Monday in Maui

Monday was our first full day in Maui this year, and it was great.

We didn't quite hit the beach first thing Monday morning, however, it was a rather productive day. We had breakfast down at the hotel restaurant, Keka'a Terrace, which was a buffet style that was included in our vacation package.

After breakfast, we headed out towards Whalers Village, mainly to hit the ABC Store and get a few things we didn't get at Safeway the night before. We didn't spend too much time shopping, knowing that we'll be back there more than a dozen times over the next two weeks. I also had to stop at Ritz and pick up a new polarizer for my Canon SLR since I left mine at home (d'oh). All these beautiful colors, the blues and greens, the flowers, the clounds, all get lost in my pictures without a polarizer, so it'd definitely worth it.

After Whalers, we headed out further south to the Westin, where Cindy made reservations for a massage and a facial. Actually, she's there right now. It looks like a beautiful hotel with a large pond area and waterfalls near their pools. I took a few pictures while we were over there and will post those soon. If it wasn't for the fact that the hotel was stuck in between two other resorts, it might be worth a visit some day. That's one of the things we love about the Sheraton is that it's the last one north on the beach, only sharing the land on one side.

After the Westin, we headed back to the room and cooled off on our fourth floor balcony, watching the clouds float gently over Moloka'i. For the most part, we have pretty much the same view from our room as we did last year. But even though we're only six rooms down this year, being closer to the reefs near Black Rock offered up a view of something we didn't see last year ... sea turtles.

We had overheard someone at breakfast talking to one of the wait staff about them, and we just had to scope them out for ourselves. Sure enough, we walked out to our balcony and there they were, swimming with the snorkelers and bobbing their head up above water every now and then. This morning I got to use my telephoto lens and got some great closeups. Zooming in with Photoshop, you can even see one of the turtle's entire head above water, eyes mouth and everything. Those will be posted soon as well.

Back to yesterday, we drove down to Lahaina and walked around Front St. looking for another dress like the one Cindy bought last year. We didn't find anything yet, but we still have plenty of places and time to find something. While in Lahaina, we stopped back at Cheeseburger in Paradise for dinner like we did last year. Burgers and views of the ocean out at Lahaina Harbor, what more could you ask for?

We finished the night off back at Ka'anapali Beach, taking in the sunset and the Black Rock Cliff Dive Ceremony. This year, we brought our new video camera and I can't wait to get some of that footage online. Seeing that it's a nightly event, though, I'm planning on getting more shots from different views and angles.

After the ceremony, we hung out on the beach until the stars began to fill the sky, still one of my favorite things about being here. We walked around the beach a little bit and let the ocean waves bring the water up to our feet before heading back to our room for the night.

Even from our balcony the stars were incredible, and I realized the main different this year from our balcony was that there is not a full moon like our trip last year. I tried set up my camera to get some of those night shots of the stars, but had no luck thus far. I was able to get a few good shots last year, so I think I'm just rusty.

That pretty much wraps up Monday, and once I can get some of those photos and videos up on the site, I'll add a few links.

Aloha.