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Published: January 8th 2023
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Aloha everyone,
Well, a couple of days to catch up on from 2 rather weary travelers. Just too tired last night by the time we got back to the hotel from our wedding anniversary ‘Sunset Dinner Cruise’ at Ma’alaea to get onto the computer so here goes….
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary over here, being a day behind (I think that’s the way it works) and we celebrated by the 2 waterborne activities that I mentioned on the previous blog.
We headed out to Ma’alaea Harbour, about 25 minutes drive away from the Maui Banyan around 10am giving us plenty of time before our 1100am check-in for the whale watching cruise with the Pacific Whale Foundation. Joy wanted to buy tickets for the Maui Aquarium and Ocean Centre for Saturday that is beside where we had to report so after doing that we reported in for the whale watching and after having a much needed cold drink we headed with our tour guide down to the nearby wharf to board the ‘Guardian Challenger’ with around 50 others. Even while we were getting seated on the boat in the harbour we could see whale activity out in the bay
so it was looking good for the cruise.
The weather (don’t read any further if you are being inundated with rain in Hawkes Bay) was beautifully fine and around 27C and no wind and we could see that the sea was nice and calm that pleased Joy no end.
We headed out into the bay from the harbour and immediately could see whales spouting etc. and the boat headed towards where there appeared to be some good activity. These are humpback whales that migrate to Hawaii from Alaska at this time of the year to breed, unlike the humpbacks we see in Rarotonga that migrate up from Antarctica to breed there.
Boy oh boy did we see some whale activity. They appeared to be everywhere, generally in pods of 3….mother and calf along with their male escort, a sort of security guard. We saw full breaching whales, many coming out and doing tail slaps and fin slaps and usually within 100 - 200 metres of the boat, which isn’t really that far away on the sea. Under the federal law here boats must stop 100metres from whales but once they have stopped and if the whales swim
towards the boats, they have to stay still in the water until the whales have moved on.
It was just a magic 2 hours with a bonus of a large pod of Spinner Dolphins that turned up for quite some time and really performed for us….I’ll post a photo of one along with several whale photos.
After getting back to the harbour we had lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading back to the hotel to get changed for our ‘Dinner Cruise’.
We had to report to the ‘Caypso’ at Pier 82 at 4.30pm for a 5pm sailing so we left with 35 minutes to spare, a trip that had been taking us 20-25 minutes. Ooooops, didn’t take into account that it was Friday afternoon and peak hour traffic…..the first 10 kms or so was like being on the Auckland motorway at peak hour traffic…crawling along at 10-15kms/hr going almost nowhere. Needless to say we were quite late for the 4.30pm checkin, especially after having to park and pay for that as well.
Our anniversary dinner was just fantastic on several levels. The weather was beautiful, very little wind, calm sea, great 3 course meal and
more whale activity almost than we had seen in the whale watching trip earlier in the day. The meal was 3 courses and we were sitting at an outside table to 2 on an upper deck with full views of the bay etc. We hadn’t motored very far from the harbour when we started seeing whales everywhere. At one stage we had 2 fully grown humpbacks fully breach together right in front of us…it was almost like they had been trained to perform for the boat. Of course, it was called a sunset cruise and we watched the most magical sunset from the deck of the big boat at around 6pm and within 15 minutes or so we watched a full moon rise behind us over Haleakala, the 10,000 foot volcano peak that dominates Maui.
Just wonderful moments on a very special day for us that we will remember for ever (how ever long that may be!!!)
Today is Saturday here and we headed out about 9.30am, back to Ma’alaea to the Maui Aquarium and Ocean Centre. When we were on Maui for our 25
th wedding anniversary in 1998 the Aquarium was still being built and Joy really
wanted to see it this time. It was a good 2 and a half hours spent there…watched the most amazing 3D movie in a domed theatre of humpback whales swimming etc. Saw all the usual things you’d expect at an aquarium on a tropical type island….turtles up close, lots of coral reef fish all presented in an educational and informative way that was really interesting.
We finished there about 1245pm and it had Joy’s intention for us, in the afternoon, to drive up to the top of Haleakala to watch the sunset, a drive of about 2 hours from where we were but it was too early at 1245pm so she decided we’d head off to Hana, on the eastern side of the island.
The Hana Highway drive is an iconic thing on Maui and we didn’t really intend to do the whole thing. BUT the whole thing we did…..the first half to Hana starts off OK but the road then becomes a diabolically narrow and winding road that is barely one way at times…talk about having to concentrate hard on the driving especially with (and I here apologise to our American friends that will be reading this)
the diabolical driving behaviour one has to put up with here. I think they must have very cheap, no excess vehicle insurance here because it’s like dodgem driving a lot of time….don’t think they do much driving on narrow winding roads and they love to drive quite fast in conditions that just don’t warrant it…blind bends galore don’t seem to worry anyone, just plough on through…one lane bridges with what they call ‘yield’ (giveway) signs don’t mean squat. Anyway we got to Hana and then decided to carry on with the whole Hana Highway….bit of an error really.
The road degenerated into nothing more that a terrible goat track, even narrower and more windy than any of the other similar roads we’d driven and the driving behaviour didn’t improve. However great, great scenery from tropical type forests, cattle farmlands, rugged coastlines etc. etc. Rough doesn’t adequately describe about 30 kilometres of the road….it was, honestly, the roughest road I have ever driven on in NZ or here. Can’t believe the car is still in one piece.
Never got back to the hotel until just after 7pm so a very long day of very heavy concentration…I’ll sleep well tonight.
Wandered down for Pizza at Penny’s Pizzeria for dinner and we are now back at our hotel for the evening.
So another 2 very eventful days, especially Friday 6
th January…special, special way to celebrate our 50
th.
Lots of love to all the family back home.
Thanks everyone for reading my ramblings.
One more day on Maui before packing up on Monday and relocating to Honolulu on Oahu for the final week.
Mahalo for this edition. Catch you all soon.
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