Jan 19, 2025 - Today we're leaving the AirBnB in Haiku and we're headed to Ka'anapli to the Marriott's Maui Ocean Club. It's an hour and a half drive and we'll hang at the pool until we get our room. We did our grocery shopping for the week and had dinner at the food trucks near there.
Last morning at Baked on Maui. We split the cinnamon bun and a spinach croissant
Good bye to our lovely AirBnB
lunch and shaved ice by the pool at the Ocean Club
View from our apartment.
Sunset at the beach
Kevin opted for Pho at the Vietnamese food truck
Festive little spot and great food
Jan 20, 2025 - We had an early morning whale watch, so we were up at 5:00 and on the boat at 6:30AM. The early morning sunrise made for some awesome pics! After the whale watch we drove out to the Northern part of West Maui for some hiking.
Beautiful old pier in the morning light, while we waited to board the boat
Our first whales. Maui is great for whale watching. The humpbacks come here in the winter to give birth, breed and raise their calves The area between Maui, Molokai and Lanai (the Au’au channel) is prime whale watching. The water is shallow and protected from ocean currents and there are no predators. While in Hawaii the whales don’t eat since there isn’t anything for them to eat (except the calves who are nursing). They fast for up to 6 months while they’re here and lose up to 1/3 of their body weight.
a little hint of tail
Next some nice breaches. They aren't sure why whales breach, but some theories are that it's a way to get the barnacles off of their skin, and it's a way that males make a statement.
big splash
here he comes again
wow!
back in...
and another big splash
not a full tail, but still cool
there comes the sun
two flippers in the air (probably on his back)
definitely on his back
and another breach
the boat has to stay 100 yards from the whales, but if they come towards us, the captain turns off the motor and we wait until we're sure they've moved on
hello
another breach
and another (I couldn't seem to get enough shots!) it was quite the show!
the burst from the blowhole when they come up for air
another burst
After the whale watch we drove about 30 minutes to the northern part of Western Maui for some hikes Janet had found in her guide books
The first was supposed to be to the 2 tiered pools. We're not sure if we were at the right spot, because we never did see any pools but it was a beautiful hike.
these views remind me of California
Next we hiked an old jeep trail (the acid war zone trail) to the Nakalele blowhole.
There were several blow holes here, this was the smallest
It was a challenging hike among the rocks and mud, but quite fun
We finally made it to the Nakalele blowhole (it was about a 30 minute hike)
We then hiked up to the second parking lot, which was even more challenging after a bit of rain...luckily we had our trekking poles.
and we had lunch with a nice view of the blowhole (and lots of crazy people that got way to close to it)
Next we drove to the Olivine Pools. This was a quick hike to an overlook of the pools. There was a sign warning not to go to the pools, since people have died after being pulled out to sea by a rogue wave.
Pretty view of the peak on the way to the pools
The Olivine pools
The hikers
Before dinner (we grilled burgers at home) we went down to Black Rock and Kev & Janet snorkeled. They saw LOTS of fish, 2 octopuses (is that the plural of octopus?) and a turtle.
I watched the sunset ceremony, where a guy walked out to the end of Black Rock with a flame, lit the torches along the way, threw the torch into the water and then jumped from the rock.
Nice view from the room
