Maui

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

It has only been two months since I came back from Maui, so you would think that I would have already blogged about it. Since we had three cameras in Maui, it has taken a couple of months to get all of the pictures (which I still don’t completely have). Anyway here’s my travelogue.
After two long flights with over 12 hours in the air, I arrived in Maui from New York. As always, it was a tropical paradise. After doing some shopping, we headed straight to the beach to enjoy some warm water and some nice rays.
That morning, we had van pick us up at 2 am to travel up to the volcano to watch the sunrise. Although, it was tiring, the sunrise was beautiful as it rose through the clouds. Then came the fun part; we rode bikes down the entire volcano. It was quite the ride (with very little pedaling). We rode from over 9,000 ft all the way to the beach at sea level. We did take a break to take some pictures.
After recovering from the early wake-up call, we found a blow hole and some natural pools that the ocean created. These small hikes were the perfect way to spend the afternoon.
Another day, we took the “Road to Hanna.” For those who have never been to Maui, the Road to Hanna is a small road (one-lane at times) to a town called Hanna. There’s nothing special about Hanna, but the road is amazing because you are driving along lush cliffs with waterfalls everywhere and neat places to stop along the way, including Black Sand Beach and Red Sand Beach. At the very end of the road, you are rewarded with swimming in the Seven Sacred Pools. It took us 12 hours to take the road there and back, so it was another tiring day, but definitely worth it. By the end, waterfalls were nothing special.
On Saturday, the boys went scuba diving. We love scuba diving so most of the time we actually plan our vacations around scuba diving. For this set of dives, we dove the back wall of Molokini, a small crater off the coast of Maui. The wall is amazing because it is a shear drop off. This one only drops off 300 ft to the ocean floor, but when visibility is 100 ft, all you see is blackness below. With wall dives, you have to worry about your depth, because there is no ocean floor to stop you from going too deep. It was an amazing dive with beautiful fish and coral. We were lucky to see a 6 ft reef shark as well. The next dive was a shallow dive, but we swam with turtles and a giant eagle ray. Maui is definitely a great place to dive.

After more beach days, the pool and hot tub, and some snorkeling, we finished the trip with zip lines in the mountains of Maui. Our family had done zip lines in Cancun, but they were not near the length of the zip lines in Maui. The longest zip was 1,800 ft long, so over a quarter of a mile. The zip lines went over gullies and some tropical forests. It was gorgeous and the perfect way to finish my time in Maui.