Blogs from Maui, Hawaii, United States, North America

I've been incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to spend so much time with the whales. In the midst of the research with the competitive groups, you're so engrossed in identifying, photographing, and data recording that you're oblivious to the awe of the scene until you hear the oohing and awing from the whale watching boats that have to keep back 100yards. After we had a the bulk of the season under our belts and the intensity of the groups started to slow, us interns started getting opportunities to photograph the whales underwater. One my first time, we were instructed to step quietly into the water and swim out about 20 yards to intercept a competitive group of 9 whales. You could make out the faint white shapes of pectoral fins approaching in the distance. We ... read more

After a long 20 hours of travelling we arrived at our Hotel in Maui the Plantation Inn. We Sunday afternoon and arrived Sunday afternoon due to crossing the dateline. After checking out our lovely rooms in the we walked the short distance to the front street of Lahaina which dates back to the 1820s. The street runs along the waterfront and is filled with lovely historic buildings housing restaurants and shops. We found a restaurant overlooking the water to have our dinner and enjoyed watching the sunset over Lanai. After dinner we bought some ice creams and sat in the Banyan Tree Square which features an exceptionally large banyan tree, planted on April 24, 1873 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Christian missionaies. Lahaina was once an important destination for the 19th century ... read more

Maui Wowie! I surprised Dawn with a trip to Maui for her 50th birthday. We had talked about going for a long time and so this was a great opportunity.We flew American out of Houston and had to change planes in Dallas and Los Angeles so it was an exhausting trip to get there. We arrived at 8:00pm at night so it was dark and there was a light drizzle. But, we were pleasantly surprised the next morning by the gorgeous weather since weather.com had predicted 30% chance of rain every day. I learned you really have to check the weather on the specific part of the island that you’re staying on because the weather can vary so much from one part of the island to another. I had booked the Mana Kai Maui and a ... read more

Hawaii is an amazing place that continues to surprise me. After just returning from my fourth trip I am already looking forward to my next visit. This was the second trip to Maui for me. I didn’t get many good pictures to share on the first trip so I tried to make up for it this time. We only had about four days this trip but we made the most of it covering nearly the whole island. Flying into Maui is a treat (just like any of the Hawaiian Islands) so make your journey with good light if you get the opportunity. My first trip I moved around the island staying in various locations. This time we stayed put in Kahalui after getting an affordable package deal for our air tickets, hotel, and car. Being in ... read more

Oct 1-4 We arrived in Maui pretty early, arount 9:30 am since the flight was only 1/2 hour from Oahu. About a 1/2 drive to get to our hotel in Wailea on the South side of the island. We were staying at the Fairmont at Wailea, a Moroccan looking hotel with an Arabian Nights motif. The rooms were all suites so they were quite spacious. The hotel was awesome and had we not had a ton of activities planned it would have been great to just chill at the pools and beach. But no relaxing here, we needed to be up at 2 am to get up to the top of Haleakala Volcano watch the sunrise a 10,000 feet. Needless to say we did get up at 2am but our van was an hour late picking ... read more