Days 3-10 Maui, HI

We arrived in Maui at 2:30 p.m. on Friday. We grabbed the rental car and headed toward Lahaina where we are staying at the Maui Ocean Club. We are on Kannapali beach. It is our 1st trip to Hawaii and we were absolutely amazed by its beauty from the first day. Our hotel property is great, its location is perfect as there is a beachwalk that connects all the hotels and there is an array of shops/restaurants/bars all the way for 3 miles. We soaked in our first Hawaii sunset and then ate dinner on Friday night at a new restaurant called Cane and Taro where we enjoyed local fish in sushi form. Nicole and I love sushi and this was as good as it gets.


Day 4
We decided to make Saturday about resting as we have been going pretty hard since we arrived in San Fran on Wednesday. We went to Lahaina and picked up some groceries so we could eat breakfast in our room each morning. We also rented snorkel gear for the week (very cheap, $10.00/person for the entire week). Down the beach from the Marriot is a place called "Black Rock". It is basically a big lava rock that juts out into the ocean from the shore and it creates a great place to snorkel and also cliff jump. Nicole and I have never snorkeled before and we found it to be GREAT! Jeb has snorkeled a lot on his many trips and he taught us a few tricks. I struggled with the mask for a while, fogging up and leaking water, but after a while I figured it out. It is very relaxing as you just lay on top of the water and let the surf push and pull you in and out. The only trick is to pop up once in a while just so you haven't drifted OUT too far. We saw some beautiful plants on the ocean floor and fish of many colors. The scariest thing we saw was a massive turtle, which was probably over 100 lbs. Jeb and I both jumped off a cliff too, I don't know if I should say cliff, it was about 25 feet into the water. We jumped off higher when we were in Jamaica, but it seems in my old age I am getting more scared of heights so 25 feet seemed high enough. Saturday evening we headed to The Old Lahaina Luau. The Luau is a Hawaiian tradition and it was a lot of fun. The food was excellent and the rituals and dancing were also good. I have never seen a belly shake so fast!