We spent 3 of our mornings in Maui diving with Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures since we had a great time with them last year. It was only 8 dives, but still, they were good ones, especially the plane wreck, boat wreck, and the amphibious vehicle wreck.
You can see many more pictures of our Maui Trip here.
This was the first day, including a wreck dive:
Molokini
Second day:
nice frogfish
wrecked plane
grr...
Third day:
Molokini Birds
Molokini Birds
amphibious vehicle
we finally found an octopus
once it's found, it sticks to you for protection from other predators
(If you do not see any track on the map, click on '07 Day 05: Maui Flight' in the upper right corner twice).
As part of our vacation in Maui, I figured a good way to have another view of everything we visited, and a peek at what we couldn't visit like the neighbouring islands). It was nice to see the coastlines we had driven on, and especially the long sliding sands trail that we didn't hike all the way to the end :)
You can see many more pictures of our Maui Trip here.
Just like Hawaii last year, it made sense to rent a plane with a CFI and just do the scenic flight without the need to be checked out. On Maui, Maui Aviators was the place to go for renting a GA aircraft with a CFI if you don't get checked out. At a few times, it was also nice to hand out the controls to the CFI and let him fly while I was too busy taking pictures of a waterfall while we were in a steep turn close to the rocks :)
The flight started with the north of Maui, and its crappy one lane dirt road :)
the 'fun' one lane dirt road full of blind turns portion of Hwy 340
We then flew towards Molokai Island:
Molokai waterfalls
Molokai's Kalaupapa Airport
Molokai Leper Colony
Molokai Airport
Molokai reef
After that, we headed for the coast of Lanai:
The non pretty side of Lanai
Before heading back towards the main island of Maui on the Lahaina side:
Lahaina
Jet Skis
and transitionned to the other half of Maui, starting with the Kihei coast:
North Kihei
South Kihei
Kamaole Beach Park
South Kihei Boat Ramp we go diving from
Wailea
Wailea
Makena
Little Beach, just north of Big Beach
Big Beach
We then did a little side step to Molokini which has such incredibly clear waters and good diving:
Molokini
and back to South Maui:
Big Beach
The other 'fun' dirt road, south Maui. At least this one is a 2 way road
We then 'climbed' to the top Haleakala a bit quicker than it takes to drive and hike :) and had a look at
The observatories at the top of Haleakala
Sliding Sands Trail
The Pu'uo we spent 1H to hike down to
The ambitious hiker can actually hike all the way down to the beach from 10,000ft
After that, we flew from South Maui (through the seven sacred pools), to West Maui/Hana, and Hana Airport (including the trike from Hand Gliding Maui), and back to Kahului:
yes, they have nice waterfalls
The big waterfall is the end of Pipiwai trail
Seven Sacred Pools
Hamoa Beach south of Hana
Hana's Red Sand Beach
Luana Spa where we stayed in Hana
Hana Airport with its Hand Gliding Trike Base
The Winding Road to Hana
More Wining Road to Hana
Back to Kahului Airport
The flight was just around 3H, a good way to see Maui and the nearby islands.
If you wish, here is a link to a big georeferenced map of the Maui Flight (you can turn on display of other gps tracks by clicking on their name in the upper right corner twice).
Last year, we took a nice honeymoon in Hawaii, it was our first time there. Back then, we only had a week in Maui and went through some of Maui a bit quickly, and definitely missed some parts :)
Our first anniversary celebration was a chance to try this again and explore what we missed last year.
After the late lunch, we did the road to Hana. Google maps was very optimistic about the road to Hana, 1:09 is a bit fast, even for me :)
Garmin was more realistic with 03:11.
We stopped by the Garden of Eden and did the nearby hike around the waterfall, which got us back into the park from the side. The peacocks and especially the duck were very friendly if you had food :)
1H09, maybe if I floor it with no one on the road :)
waterfall trail by the garden of eden
By the time we got to Hana, it was of course raining
The next morning, we went to Hahanu Gardens, with the great opening hours of 10:00 to 14:00 M-F. Despite the hours and resulting difficulty to visit or to even find at the end of an unpaved road, it was worth it.
there were lots of dead lobsters that got washed on the 'beach'. Too bad none were fresh :)
We then went on our way to the seven sacred pools, which were closed due to water contamination (someone with HepC cut themselves and put blood in the water, it takes a while to flush). That said, it wasn't a biggie, we had already been in the pools last year and instead we used the opportunity for a nice quiet picnic by the water that no one was in :)
Then, we finally went for the entire Pipiwai trail with its very nice waterfall at the end
We then finished the loop around South Maui and made it to the Tedeschi Winery in 1h20, which I'm told is a good time for that road :) We made it to the Winery just in time to visit it before they closed :)
nice roads :)
they also have nets to catch fallings rocks, which is good (the north west side is missing those)
fun 'straight' road
we were able to see Molokini from the road
and we then finished the evening Upcountry Bed and Breakfast for a nice sunset in a jaccuzi :)
Then, was time for our hike on Sliding Sands trail. Everyone made a big deal on how it was a tough hike, but we hiked a sustained 2.2mph on the way down and up (actually speed was almost just as fast on the way up). We were up and down in 2H, including some stops for pictures.
It was actually a nice easy hike:
After the hike, we stuck around to watch the sunset, since we had done sunrise the previous year. What was interesting was that we were actually sitting on top of a rainstorm which I drove back down to after the sunset.
By then, we had moved our base back to Kihei, where Jennifer found a nice condo just by the diving boat ramp. Jennifer was very happy with the kitchen :)
The next day, we had a dive-free day we used to go visit the south side of the Island on the Kihei side, aka the end of the road on that side of the island, a mere 5 miles from the higher up road going to Upcountry. Too bad the old makena road linking the two was closed to the public years ago after some idiots had an accident and sued the land owners (die in hell, idiots!).
Anyway, going to the end of that road to hike to the south side of the Island from La Pérouse Bay, was fun.
lava rocks
this looked like a water pipe going to a few houses, apparently it wasn't worth digging the conduits in :)
The next morning, our last day, we went to Kaanapali to try their ziplines. While they are overpriced in my opinion, they were quite fun.
A couple of videos:
Maui North West Loop: Blowhole and Olivine Pools
And to finish the day, and our trip, we did the north west loop that Jennifer wasn't feeling too well for last year: the blowhole, and olivine pools with lovely 5mph one lane road at the end.
the road is nice at the beginning :)
the blowhole
and the Olivine Pools
full of life
After that, was the 5mph one lane road full of blind turns back to Kahului. Thankfully everyone we caught up with was nice enough to pull over and let us pass: my strategy was to gun it in the straights and be very careful on the blind turns. This got us out of it in record time.
The next morning, we were on a plane back to SJC (flight time was a mere 4.5H thanks to a nice tailwind).
If you wish, here is a link to a big georeferenced map of our Maui trip.
