Today we spent the day wandering the grounds of both resorts. After breakfast, we walked around the 5 named gardens in the Manele Bay compound, me taking photos like mad and Lis becoming increasingly over it. For lunch, we went up to The Lodge – the food, service and presentation all seem to be significantly better up there. After lunch, we walked around the grounds, me again taking photos like mad, and Lis only a little over it this time, owing to her nap after breakfast 🙂
As we wandered around, we came across the 18 hole putting course. Lis went back to the lodge to get putters and balls, and we played the course. I won, but only because of Lis’ unfortunate sand trap misadventure – she pulled off some beautiful putts, whereas mine kept threatening to be beautiful but then rimming out and rolling away 🙁
There is a triathlon here tomorrow, and when we got back in the late afternoon, many of the triathletes were here registering. Lis is feeling grumpy about all the people (there is also a Sunquest Circle of Excellence gathering here right now), but I like the big influx of riff raff – makes me feel better. The triathlon kicks off with the swim at 9:30am tomorrow – we’re going to try to go down and watch it.
And for those of you who are interested in endless photos of landscapes (with a couple golf pics thrown in), here are the links for my photographic efforts of the day:
Yesterday I had been marveling that we had the energy to do all the things we’d been doing, and to enjoy them as much as we had – I had thought we were going to get here and just collapse.
Well, today we had that day – unmotivated and out of sorts, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Lana’i air is not agreeing with my head, making me stuffy and snoring like a tank, which in turn makes my fair one a little cranky…
We didn’t feel like doing much, so lay about for a bit before breakfast and after breakfast, but eventually making it back down to the beach to snorkel and swim.
But, like yesterday and the double-lounger, you just can’t go back – we didn’t snorkel for long because we were tired and Lis kept having trouble with her mask, and we didn’t swim for long because we were tired and the dolphins, while there, never got very close.
I think the lesson here is, enjoy your transcendent experience, but don’t come back the next day and try to do it again, because it probably won’t work.
We did sit on the beach for a while and listen to our iPods, which was nice.
After lunch, we went back to our room and just stayed there until dinner, reading and napping. Sometimes, ya just gotta veg in the room.
For dinner we went to a place in Lana’i City called The Lana’i City Grill, which was really good, and much closer to being reasonably priced.
About halfway through, Lis said to me “Uh, oh – did you bring a credit card?” I stared at her – the question didn’t even make sense to me. Then I got it – “Oh, because we’re not at the resort – we can’t charge it to the room…” No, I didn’t have anything but my room key and my camera.
Luckily, the manager is used to this sort of thing – apparently it happens a lot – and let us go back to the hotel and call her with our credit card info. I guess we have pretty thoroughly adjusted to life at the resort 🙂
Last night we went to the other Four Seasons Resort on the island, The Lodge at Koele, for dinner. The food was much better, but still incredibly overpriced. Still, we had a very lovely meal, and The Lodge is gorgeous. It’s more country estate than Polynesian village, but it’s very grand. I can’t wait to go up there during the daylight hours and look around – the Lodge has croquet (free) and an 18-hole putting course (free) and horseback riding ($) and archery ($) and skeet shooting ($). Don’t know if we’ll actually do any of those things, but it’s fun to dream.
This morning we were up bright and early again, and Lis said “Let’s try to snorkel before breakfast.” It was pretty windy, and I was dubious, but when it’s your birthday, you get to snorkel before breakfast if you want to.
Yesterday, when we were watching the dolphins, we saw that they are generally on the right side of the bay, but that they do a lot of moving around. We also saw that people who went out in to the water near the right side of the bay and just hung there would eventually be surrounded by dolphins, as opposed to the people who actively swam after the dolphins, who mostly just scared them away (plus you’re not supposed to do that, assholes – who chases wildlife? – bastards – but I digress…). So we thought that the next time the dolphins were around, we would try the pick-a-spot technique.
When we arrived, there were no dolphins, so we went to the left side of the bay where the fish are. Visibility still wasn’t great, but it was good enough, and we found a better site with tons of fish – really good snorkeling. There was a huge school of Convict Tangs that we followed for a while, and we saw a bunch of other fish, including the Hawaiian state fish, that I recognized from last time but couldn’t remember the name of until we saw it on a T-shirt in gift shop – Humuhumunukunukuapua’a (who-moo-who-moo-new-koo-new-koo-awp-oo-ah-ah).
We snorkeled about an hour, then headed back to our beach chairs. We were going to rest for a bit, but we looked up and saw that the dolphins had arrived – time to implement our plan. We swam out to a spot near where the dolphins were and waited, along with another woman doing the same thing. We all spoke disapprovingly of the people who were swimming after the dolphins (bastards) and hung in our spot.
At first, it seemed like the dolphin chasers might have succeeded in running them off (dickwads), but eventually our plan paid off, and we were surrounded by dolphins – breaching, spinning, slapping their flukes on the water, blowing through their blowholes, swimming together under water (at one point directly under me – actually kind of scared me, they were so close) – it was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had.
We were very scrupulous about not trying to touch them or interact with them in any way, but it was not possible to avoid whooping with delight when a dolphin would leap out of the water and spin in the air just a few feet away. The picture I’ve posted here is actually from a post card we bought in the gift shop, but it’s a good representation of just how close we were – we saw things that looked exactly like this. As my Facebook friend Pinkie Toenail would say – FUCKING EPIC!! It was really exciting – we hope to do it again and again.
We had to rush back to get to the breakfast buffet before it closed at 10am – otherwise we’d have to actually PAY FOR our overpriced breakfast. After breakfast we went to the Spa Ladies’ locker room for our Poor Woman’s Spa Treatment (veteran readers of this blog – and there ARE some; HOLLAH!! – know that we love to stay at expensive hotels and then spend as little money as possible), which is using all the free amenities of the locker room. We had a glorious steam and sauna, and then used the rain water showers – I practically had to be poured back to the room.
For lunch we went to the golf course club house – the food was much better (and bigger portions) – we really enjoyed it up there, and will probably lunch there a few more times.
After lunch we went back to our glorious double-lounger. It was still really good, but not quite as glorious as yesterday – a bit hotter, not quite enough shade, not nearly as much attention from the attendants. Still, we had a lovely time – and then it was Happy Hour!!
We went to the pool bar and got Lava Flows. And, to show what a good couple days we’ve had and how relaxed we are feeling, we were able to sit at the bar with a bunch of drunk people in swimwear, and have a really good time (An aside: how come we have to cover our boobs and big bellies, but all these men don’t have to cover THEIR boobs and big bellies – we saw A LOT of man boobs).
For dinner tonight we went for pupus in the Hale Ahe Ahe Lounge. It’s a very pleasant lounge, and we enjoyed the musicians, but the service was very slow and (as usual) the prices high and the portions small. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can get my sweetie to try out the main dining room, which we haven’t tried for dinner yet.
Yesterday we flew to Lana’i. In keeping with our spirit of splurge, we had booked first class seats on Alaska (which we don’t usually do – we may stay at the Four Seasons, but we fly Southwest). I had never flown first class before, and Lis had only done it once on a short flight from the Bay area. I must say, I could get used to it – it was so nice not being crammed in to a tiny airplane seat.
We had booked the first class air primarily because the flight was long, and so we wanted it to be pleasant, too. And this worked until we got to Honolulu and our transfer to Island Air for the 25 minute flight to Lana’i. Island Air said that Alaska would transfer our bags, but they are BIG FAT LIARS. We had to get our bags from Alaska and take them to Island Air and check them again, the Alaska lady in Portland said. “Oh, but you’ve got an hour – you’ll be fine.”
Little did we know that Island Air is about a mile away (literally) from Alaska in the poorly marked Honolulu airport. So there we were, run/walking our luggage through the afternoon heat and humidity, desperately trying to make our connection – totally undid all the benefits of our lovely first class flight (and my shower – DRENCHED in sweat). Luckily, our Island Air flight was delayed and so we were able to make it.
We showed up at our swanky resort rumpled and sweaty (and possibly smelly, though I don’t know this for sure) and were greeted as if we were the most important people in the world. This is what I like about the Four Seasons – they don’t treat us like the riff-raff we are (or at least usually look like). It is our litmus test of any luxury hotel – do they treat us like riff-raff – some do (I’m lookin’ at YOU, Empress Hotel in Victoria…)
We were assigned to a personal… something (“Here is your person, Karen”), and she showed us to our room. They weren’t able to give us a free upgrade (an amenity we get by booking through our travel agent, Plaza Travel), but did have a couple $$ upgrade options for us. Karen showed us the garden room we were getting, and the two ocean front possible upgrade rooms. The ocean fronts were nice, but cost too much, so we stuck with our garden view room – which turned out to be great; secluded, waterfall outside our lanai, away from the loud pool area. We are very happy here.
We had both lunch and dinner at the poolside grill. The food was good in a Red Robin sort of way, and spectacularly overpriced. We knew this and had prepared and budgeted for it, but still, it’s a little disappointing.
Other than lunch and dinner, we were unable to muster the energy for any other activity, not even exploring the grounds of the resort (which are gorgeous) – the triple whammy of getting up early, running through the airport, and the time change had wiped us out, and we were in bed by 8pm.
This morning we were up early (9am Portland time = 6am here) and both felt much better. I went to the lobby for the free coffee, and to look around a bit. The birds were singing (tons and tons of birds here, including a bunch of wild turkeys – normal turkeys, too, that can fly; not those top-heavy monstrosities we breed for Thanksgiving) and it was really lovely.
Back at the room, we hung out a bit and then went down for our complimentary breakfast (another perk via Plaza Travel – we love our Four Seasons specialist travel agent!!). Breakfast was better than the Red Robin pool grill, but still not as good as other Four Seasons we’ve been at – I think the point of this Four Seasons is the setting and not the food.
We were both still feeling tired, and decided not to worry about making sure we snorkeled today – “we’ll just walk around a bit.” Then we saw the spinner dolphins in the bay, and raced back to our room, got in our snorkel gear, and headed to the water.
We watched them for a while from the beach – they are SO AWESOME!! They jump out of the water and spin (hence the name) and do somersaults, and there were so many. Apparently this bay is one of their resting sites. You aren’t supposed to bother them, and once you’re actually in the water you can’t really see them anymore unless you do bother them – they’re often behind a swell.
We snorkeled for awhile. High-ish surf, low-ish visibility today, but we didn’t care; we got to float in warm water and see some fish, which is all that really matters – plus we were in the water with a school of dolphins, which we COULD see every now and then.
We were heading back to our room when we passed these covered lounge-chair things, overlooking the dolphins and not too far from the pool grill. We stopped to consider them, and an attendant came up to us with glasses of ice water. We asked if they served lunch in these things; he said yes. That decided it – we spent the next several hours in our covered double-lounger, watching the dolphins, having lunch, taking pictures, napping. Attendants came by periodically to: refill our water; bring us lunch; give us chilled cucumber slices for our eyes; give us chilled wet towels, spritz our faces with an Evian mister – it was unbelievably, amazingly the coolest thing ever (you can see some photos here – be sure to check out the Lis cucumber series…).
We are back in the room now, resting up from our exertions, and thinking about trying out The Lodge for dinner.
We had scheduled the most awesome vacation for this past July – travel to Chicago by train in a sleeper car for a Square Dance convention! Plus visit some family in nearby Moline, IL, and then spend a few extra days in Chicago and fly home. We were REALLY looking forward to it. But, alas, it was not to be – Lis’ mom got sick in the spring, and we ended up canceling this and a couple smaller trips to be available for Lis’ mom and family.
After Lis’ mom passed away in September, we decided it was time to reschedule our long-delayed vacation. We also decided that, after our rough several months dealing with terminal cancer, we deserved to splurge. And so we booked ourselves for 10 nights at the Four Seasons Lanai. Lanai is a private island just off Maui, and is essentially deserted, so we should have plenty of what we are craving, which is peace, quiet, snorkeling, and someone else cooking.
We have been telling people that we are splurging because of the difficult time we just recently went through, which is basically true. But (and here is where I am spilling the ugly truth) — we would have gone to the Four Seasons anyway. The truth is, it turns out we really love luxury travel. And, it turns out, we both feel fairly embarrassed, or at least self-conscious, about loving luxury travel. And so whenever we splurge on a stay at the Four Seasons or a Regent cruise, we always have these long explanations about how we found a really good deal, or how this or that happened, or something to downplay the whole thing.
But we’re trying to work on just owning the fact that this is what we like. Everybody has something that they’re willing to spend extra on – ours just happens to be stays at high-falutin’ resorts.
So no more shame! Out and proud! We’re here, we stay at the Four Seasons, get used to it! (Maybe our slogan needs more work…)
Because we only really took pictures on our mountain trek (except for the occasional shot from the iPhone), I wanted to write up a summary of the sea life and birds we’ve seen this trip, before I forget. I also wanted to make a little list of tips we’ve learned, so we won’t have to re-invent the wheel next time. So here goes:
Things We’ve Learned:
Always check ocean conditions before going snorkeling
Don’t put sunscreen on your face when snorkeling – it keeps your mask from getting a good seal, and gets in your eyes and stings, and is unnecessary since you will be face down in the water. Apply sunscreen to your face when you are done.
The crackling sound you hear near coral is the sound of the fish feeding – water magnifies the sound.
Snorkeling a couple hours a day can give you a very mild case of sea legs.
The following are some of the Save The Reef things we learned from Snorkel Bob:
Sunscreen kills coral – don’t apply sunscreen and then get immediately in the water. Apply at least 30 minutes before entering the water. Or, better yet, says Snorkel Bob, wear sun protection clothing instead of sunscreen lotions.
Don’t buy shells, and consider not taking the shell leis you get at luaus or in some stores (we passed on some shell leis at Hilo Hattie).
Don’t feed the fish – it changes their behavior and makes them more aggressive. (This was fleshed out for us by a Pacific Whale Foundation volunteer: when fish are fed, the aggressive fish take over and chase out the less aggressive fish, which includes the fish that clean the coral. Then the algae builds up, and the coral starts to die off L )
Don’t go on tours that don’t follow the above rules.
We returned home last night to rain and cooler temperatures and velcro kitties who missed their mamas – it’s nice to be back. I don’t even mind the weather, as I always struggle with heat and humidity, and I was starting to get tired of always having to protect myself from the sun – no heat or sun here (though humidity of the cool variety, which I can handle).
We did manage to fit in a little snorkeling yesterday before our early afternoon flight, and while it was a bit of a hassle figuring out how to pack and deal with our wet snorkel gear, it wasn’t bad – I’d do it again. Note from Lis: the snorkeling was fantastic. We had to do it since we didn’t discover our favorite beach until our last full day.
After showering and packing, we headed to Five Palms Beach Grill for our final Maui meal – it has one of the best views of any of the places we’ve eaten, plus is close to the condo, so we thought it would be a fitting place for our farewell. It was a particularly beautiful day, clear skies and not too warm. While we were there, we heard someone tell the waiter that she was leaving today at 1pm “just in the nick of time.” We wondered what she was talking about, then were able to ascertain that there was a tsunami warning in effect because of an earthquake in Samoa. The waiter and bus girl were unconcerned – “I’m sure it will be nothing” – and turned out to be right: I checked when I got off the plane – no tsunami problems in Hawaii. Those poor people in Samoa, though – my heart goes out to them.
On the plane we again rented a DigE Player, and watched My Life in Ruins and Taken. We knew before watching them that they were both stupid movies. However, My Life in Ruins is stupid but pleasant and entertaining, while Taken is stupid and offensive and ridiculous plus takes itself very seriously and is almost unwatchable. I think it is even worse than The Lake House, which I consider to be the standard by which bad movies should be judged.
In true “needing a vacation to recover from vacation” style, we are both very tired today, and will probably not go back to work until tomorrow. But I should probably wrap this up now, as there is currently a Sweet Orange Boy demanding my attention.
And so our last full day in Maui has arrived. Which sounds kind of sad, but really isn’t. Usually by this time in a vacation, I am ready to go home, and the same is true on this one – I’ve had an excellent time, and I will be glad to get home – win:win.
Yesterday we woke up tired (no doubt due to our drunken carousing of the night before) and so decided to take the day off. We sat out on the lanai, where some Grey Francolins came and visited with us (we looked them up in the condo bird book), and then lay about reading and surfing the web and napping. For lunch we made a salad and had our leftover pizza. It was really quite a lovely day – definitely what the doctor ordered.
Round about 4pm we started mulling over our dinner options, and ultimately decided to head over to the Four Seasons for their afternoon hula show. We weren’t sure if we wanted to just do pupus, or try their (fairly spendy – $49 per) tasting menu – we figured we’d decide when we got there. We eventually ended up doing neither – just ordered off the bar menu – Lis had a burger and I had a Cobb salad. Still way expensive, but half of what the testing menu option would have been.
The hula show was a very low key affair – just one (somewhat weary seeming) hula dancer and one guy with a guitar accompanying her. But they were both quite good – we enjoyed the musician very much (sometimes he performed by himself – the hula dancer came and went) and the dancer, though not as young and athletic as the luau dancers, really seemed to be doing more actual story telling with her movements, which were also incredibly graceful and beautiful. She was more subtle – you really had to watch to notice this. But she was awesome.
At 6:10 there was a torch lighting ceremony. The hula dancer was joined by a strapping young man with a conch shell (he was really something – the hostess came over later to see if we enjoyed it, and gigglingly said “They’re so physically fit; it adds to the enjoyment of the performance,” which I took to be her polite way of saying “He is SO HOT!” He really was perfectly built and beautifully tanned, and of somewhat regal carriage – very impressive). They performed a dance together, apparently a traditional Hawaiian end-of-day ceremony, that involved repeated long soundings of the conch shell, which moved me to tears each time, as long soundings of conch shells always do. Then he lit a torch and went all around the hotel grounds, stopping at each tiki torch, sounding the conch and then lighting the torch. Then the hula dancer did a couple more numbers, and it was done. I enjoyed the whole thing much more than I’d enjoyed the luau.
Lis: I love the Four Seasons. I love their graciousness. They are spendy, but they are also an amazing value. Both times we dined at the Four Seasons, the parking was free. I don’t know if it is also at the other resorts, but I’m guessing it might not be. When we wandered into the lounge, trying to decide what to do for dinner, the hostess gave us a stack of menus (for 2 restaurants plus the lounge pupu and lounge food menu) and said, “You could go sit down there on the couch, while you decide.” As we perused the menus, a waitress came and brought us a dish with spiced nuts on one side and marinated mushrooms and olives on the other. I must have looked alarmed when I said, “We’re still deciding what to do.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “Take your time. Whatever you decide to do, these are complimentary.” The hostess came back and said, “If you have a lot of time, this is really a lovely place to just hang out.” She told us all the different types of music being played at different times and showed us the best table for viewing the hula dancing. How could we resist?
I believe the total for our evening came to something like $78 including the tip. In addition to the cobb salad and burger which Mary mentioned, we shared a mango margarita (the most delicious smoothy ever, basically) and I had a coconut sorbet for dessert. The burger was huge and came with both fries and onion rings, which I barely made a dent in.
This was so much more lovely than the luau which we paid a little over $200 for. I sort of think of it as the “poor man’s luau”, even though most people would never think of the Four Seasons as the Poor Man’s Anything. But we could have shown up there at 6:00 for the conch ceremony, each ordered a $4.00 dish of sorbet (which was delicious, non-dairy, and came in quite a few flavors) and been treated just as well as if we had purchased $400 worth of food and drink. And yes, the burger cost $24 or something outrageous like that, but the view was amazing, we were treated like royalty by the staff, and there was great music and entertainment. Really, that is a value. Okay, end of my Four Seasons advertisement and back to Mary.
After dinner we came back to the condo and went to the upper pool for an evening swim. The stars were out and the water felt perfect. We went for a dip in the sand-bottomed hot tub and ended up in conversation with a young couple from Sacramento who are police officers. We asked them lots of questions about police work – the woman in is a mounted unit, which I also thought sounded pretty cool; she assured us that it is – and had a very interesting chat. Then a couple games of Millionaire – I won both and am now ahead 3 games to 2.J
This morning we managed to find Ulua Beach (after virtuously checking the surf report, and seeing that the conditions were calm), and really, really loved it. It’s a pretty little beach, and has some incredible coral on the right hand or north side. The coral is very rugged-looking – lots of hills and valleys and nooks and crannies – but easily accessible and in this gentle surf not at all scary. We again saw tons of fish, plus swam a ways with a turtle, plus saw a moray eel and an octopus.
Another neat feature of this particular location is that many of the fish where in large schools (as opposed to lots of individual fish), including a large school of sergeant majors hanging at the surface. The cool thing about this is if you stop swimming and just float, the fish accept you and let you hang out with them – it’s like you become part of the school. We hung with the sergeant majors for quite some time.
After snorkeling we walked a ways along the Wailea beach path that Lis had wanted to walk a couple days ago, and soon found ourselves at the Wailea Beach Marriott outdoor grill. I had some money on me and it was lunchtime, so we ate here. We both had the Ulua burgers, which were still a little spendy (though not Four Seasons spendy) but quite good.
We’re going to spend the afternoon trying to get as packed and ready to go as possible, and our plans for dinner are pupus at the Five Palms Grill – half price pupus if you get a drink. Then we’re going to do some in-depth planning for tomorrow morning – we want to snorkel before we go, and Lis wants to have breakfast somewhere, plus we’ve still got to get sandwiches for the plane and turn the rental car in – all before our 1:45 pm flight. Wish us luck!!
Which is not as exciting as it might sound, given that we were back at the condo by 8:30pm. Still, it was pretty nightlife-y for us.
After our Molokini Snorkel excursion we had lunch at the Five Palms Beach Grill, which is right across the street from our condo complex and looks out on Keawakapu Beach. The food was fantastic and the view amazing – we had a nice leisurely lunch and then headed back to the condo. Since our lunch had been pretty big, we were thinking about doing pupus at the Four Seasons for dinner – they have a hulu show every evening at happy hour. But by 4:00 we were already quite hungry again. Lis thought Italian would be good, and decided on a restaurant called Matteo’s in Wailea that had soy cheese pizza, plus 50% off pizza and wine between 4-6pm – we headed there about 5pm.
Turned out they were out of soy cheese, but this turned out not to be an issue. The counter girl talked us in to ordering two 10″ pizzas rather than sharing one – she said they were very thin crusted and more like a personal pizza, and with the 50% off we were basically getting 2 for 1. I got the Hawaiian pizza, and Lis got pepperoni with artichokes and mushrooms but no cheese. Plus we each got a house salad. The food was very good, even the pizza sans cheese, and we each had more than half remaining to take home for next day’s lunch (we totally could have shared one).
If you’ve been reading along with us, you know that we discovered the (apparently incredibly common) fruity umbrella drink, the Lava Flow, early in the trip when we ate at Café O’Lei. Their version looked fabulous, but it was lunch and too early to drink. Since that first Lava Flow sighting, I’ve been on a mission to get one with an umbrella, with no luck. We had Lava Flows at Moose McGillycuddy’s – no umbrella. At the luau Lis ordered a Lava Flow, and it was a weird Slurpee kind of thing with some watery strawberry syrup on it – no umbrella plus highly disappointing in general.
So we decided that after dinner we would go back to Café O’Lei and get a Lava Flow. We sat at the bar and ordered our drinks, and watched the bartender make them. She blended and poured and put in the pineapple and then brought them over – no umbrella. I was very disappointed, but then realized that I had the power to alleviate the situation – “May I have an umbrella, please?” The bartender smiled and said “Of course; what’s a Lava Flow without an umbrella,” or some such nicety. She put umbrellas in both of our drinks, and I was finally happy.
The drink was very good – basically a smoothie with rum (really a Pina Colada with strawberry puree, but whatever) – just the kind of girlie drink I like. We sat at the bar, drinking our drinks, and grew slowly fascinated by the chef working the seafood bar. He was building these incredible things called seafood towers – three plates with shrimp and oysters and some kind of fish salsa thing and tempura and all sorts of stuff. Plus making more standard shrimp cocktails and oyster plates and such. We had a menu in front of us, so he would start making something and we would consult the menu, trying to figure out what it was. It was very entertaining – like watching the Food Network.
Eventually we attracted the notice of the manager and the chef himself. The manager came over to tell us about the seafood tower the chef was building at that moment, and then the chef came over about 15 minutes later, when he was done with all his orders, to ask us if we had any questions. I asked about the two different sizes of oysters I had seen, which prompted a fairly lengthy dissertation on the three types of oysters he uses. He went over to the seafood bar to get examples of all three, and at first I was afraid that he was going to give us samples (I abhor oysters), but he was just showing us the shells. He described the taste and texture of each oyster, where they’re from (two from California, one from Washington), and how he uses them. It was all very fun – we really, really like Café O’Lei – plus the prices are quite reasonable.
Soon we were done with our drinks, and took our leave. Because I am a lightweight, I thought it best that we maybe wait a bit before driving (I didn’t feel tipsy, but better safe than sorry). Lis was delighted because this meant she could finally get me to go with her to one of the many crap stores (I mean tourist gift shops) that she had been wanting to go to. We wandered all around, and did actually find a couple of 2010 calendars for 99 cents (one Maui scenes, the other Hawaiian flowers).
Lis: I love wandering around shops of any type and Mary hates it. It just so happened that the shop nearby was a tourist shop. I was quite happy. I am trying to figure out where to get her drunk next time where there might be some great soap and lotion shop.
Then back to the condo and another rousing game of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (I won, but Lis is ahead in the series 2-1) and then in bed by 9:30. As I said, not all that exciting, but it works for usJ
Note from Lis: Since this is Mary’s travelogue and I just put my 2 cents in every once in a while, she has neglected to mention how I spent my afternoon, which was shopping for real estate. Every day at the entrance to our condo complex there are listings of which units have open houses, and I have been very curious to see other units. Yesterday afternoon there were two; Mary dropped me off at the first one on our way back from lunch. The first one was a fairly run-down one-bedroom with an ocean view. The price was in the 600k range, which I thought was low. I was expecting them to be in the millions. But what do I know? The second one was a very lovely one-bedroom overlooking the main pool for only $429,000. I spent a long time talking to the real estate agent there, partly because I was pretending I might buy a condo and partly because I was curious about how the whole vacation condo business works. I learned that they are sold completely furnished, that the monthly condo dues are in the $450 range and cover cable tv and maintenance and lots of things, but not electricity or internet, and that most owners hire a condo management company to rent them out and handle cleaning, maintenance issues, etc. In exchange for this service the condo management company gets approximately 22% of the revenues.
The real estate agent also showed me some photos of two-bedroom units on the internet and quizzed me about where I was from, what we had done so far, where we had eaten, and gave me suggestions. He was the person who told me about Matteo’s. It was all very interesting, but I was also standing in the humid condo dripping sweat and by the time I finally made my escape back to our air-conditioned unit, I thought I might pass out. However I quickly downloaded a mortgage calculator to my IPhone and ran the numbers to see if such an investment would pay off. The real estate agent had told me that the 429k unit had grossed $28,000 last year which sounds like quite a lot, but that would not cover the mortgage payment so, dear friends, we are not going to buy a condo in Maui. (not that we would have anyway)
The other thing Mary did not mention is that I was full after two slices of pizza at Matteo’s and didn’t want to go straight to Café O’Lei. I suggested walking along the Wailea beach path for the sunset and was met with incredulity. Something about parking the car and not knowing where to go and hot, hot, hot. We ended up driving to the Kihei boat ramp where our snorkel expedition had met that morning and walking a tiny bit in on a trail where we watched the sun go down behind a huge cloud and the waves break against the rocks. It felt a little bit Oregon Coasty to me. I took a nice little video which I would post to YouTube except I am way too far in to vacation to be able to remember my user name and password.
When I was in O’ahu, maybe twenty years ago, I went to a luau and I enjoyed it. I remembered it as being a silly tourist thing, but I liked the Polynesian show and the pig cooked in the ground all day had been delicious, and the whole experience had been entertaining. In researching this trip, we had read about the luaus, and the various guidebooks all said that they were fun – they didn’t say “You must definitely do this,” but they said that they were fun. So we had decided to go ahead and do a luau, as Lis had not been to one, and I had not been in a long time.
We chose the Old LaHaina Luau because all the guidebooks agreed that this was the best one – the most authentic. I thought this meant that the whole luau experience was authentic – turns out it means that the Polynesian show is the most authentic.
As we approached the luau site, I saw lots and lots of traffic, and then lots and lots of stereotypical tourist types in stereotypical tourist flowered Hawaiian shirts and dresses. My heart sank – I said to Lis “It’s like being on a cruise ship.” She said “Yeah, that’s kind of what I expected.” But I hadn’t been expecting it (I’d been expecting tourist, but not this much) and so I was disappointed. Once inside the mega-tourist-ness continued, plus it was incredibly hot and no air was moving. There were about 500 people altogether, all jammed in to tables for eight arranged in a semi-circle, and even though we were outside it felt like being in an airless room with 500 people and no air conditioning.
Our table mates were pleasant, but again the sense of being on a cruise (and not in a good way – we love cruising but not this part of it) predominated. After a while the servers led us over to the buffet (shades of cruise ship some more). The food was all right but nothing special, and I was beginning to feel like the whole thing had been a total dud – not a happy feeling.
Luckily, the show is very authentic, with lots of historical information, so it rescued the evening somewhat. I wouldn’t say it made it worth the $100 per person, but at least not a total loss.
The following morning we had scheduled a snorkel tour out to Molokini Crater. With the bad taste of the previous evening’s luau still in my mouth, I was apprehensive – what if this was another overpriced tourist thing? Especially since we had been able to see Molokini from the Haleakala lookout, and even from that distance you could see a million boats there. I was worried.
We had purchased our tour from SeaFire Snorkeling Adventures, on the advice of Katie at Snorkel Bob’s. They were less expensive than most we had read about, because more bare bones – no breakfast or booze or BBQ lunch or “party cruising” – just out there and back, with some snacks as needed. Also, the boat was smaller – a rigid hulled zodiac – so there were fewer people.
We arrived at the boat launch at 7:15 am and were out on the water by 7:30. Our crew was all-female – Dana, Vanessa and Captain Vicki. The surf was high again, so I was worried about the visibility – Dana said that visibility is always good at Molokini because there is no beach there – no sand to churn up. And this turned out to be true – best visibility we’ve had the whole trip, and we saw tons and tons of fish. And because we got there fairly early, we were able to snorkel somewhat unmolested at first, though it did eventually get pretty crowded – but by that time Capt Vicki was wanting to take us to another site anyway.
One of the passengers was a very pale young man from Ireland who had never been snorkeling before. The swells were high, so there was much up-and-down action, both in the boat and while snorkeling. When we got back on the boat, this young man was looking peaked and asking for a bucket – “I’m going to be sick.” Capt Vicki told him to lean over the side – “Nothing ruder than a bucket of puke.” So he leaned over and did his business. I was also feeling slightly nauseous from the wave action, so made sure that I did not see or hear any of this – didn’t want a chain reaction. A few minutes later Lis and I glanced over and saw a huge gathering of fish near the impact area – lunch was served, apparently.
Afterwards, the young man (or Seasick Boy, as I took to calling him) sat back down and sank in to his misery, which in my opinion is the exact wrong thing to do. Speaking as someone who tends toward motion sickness, I know that if I am feeling seasick but still try to keep my head up and participate in/ think about something other than how I’m feeling, I don’t feel quite as bad – of course, I haven’t actually thrown up since I was 11, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about (a shocking concept, admittedly). Anyway, Seasick Boy basically curled in to a ball under a beach towel and stayed that way the rest of the trip.
Capt Vicki took us around to the outside of Molokini, where the water is really deep, and pointed out a shelf in the outer wall where we could snorkel. She said that in deep water the swells go up and down only, so there was no chance of being pushed in to the wall, like you can be pushed in to shore in shallow water. I wondered if the deep water would scare me (I can freak out easily while snorkeling), but was willing to give it a shot. Then, while we were looking at the shelf, this huge swell slammed a mass of water up in to the roof of the shelf area. I said “I think I’m too scared to snorkel here,” just as Capt Vicki said “I’ve changed my mind – I don’t think we’re going to snorkel here.”
So we went on to the next site, which was in La Perouse Bay – one of the many places called Turtle Town by the snorkel tours. There was sand here, so the visibility was not as good, but it wasn’t bad – we could see. Soon in the water, we found a turtle – a pretty big one. Everyone gathered round, and took pictures, and I was bummed that all of us were going to be watching this one turtle. I thought about trying to find another one, but then noticed that everyone was gone – only Lis and I remained to hang out with the turtle until she (short tail) surfaced – everyone else had gotten their pic and moved on.
After about 15 minutes, the turtle started to swim slowly to the surface. Lis and I did what we do, which is to put our head above water right before she surfaces so we can watch from above. Since we were near the boat, and about half the people were not in the water, I called out “Turtle about to surface right here.” It was fun to watch the commotion of everyone running over to see – distracted me from watching the turtle.
Lis: I was extremely close when the turtle surfaced. It was a pretty amazing experience. Mary yelled at me, “Lis, you’re too close!” which I took great offense at since I was just floating and the turtle happened to be close to me. I thought I was not supposed to move and bother the turtle. Once we were back in the boat I asked, and both Dana and Captain Vicki said that you should back up if you get too close to a turtle. So now I know. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know at the time, because it was really cool being that close to the turtle.
Then it was time to head in. While we were heading back to the boat ramp, Capt Vicki slowed way down. We wondered what was going on, then realized that Capt Vicki was listening to someone on the radio saying “I’ve got some spinners here.” She radioed “We’re on our way,” and I said to Lis “We’re going to see some dolphins.”
Soon we came upon a pod of 10-15 spinner dolphins. They swam around us for quite some time, and at one point one of them repeatedly jumped out of the water and spun in the air like a corkscrew (hence the name) – we all (except Seasick Boy, who wanly raised his head once but otherwise stayed balled up) cheered and hollered – it was really fantastic. They kept swimming with us, and Dana called out “Talk to them – they’re very curious.” I said “What should we say?” and she demonstrated making some high-pitched dolphin sounds. I made a halfhearted attempt but felt silly. Then Lis did the call she does for our cat LuLu – basically “LuLuLuLuLuuuuuuu,” yodel style. The dolphins seemed to swim closer, so I said “Do it again.” She did it several more times, and each time the dolphins seemed to come closer, or stick their snouts up, or do something in response (no more spinning, though). I wondered if LuLu would be pleased that her call had been used successfully with dolphins, or just jealous (she’s a jealous girl). Lis: I can tell you the answer to that – jealous. And who can blame her – I did feel a little like I was cheating on her.
Now we headed back in, a fabulous morning in the books and my faith in tourist activities restored.
We were very scrupulous about not trying to touch them or interact with them in any way, but it was not possible to avoid whooping with delight when a dolphin would leap out of the water and spin in the air just a few feet away. The picture I’ve posted here is actually from a post card we bought in the gift shop, but it’s a good representation of just how close we were – we saw things that looked exactly like this. As my Facebook friend Pinkie Toenail would say – FUCKING EPIC!! It was really exciting – we hope to do it again and again.
overlooking the dolphins and not too far from the pool grill. We stopped to consider them, and an attendant came up to us with glasses of ice water. We asked if they served lunch in these things; he said yes. That decided it – we spent the next several hours in our covered double-lounger, watching the dolphins, having lunch, taking pictures, napping. Attendants came by periodically to: refill our water; bring us lunch; give us chilled cucumber slices for our eyes; give us chilled wet towels, spritz our faces with an 
Which is not as exciting as it might sound, given that we were back at the condo by 8:30pm. Still, it was pretty nightlife-y for us.