Eric Designs Jewelry

First, there is no day 1, because we spent all day either in the airport or on an airplane.  American Airlines lost our bag of toiletries.  No big deal, we have everything we really need, swimsuits, sandals, and snorkel gear.  We’ll just be stinky!  Then from Honolulu to Kuhului, Go airlines lost our snorkel gear.  That one hurt.

One good thing happened first thing Monday morning. There were two Marines on our flight from Tulsa to Dallas.  One arrived at the gate early enough to be bumped up to first class. The second was so lucky.  The last first class seat had just been claimed.  That’s when Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn stepped forward and gave his first class ticket to the young Marine, shook his hand and thanked him for his service to our country.

Zac and I had an early morning trip planned for Molokini.  For some unknow reason I thought the harbor was south of Kihei instead of west.  We arrived just in time to wave to the departing boat. 

So we made the best of it and had breakfast.  Zac had a sausage biscuit with egg and cheese.  I had a Maui Breeze smoothie (lilikoi, mangoes, and strawberries).  It was awesome. Then we headed to Wailuku for some Malasadas. We finally found them at the Four Sisters Bakery. We didn’t see any sisters, just a couple of brothers.

Next we headed back to the hotel to see if any of our bags arrived.  No bags, but we did get a phone call confirming we were on the afternoon excursion to Molokini.  We walked across the street to Charlie Young beach and did a little body surfing. That was a ton of fun for the hour and a half we were there.  We rode four or five really big waves all the way to the beach. 

On our way to Ma’alaea, where the boat was, we once again checked with the office to see it maybe the snorkel gear showed up.  It was still AWOL, but our toiletry bag had been found.  At least we had some sun screen now.

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the Ma’alaea shopping.  I forget the name.  The food was decent, but pricey.  What are you going to do?  It’s Maui and you’re on vacation.  Even a burger from MacDonald’s is more expensive.  Just don’t tell Papa Joe.  He’s not up for all this Haolie food.

This time we made it to the boat on time. Four Winds II took us to Molokini for some snorkeling. On the way to Molokini there were lots of announcements about photos and videos, plus all the required safety lectures.  Captian Dan (anyone thinking Bubba Gump?) mentioned the life rafts atop the vessel would automatically float off the boat in an emergency, though they had never faced that scenario.  Later I asked Captian Dan since we were on the Four Winds II (two) what happened to the first boat.  He said it had been donated to the University of Hawaii.

The snorkeling at Molokini was decent.  It certainly wasn’t great.  Visibility was at 150 feet. Plus this trip had half the snorkelers as the morning trip.  Once you are there, Molokini isn’t as big as it looks.  I would say that 80% of the fish we saw were the Hawaiian Black Trigger fish.  We saw a Snowflake Moray Eel, two small octopi, various butterfly fish, surgeonfish, parrot fish, and the humuhumunukunukuapua’a.

When we arrived back at the hotel, our second bag had arrived. So we have our snorkel gear and we may not use it until we head to Kaua’i on Saturday.  We’re still adjusting to the time change, so a nap was in order. The sunset out our lanai was gorgeous.  Tomorrow we plan on seeing the sunset from Haleakala crater. So no Maui beach sunset photos on this trip.