tail and fin slaps and the odd breach (of jousting males) going on in every direction!

The real highlight came when we ventured out on a 47' catamaran to Molokini crater for Diane's birthday. The 5hr snorkeling trip included a 2-3.5 hr sail out and back from the crater, which ended up doubling as a whale watching trip. There were so many humpbacks that our two-man crew was grumbling that they were having to navigate a whale slalom course just to get back to the harbor!

You can see from the photos how close the whales were to our snorkeling site (the island in the background with the boats in front), so a part of me did consider venturing beyond the crater to see if I could catch a glimpse of them underwater (what do they tell you about not approaching mothers with young???). Luckily perhaps, it was soon obvious that that was a bit too far to go, but we got another thrill when, at the edge of the crater a diving expedition to see some triggerfish I suddenly had deja-vu from a grade 4 science movie... The water was filled with a cacophony of whale cries! Turns out sound travels better just a few feet underwater, so the more we dove, the more gentle mother-baby screeches we got to hear. Soooo neat!

Of course there's lots more I could write about, but for now I'll leave you with the photos instead. Maybe if I get really creative (and find a lot of free time) I may even try to make one of these "vacation videos" that my talented friend Cat seems to come up with!

In the meantime, it's back to work!

Love, Jen, Brent and our wriggling watermelon