Quality Time in the Ocean

Our relatively uneventful days continue in Maui, which is right according to plan. When people asked me about our plans, I explained that New Zealand would be our adventure part and Maui would be our "another Mai Tai please" part. While we haven't loaded up on tropical drinks, we have done a whole lot of relaxing.

On Thursday morning we headed to a beach near our hotel where the snorkeling was supposed to be good. We also read that late in the morning the wind tends to pick up and cloud the water, and we think we were too late because there was a lot of sand washing around and limiting visibility. Still, we snorkeled for a bit more than an hour and saw a bunch of different fish that we normally only get to see inside those big tanks and expensive restaurants or doctors' offices. Even though the conditions were far from ideal, it was still cool enough that we were determined to get out of the hotel earlier so we had more hope of clear water.

Today we got up and out of the hotel considerably earlier and drove down to another highly recommended snorkeling beach. It turned out to be a pretty isolated spot (there were only a couple other people we could see) but when we we got there I discovered that the strap on my rental mask was broken. We decided to enjoy the beach anyway, so I went back to the car to grab the boogie board. We were both surprised at how much fun we had in the surf!

Afterward, we got my mask fixed at the dive shop (we're determined for some good snorkeling tomorrow), got some lunch at a 50s style diner (including a chocolate malt), read and napped a bit in the hotel, went back out for another boogie boarding session (the wind made it too choppy for snorkeling), and went out for dinner. How's that for a sentence?

Another funny note is that this is the first day we've been in Maui that it hasn't rained on us. It's not that we're dodging thunderstorms, but we've been unexpectedly doused several times. After all the unseasonable rain in New Zealand, we're thinking we might have futures as rain bringers for drought-stricken lands!