A whale of a time

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[youtube=cxSPX1QP4G4]

It's been quite a laid back experience here at Napili Bay. Much laying around on the beach.
In between times we did manage to do a few things. Went out whale-watching, took a snorkeling trip and went to see Ozomatli at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

The whale watch was excellent, at this time of year it would be quite hard for it not to be, the waters are absolutely heaving with Humpbacks that have come here to attend to all the necessities of life........... except eat.
The females come here to give birth to their calves and the males come, well, because the females are here. While the females are busy nursing their calves and trying to give them a decent start in life, competitive pods of males swarm around trying to convince a likely female to choose one or other of them to mate with and start the whole cycle over again. Their behaviour while doing this is what brings hordes of people out to watch them. It must be said that there are so many of them out there it starts to feel more like the whales have come here to do some 'people-watching'.

To be honest the snorkeling trip was a bit of a disappointment. Firstly, a couple of days previously we went for a dip in the bay round the corner from where we are staying and had a great time with a bunch of turtles. Secondly, it had been raining pretty heavily for the couple of days before the trip and the run-off from the land left the water fairly murky. Never mind there was a buffet lunch and plenty of Mai Tais included in the ticket price.

Ozomatli were great, I was curious as to how they would work in a concert setting, I've seen them before at outdoor festivals and wasn't sure if it would work so well indoors. It did. True to form when curfew time came they just walked offstage with a bunch of percussion bits'n'pieces and the brass instruments, made their way through the crowd, out through the doors and continued playing outside.

Yesterday, for no obvious reason, I neglected to plug myself into the iPod while laying on the beach. Amazing!! I learned more about the lives of complete strangers than I really cared to know. I'm slowly getting used to the ceaseless running commentary that many Americans seem to be compelled to provide on their lives. And these particular ones were CANADIANS !!!!!!
😊

The whales here are amazing, am totally blown away by them. We can see them from our balcony - which is so close to the beach - spouting and breaching (the whales not me). Then to see them off the boat was incredible, we had two breached right next to the boat they did every trick in the book! - Plus we could hear their songs. We also saw two calves, the snorkel/dolphin trip was good in as much we saw more whales and one dolphin. It was over 5hrs on a boat! Lucky they served the Mai Tai's on the way back, mmmm managed 4 in around an hour! tsk got back to the beach, went body boarding, fell asleep and woke up talking complete rubbish! yeah yeah - I know - I can do that without the Mai Tai's, was fun but felt very boaty afterwards. We've seen masses of turtles too, so close to the beach.

Ozomatli were fab managed to meet up with our friend Shawn, after missing each other all week, so that was a bonus. Will have to come back to Maui, it's been so chilled, gonna miss the whales and the turtles - plus the sound of the sea - so much, when I finish this sentence I am going out to gaze at the stars whilst the sea crashes on the beach.

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Photos

Sunset
A line of front row seats spring up on the beach while two girls phone their Mums up to tell them to look at the webcam that they're on.

Comments

[Dani]

Whaler
Nice Whale video. I just hope that with the way we are treating Mother Earth that future generations will be able to Whale watch. It is a privilege to witness. Maui will always be a special place to me and now you all.

[Kenninghall Travel]

Mai tai or not Mai Tai...that is the question.
So good to read your latest episode - began to think you'd forgotten about the blog. Just what we needed here in Kenninghall as the snow gently falls, cascading on the north wind and giving a nice 25cms thick blanket of pure white covering everything. So bad that we had to open a tin of lychees and make little pink cocktails with cream! Mai Tai eat your heart out - we've got voddie/lychee/genadine/ fresh cream cocktails a la Lanna! Still wish we were there though!