Maui

28 March - 02 April 2023

Tuesday, 28 March 2023 was literally the longest day on our trip (it lasted 46 hours). We started in Auckland, NZ and flew the red eye (8 hours) to Maui in Hawai’i. As soon as we landed we called an urgent care doctor, located near our resort. Julie got an x-ray at a location near the airport. The doc called us back and said Julie needed a cast.

Wednesday morning we drove back to Wailuku to the orthopedic doc. The orthopedist came in on his day off and gave Julie a pretty purple cast. The doc said it was water proof, and she could get in the shower and ocean. On our way out, the office manager told us that when people got those casts wet, they smelled disgusting and the skin was all wrinkly and gross when you took them off. This kept Julie out of the water for our time in Hawaii.

As you can see, not only was Julie’s right arm a casualty, the right arm of her favorite pair of Maui Jim sunglasses was broken. Once we got to Chicago, we sent the sunglasses in for repair, sadly we later found out they were irreparable. Julie is devastated.

The office manager where Julie got her cast recommended that we go whale watching with the Reef Explorer from Ma’Alaea. She said Brad always found whales. So we signed up for a cruise on Thursday.

And she was right, Brad found a mamma humpback whale with a calf, and three male whales who were competing for her affections. The boys put on a show, beating on each other to prove who was the biggest and strongest. We were out for 90 minutes, and by the end of our trip one of the gents came out on top and was hanging out with the mom and calf.

Anthony took lots of videos of the whales. But this is just a sample of what we saw.

Male humpback whale, just showing off.

Dorsal view of one of the whales diving.

At the end, the mom and the winning male were seen swimming together.

Anthony as a mime. The Zinc based sunscreen in Hawaii goes on very thick. We still had zinc embedded in our skin days after we were back on the mainland.

Towards the end our our cruise, we saw a hump back with the “zoomies”. We could see (and hear) it repeatedly slapping it’s huge tail in the water. Unfortunately, it was too far in the distance to get photos or video.

Anthony was fascinated by the Haleakala observatory.

Thursday afternoon, we drove from sea level to Haleakala at 10,000+ feet above, through a layer of clouds. You can see the environment resembles the moon. We got there in time to procure a parking spot at the House of the Sun, a primo spot to watch the sunset.

Julie is properly bundled up to watch the sunset.

On Friday, we circumnavigated the North/West lobe of the island, in an anti-clockwise direction. The road to Hana is notoriously twisty, but I think the first half of this trip was more treacherous AND more beautiful.

We stopped at lunch at Star Noodle in Lahaina (recommended by the doc who applied Julie’s pretty purple cast.) The food was pretty good, but the views out the back of the restaurant were better. Side note, Maui Jim has a sunglasses repair facility in Lahaina, a fact we (sadly) did not know until we visited Kona on the Big Island.

Overlooking the ocean, where we cruised for whales the previous day.

Julie’s looking beautiful for dinner. Her cast matched her dress, and her new opal earrings.

We stopped by Turtle Beach at Ho’okipa State park on the way to Mama’s Fish House in Paia.

We saw the surfboard fence in Paia

Tiki Torches at the Beach at Mama’s Fish House.

Julie made reservations for dinner at Mama’s Fish House almost a year in advance. Julie’s sister highly recommended we go there, and it did not disappoint.

On Saturday we took the twisty road to Hana, and had lunch at the famous food trucks there. There were a number of scenic waterfalls on the way.

The stoats are everywhere in Hawaii, like we have squirrels back in NC.

We could not get tickets to see the world famous Honokalani black sand beach, but fortunately Julie found the not quite so famous, but still extremely cool black sand Hana Beach.

Views from our apartment at the Hyatt Wailea Ekahi Village Resort. We actually had a view of the ocean from our balcony, but Anthony couldn’t find any photos. Below is the beach in front of the resort.

We did a lot of driving in Hawaii. Here are our treks in Maui from Google Maps.

The Big Island

Find our other adventures.