Paradise Found

After a 22 hour travel day, Katie and I arrived in Maui late Friday evening. Exhausted from the trip, we drove to our hotel and crashed for the night. So, it wasn't until the next morning that we fully realized our amazing surroundings! We are staying on Ka'anapali Beach. Here is our stretch of the beach...

Our friends Danielle and Chad from Minnesota happened to be finishing up their week in Maui when we arrived, so we planned to meet up with them. We had lunch with them and did lots of catching up. Later in the afternoon, we lounged on the beach and went for a swim. The water is very blue (the pictures don't really capture it that well) and the water is nice and warm!

When we weren't swimming we were whale watching. It's whale season here, when all of the humpbacks arrive for the winter to breed and have their calves. We thought we were going to need to take a whalewatching boat ride to see them, but they are everywhere just offshore! Watch for 2 or 3 minutes and you are guaranteed to see the spray from the whales breathing or a big tail come out and sink back down into the water. Luckily, Katie remembered to bring our binoculars, which have been extremely handy. The whales are amazing, and have mesmerized us for hours.

That night we met up again with Danielle and Chad for dinner and a magic show called Warren and Annabelle. The highlight of the evening was when Katie and I were asked to sit in the front row and be part of the show! We were really close to the action!


The best part is that I got to play the part of the stooge! I was the butt of many jokes and tricks, but it was all in good fun, and totally worth it because you all know how much Katie loves magic. Warren was not only a very funny comedian but also a very good magician! He did some crazy tricks that we can't figure out and we're still talking about them days later.

After a busy first day, yesterday was the designated "do as little as possible besides be a blob on a lounge chair" day, at which we were wildly successful. LOTS of nap time and reading and sunning.

This morning we took a drive up the coast to the northwest part of Maui. The scenery quickly changed to the otherworldly...
Amazing cliffs and views. We stopped at a blowhole (a place where the ocean has eaten away the lava from underneath and now water squirts out when waves come in, kind of like a geyser) and hiked the few hundred feet down to the ocean. Here we are in front of the blowhole (again, the photos don't really capture it - the stream of water easily gets 50-60 feet high).


At our next stop (which our guidebook referred to as the "Olivine Pools"), we found an oceanside lava shelf with calm pools of water right night to the raging sea. Fran hiked down to get some pictures, wading out into the pools in order to take this photo. When the waves would come in, huge crashes of water would shoot up just feet away from the still pools.

We've stopped by the room for a little lunch and some blogging, but now we're on our way back out again, this time to go snorkeling. Off we go!

Update: Just back from snorkeling, right off the beach here in front of the hotel. It was amazing! Tons and tons of tropical fish of all colors. And, sea turtles! Swimming within feet of us, they were huge. But the highlight of all highlights is that, after we went out far enough to where there were less people and less crashing waves, if you put your head in the water and held your breath and listened, you could hear the whales singing. Amazing.