Hawaii- Maui

We had ourselves an early morning snorkeling adventure at Ahihi Kinau reserve in South Maui. It had the best conditions of any of the snorkeling spots in Maui. Even with the winter silt coming from the southern oceans, the shape of the bay limited its impact on visibility, so Dad and I were able to spend a good amount of time snorkeling among the beautiful reefs. Had the sun come out, we would have had perfect snorkel conditions. Even with the cloud cover, we found some excellent locations and saw some amazing stuff! I even got the courage up to do some diving. On one dive, I was trying to get a closer look at an unusual fish, and I surprised an octopus and it came out of hiding. It was a great snorkeling site and one that we definitely need to check out the next time we come back. Summer is the best time, but if we ever go back during winter, Ahihi is the place to go. Dad wanted to explore some more of the area in the car so we took a drive into a very cool area further southeast of Makena and Ahihi reserve to La Perouse Bay. To get there, we had to cross a field of volcanic rock that had erupted from a cinder cone just visible up the hill. I felt like we were driving on the surface of the moon. We came back to Mahina Surf and relaxed for a while in preparation for the Luau at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The Luau was very cool. The food was excellent and we had access to an open bar (non-alcoholic options of course, the fruit punch was killer!). The entertainment was also very good, though about one half of the dances were Tahitian which means it was a bit scandalous when compared to the Polynesian Cultural Center dancing. We ended up sitting next to some very friendly people. One of the couples was visiting from Southern California and the wife guessed correctly that we were LDS. Funny how you can just pick them out sometimes. The same thing happened to Chelsea and I at Pearl Harbor. During the film, we sat behind a family that had “the look”. After chatting with the grandma on the ferry at the close of the tour, she asked if we were LDS because I mentioned Chelsea having participated in a Luau during college. Small Mormon world. Now back to the Hyatt Regency luau, another couple was a newly married couple from South Dakota: Elias and Mara. He is a pulmonary doctor and she has a bachelor’s in English. Both are Middle Eastern, he from Syria and she from Saudi Arabia. They were extremely friendly and funny. After it was over, Elias wanted to take some pictures for us and asked if we would take some for them too. Funny how you can connect with perfect strangers sometimes. He said he will e-mail me the pictures he took; nice guy.