Day 4 - Maui, Hawaii

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We woke up at 6:30 this morning. After coffee, I went to the concierge service. We wanted to check the feasibility of a day trip to Big Island. ‘Chip’ provided some options and they were either expensive or the dates were off. Finally, we gave up on that and booked a ‘Snorkeling’ boat trip to Lana’i with landing option. It would be a 7 hour excursion.
After returning to the condo, I also called the “Atlantis” submarine and got reservations for 10 am launch. We will have to be in Lahaina slip by 9:30 am. We left home around 9 am after a quick breakfast. We parked in 3 hour lot and walked to the harbor. We needed to get tickets first from their office in Front Street. First a boat takes you to a location where the submarine is already under water. It surfaces right on time for the previous tourists to get transferred to the boat. Then, we were transferred to the submarine. It is a neat little trick to maximize the usage of the sub. Also, the sub cannot get to the harbor because of the shallow waters. Inside, the sub has bucket seats in front of windows. Two sets of seats are located in the middle facing against each other. Everybody gets a window to watch the sea life. Sub went down to about 120 feet. We did see a school of fish and few colored fish. But, the marine life was not as much as it was advertised. They also take you to a place where there is a submerged remnant of a ship. Overall, it was OK, but not that spectacular.
It was around noon when we left the Lahaina area. Kids wanted to have lunch right there. But we decided to go to “Maui Ocean Center” and have lunch in Ma’alea. This is the next big port in Maui. We ate veggie burgers in “beach bums” restaurant right on the pier. Burgers we had were pretty good. Next 3 hours was spent in “Maui Ocean Center”. There was a lecture on sharks that was very interesting.
By 4 PM, we headed toward south Maui. There are three big resort areas, Kihei, Wailea and Makena. Tour book (Maui Revealed) had indicated that Kihei area could be skipped. So we drove toward Wailea, which is the home of all the fancy resorts. There were lot of nice golf courses. We wanted to drive down all the way to the “La Parouse Bay” area. This area is the latest addition to the Maui landmass. Lava flow happened only 200 years ago. The rock felt soft under your foot. We stopped in few of the important beaches such as ‘Big Beach’, ‘Black Sand beach’ etc. Seeing all the lava rocks by the beach was spectacular. We left the Makena area around 7:30 PM. We came home and had chapathi, MTR mix and rice. Kids had noodles.

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