Maui Day 7: Snorkeling, Luau

Tuesday morning after watching the sunrise, we headed up to Kapalua Bay for some snorkeling. It was a bit of a wet morning and it was raining a fair bit of the time that we were in the water. However, we still enjoyed ourselves and saw a lot of cool fish. The visibility was really good.

A humuhumunukunukuapuaa. We saw lots of these wherever we snorkeled.

A cool fish we saw pretty much everywhere. It was a bit iridescent.

More fish!

Super colorful fish on the left side of the picture.

More fish!

One thing we hadn't seen so far while snorkeling was a sea turtle. We'd seen one from the boat on the way back from Lanai, but I'd been hoping to swim with them. So we headed to Honokeana Cove where I'd read that there were often a lot of sea turtles. Boy were they right! It was a bit of a hike over rough terrain but it was totally worth it. When we turned the corner and saw the cove, we immediately saw a sea turtle surfacing to breath. And then we saw another one. We got in the water, which was a bit rough as we got tossed around by the surf. However, it was amazing snorkeling! The water was calm and clear, the coral very healthy and colorful, lots of fish and lots of turtles! Some were resting on the bottom while others were swimming around. Some were little and some were big. Some swam super close to us. We could have touched them if we wanted (but you're not supposed to as they are a protected species). It was a really neat experience! Definitely a "Wow!" moment. And so I'm including quite a few pictures (although not anywhere near all of the pictures that we took).

This is one of the first turtles we saw. It was resting under a rocky ledge.

Here's a turtle swimming by.

A turtle diving down.

A turtle swimming up in the foreground and another one in the background.

Just swimming around.

This turtle had a bunch of cleaner fish on its shell.

These rest of these pictures except for the last one were not cropped--the turtles really were that close to us!

We saw this turtle swim up from the bottom, take a few breaths and then swim back down.

This picture, which is cropped, shows the same turtle settling back down under a ledge at the bottom on the shot. There's another turtle at the top of the picture.

After our amazing snorkeling trip, we ate breakfast, showered and made leis at Whaler's Village. U made a beautiful yellow and pink one for me and I made a yellow one for him. As soon as U was done with his, he placed it on me. The people showing us how to make the leis were impressed that he knew to do that--they have to tell most people to give their lei to someone else. All his Hawaiian training was good for something :)

We then went to the Old Lahaina Luau where we received a very beautiful purple lei. There were a bunch of different activities that we were able to do. For example, we played a lawn game where you try to roll a wood disk through two posts, and I succeeded! We ate freshly grated coconut and tasted pounded taro root.

The musicians.

The grounds where the luau is held are beautiful!

Me learning the hula. It can be tough!

The oven where our pig was cooked.

Unearthing it.

Dinner!

For dinner and the show we were at a table with a couple of ladies from Australia, a couple from Paris and a couple from Vegas. This is Francy with a quokka from Australia. The quokka went scuba diving at Molokini that morning and was still wet. It has been all over the world with its owner. We thought it was pretty funny that two of the groups of adults at our table had stuffed animals with them.

A few pictures from the show.

With a couple of the dancers on our way out.

Highlight of the day:
Both: snorkeling with sea turtles and luau