Island Hopping

This afternoon we are leaving Maui for the Big Island. We take a flight for about 45 minutes and jump right over the ocean. You can see the Big Island off in the distance from the north coast of Maui.

We've had a busy couple of days. On Saturday, we wondered around Whaler's Village and ate breakfast. Whaler's Village is a shopping center right off of Ka'anapali Beach. They have a real sperm whale's skeleton on display. Then we went on the Terilani 3, snorkeling and whale watching. We were both a little nervous to snorkel at first. Michael has never snorkeled before and I haven't for quite awhile. It's hard to get used to the breathing apparatus. Once we got used to it, we had a lot of fun cruising around out there together. We didn't see much, a lot of colorful coral and some fish. I really wanted to see a turtle, but we didn't. We did hear whales talking to each other while we were snorkeling though, so that was neat. We got back on the boat and had a great lunch with some mai tais and then went whale watching. This was the best part of the day and for me, probably the best part of our stay on Maui. We saw a lot of whales, most of them in the distance. They come up and kind of slide through the water, sometime blow water up out of their hole, and sometimes flip their tail up so you can see it. Almost at the end of our trip, we were about 20 feet away from a mom and baby whale playing together. They splish splashed around for a long time and we got a good sense of how large they really are. It was so neat to see them up close! As up close as you can get to them, anyway. (It's illegal to try and swim towards them or disturb them.) It was also cool to see a baby. Michael and I were really amazed! At one point, the whales were so close to our boat, that you could stick your head down in the hull and hear them talk really clearly. It was a great way to spend the afternoon! Despite applying sunscreen 3 different times during the boat trip, I still got sunburned. That night we watched the sun set from the Hard Rock Cafe on Front Street and then ate at a Mexican restaurant called Santa Fe Cantina.

Yesterday was the Road to Hana! The Road to Hana is a 68-mile stretch of highway on the north coast of Hawaii. It's pretty narrow and has a lot of one-lane bridges (nothing like the Road to Death though). Getting to Hana is not actually the point of the drive - it's all the stops along the way. We left the hotel about 6:30am and ate breakfast in Pa'ia, the base point of the drive. We also grabbed some sack lunches to have along the way, as there aren't very many towns or restaurants on the Road to Hana. We bought a CD with narration to guide us through the Road to Hana and let us know where and when we should stop. We stopped along the way to see different waterfalls, the most spectacular being Wailua Falls. If you go a couple miles past Hana, you can visit the Seven Sacred Pools. Legend has it that if you swim in all 7 pools from the bottom up, you will get into heaven. Michael swam in 2 of them, and I thought it was too windy and chilly to get in. We also got see a couple of caves in the Waianapanapa State Park, along with a black sand beach. Waianapanapa State Park is made up of a lot of black lava rock. It makes up a lot of the coast on the north side of the island. There are 2 volcanoes on Maui. They are both dormant right now but can at any time start erupting again. The ocean on the north side of the island is pretty rough and dangerous, so they advise people not to get in. On the way back, we stopped at an arboretum where all the plant species that grow in Hawaii were planted on a 6 acre lot of land. We saw the "painted eucalyptus" tree - its bark looks like it has paint just randomly thrown on it. There are lots of bamboo forests on the Road to Hana, and you can smell the eucalyptus trees as you drive. We did get some great pictures of our trip. Even though the road isn't very long, it's very slow-going and so we had a long day in the car. We didn't make it back to our hotel until about 6:30pm! It was great seeing another part of the island. We think we covered a lot of the island in the 4 days we were here.

We are planning on doing more snorkeling on the Big Island, as well as taking a helicopter tour of the volcanoes. The volcanoes on the Big Island are pretty active and most of the time, you can see them in action. Maui was really great, but now we're looking forward to exploring another island!