Our summer trip for 2008 was to Hawaii where we went to check out Oahu and Maui. Once again, we left the 107-degree Dallas heat to find any place cooler. And once again my wife asked me why we live in Dallas. We spent about 10 days seeing two islands and are ready to go back again.
Felicia, Kendra, Susie, Larry, and I flew into Honolulu and arrived about midnight. We spent our first day touring Honolulu including swimming at Waikiki Beach and climbing up to the very top of Diamond Head crater for a good view of Honolulu. We finished off the day at a great seafood restaurant.
Early the next morning we flew to Maui – we were glad to get out of the big city atmosphere of Honolulu. Felicia had found us a condo on the south part of Maui halfway between Kihei and Weilea at a beach called Kama’ole III. We were about 200 feet from the ocean and the condo was well stocked with boogie boards, mats, and chairs for the beach. There was also a nice pool right outside our patio.
Click on any photo to see a larger view
Our first day in Maui was spent swimming at the beach, boogie boarding, snorkeling and ended with a very nice Luau at the Marriott Resort in Wailea. Kendra made some friends and got to hang out with the dancers.
On our second day in Maui, we got an early snorkeling trip out to the crater island of Molokini which is a very popular diving spot because the water is crystal clear – about 150 foot visibility. There are coral reefs and a lot of colorful fish. We had booked a very fast boat and it was a wild ride out and back. The water at Molokini is about 60 feet deep then goes to 300 feet outside of the crater (see pic at right). On our way back we stopped at a place off of Maui and saw three green sea turtles and got to swim with them. By the way, I did not take the pictures of Molokini below, just wanted to show what it looked like. I did take the crummy underwater pics with a $7 disposable camera.
Having always snorkeled off the beach, I was nervous snorkeling in deep water but after Larry jumped in and started, the rest of us had to hop in too. The water was very clear, and we drifted and snorkeled for over an hour – I wore a shirt so my back would not get too sunburned.
See the green sea turtle above. We had some underwater cameras but could not find them when we were looking at turtles.
We went to our beach or other close by beaches every morning and afternoon. Even though it is always warm, the water was colder than I expected. The beaches in Maui were not nearly as crowded as they were in Honolulu, even on the weekend.
