Seems Like Summer in Lahaina

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We awoke this morning with some trepidation; because, we’d been “invited” to a “free breakfast” for guest on their first morning at the Royal Kahuna. We know what it means to be invited to a “free breakfast” at a Wyndham resort, something we do our best to avoid, if we can. They referred to this as a “free breakfast and orientation” which could mean anything. Before going down to the lobby, we spent some time on the balcony. As on cruises, in fact as we do each day, Sharon and I enjoy our Daily Sudoku Challenge. On cruise ships, they used to be pretty good about putting out two daily puzzles, and Easy and a Hard one. We use the Enjoy Sudoku app to do the daily challenge. The app is free; although, there is a paid version as well which allows you to play as many games as you like each day at any level. The free version offers one game per day at each of over one dozen different levels. We do the “Intricate” puzzle and the “Difficult” puzzle, both near the middle of the spectrum; but, both are a bit more complicated than most daily newspaper puzzles. We add a twist, only the intricate puzzle counts on weekday; while, the difficult counts on the week end. Since today is a weekend, the difficult puzzle is going to count. Sharon’s been winning most of the daily challenges on this trip, no doubt because I left my stylus back in Las Vegas. And then today, as I’m doing the puzzle, Sharon shouts out, there’s a whale, out there, look. I take time to look, and of course, there is no whale. After the third time of this I say, “You know, if you’re going to do your whale watching from the balcony, then we don’t need to drive into Lahaina today to take a three-hour whale watching tour!” There is just something wrong about talking “a three-hour tour” on a boat in Hawaii. I’m just saying.

We showed up on time for the free breakfast, and there was just one other person attending. There was a full platter of pastries, some POG juice, which I’m learning to love and some fruit as well. The concierge who is hosting the breakfast said, well you folks should have a really good chance at winning one of the door prizes. We were happy that it wasn’t one of those Wyndham breakfast (now that we’ve done one in Honolulu we shouldn’t have to do one when we get to Kauai). Instead, the concierge listed all of the Maui activities available to vacationers, from helicopter/airplane tours, diving with the dolphins, whale watching as we’ll be doing later in the day, going on an undersea tour in a submarine off a sunken ship reef that is teaming with sea life. There are land touring trips up and those that go over to Hana. We were one of the door prize winners and chose the “buy-one-get-one-free” show to which we’re planning to add the Ruth’s Chris fixed dinner option. The show we chose was Elvis, whom, the concierge said is alive and living in Maui.

We drove into Lahaina and found the longer term parking lot ($10 for up to 8 hours). It was across the street from the Catholic Church, and Vigil Mass after the Whale Watching seemed like a good idea at the time. We found the store front for the Pacific Whale Foundation and exchanged our online vouchers for ship boarding passes. We had an hour or so to kill, and Sharon made a beeline to the nearest Shave Ice vender. The 85 degree heat was quite oppressive with the humidity, and the Shave Ice offered some welcome relief. Afterwards we spent some time resting in the shade of a giant banyan tree.

Our three-hour whale watching tour began on time (and fortunately for us, ended on time as well). Chips and dip were available as appetizers; and, midway they began serving Kailua pulled pork and grilled chicken sliders with BBQ sauce; but, first there was the matter of finding some whales. It took some time but we did finally find a number of different groups of humpbacks, mostly one mother, one calf and one “escort”. The escort is a male humpback who is hanging around, hoping to get lucky, but also serving to ward off any other potential suiters. Most of the time the mother with a calf won’t be interested in a suiter, only about 10% of humpback females will give birth to a calf in two consecutive years. Usually, they will mate every three years. But the escort is on hand to conserve her energy. She doesn’t feed while in Hawaii, yet must nurse her calf until it is strong enough to make the trek to Alaska (at about 5 MPH). The calf will gain about 100 pounds per day. The mother can’t stay too long, or she won’t be able to make the trip.

Finally we found a quite active calf, who was playfully breaching, and once did a near perfect complete 360-degree pirouette while breaching. Sharon also got video of one adult whale back-slapping its tale. We’d never seen this behavior in Alaska. We also spotted a couple of adult whales make a breach and create a huge splash. Eventually it was time to return to the dock. We’d gotten so much sun, and were hot and sweaty from the muggy conditions, that neither of us felt like going to church; nor, having dinner either. We decided to head back to our room and relax for our planned ascent of Haleakala tomorrow at sunrise.

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