Maui (Day 3)

Saturday, March 16: Scuba #1, Shopping, Kihei Trail
More outdoor Zumba and indoor yoga for me this morning plus a quick jump in the pool to cool off. We had a light snack of fruit from ABC and then set off on foot along the Beach Walk north to meet up with Banyan Tree Divers for our 9am beginner scuba dive. Our instructor and guide, Kevin, gathered the small group of five under a tree in the parking lot for a safety briefing and basic overview of all the equipment. We did some dry land skills practice and then got suited up in all of our gear. Our fellow divers included a dad (certified PADI) and daughter (dive #8) duo and a solo woman (first-timer). For Mr. E and me, this was dive #3, after the first two in Oahu about a year ago.

This time around, we entered directly from the beach rather than getting on a boat to go out to the reef dive site, as we had done in Oahu. The beach and park area used to be the site of the Ka'anapali airport! Hard to read the plaque on the rock in the picture below, but it describes the former airport.

In the water, we did some more skills drills while bobbing around on the surface, and then Kevin took us down to the sandy floor in small groups, checking in with everyone along the way. I had to take some time to equalize the ear pressure but finally landed on the bottom with everyone else, where we did a final round of skills drills before setting off to explore the reef.

Kevin led us around for about 45 minutes, and we saw lots of colorful fish and pretty coral but no honu. Darn. We still enjoyed the experience, but I was cold from the moment we entered the water, despite my long-sleeved rash guard and full-length wet suit.

Since I was so chilled, we decided not to join the others for a second dive at a different site and instead just shed our gear, purchased the photo package and a logo tank for me, and walked back to the hotel. I finally warmed up along the way!

We were both hungry as it was past noon by the time we showered and changed (we hadn't anticipated that the dive would last so long!), so we strolled over to the beachside Hula Grill for lunch and did some more shopping at Whaler's Village. Mr. E bought a hat for himself and a beautiful honu necklace for me, and I also enjoyed some fro-yo.

Once we dropped off our purchases back in our room, we fetched the car and headed south to Kihei, where we finally managed to find the northern end of the Kihei Coastal Trail after a few wrong turns. We walked along the cliff tops and saw lots and lots of honu in several of the coves as well as two honu snoozing in a small beach area. The path ended near some hotels, where someone had clearly had some fun for St. Patrick's Day. As we retraced our steps back to the car, we found a white rock "graffiti" that Mr. E altered slightly for us.

We hit some major rush hour traffic near Lahaina on the way back to Ka'anapali. Yuck! Once we got back to the hotel, Mr. E went off to get dinner from Joey's Kitchen again while I picked up some postcards and souvenirs at Lamont's and tested out the card from Vacation Services to see if we'd won resort credit or extra SPG points. Nope. So just dinner and drinks in the room and then bedtime.