Thursday's Highlights

Thursday meant jumping back into the car and driving down to the Maui Ocean Center. We weren't in too big of a hurry to see giant fish tanks last year, but we decided to add it to our itinerary this year and we had a good time.

It's down the road back Lahaina near Ma'alaea Harbor in Wailuku, which was a nice drive and a test run for where we had to go next week for our cruises with the Pacific Whale Foundation. It is actually a combination of outdoor displays and indoor aquariums, which made for a good mix because it was a little more cloudier than it was earlier in the week.

The main attraction that Cindy wanted to see was the sea turtle exhibit, which was unfortunately under rehabilitation and not fully accessible. They did, however, have their sea turtle "Ku'uipo", in a small tub close by. The tub looked very small compared to the large habitat that was being worked on, but he still seemed to swim around and entertain his visitors.

I got a big kick out of the shark tank in the Open Ocean exhibit. It wasn't just sharks, but sting rays and all sorts of other fish. But back to the sharks, there was one pretty decent sized tiger shark, as well as a few other great white and hammerhead sharks. The were just swimming around and coming right up to the glass. Unfortunately, the lighting was pretty low and not the easiest to take pictures in, but it was cool none-the-less.

After the ocean center, we checked out the shops over near Ma'alaea in the same general area, picked up a few goodies and headed back to Ka'anapali. We stopped over at the Cannery for a few shops and some lunch. Cindy did indeed find a dress she liked, and that part of our trip now has a happy ending. She has yet to decide where or when she'll wear it (knowing very well there won't be too many days left in Chicago to wear it this year), but as soon as she does, I'll have a few pictures to post of her in it.

After that quick stop, we headed back to our hotel to cool off a little bit. Cindy had another craving for the Mocha Espresso drink over at Haagen-Dazs, so we went off to Whalers to get her fix. While we were there, we spent almost an hour at Na Hoku looking at jewelery. Cindy found a new anklet (another one of her missions for our vacation) and it's white gold with a honu (sea turtle) on it. That took all of about 20 minutes, and the rest of the time we spent looking for a ring for me. I have had my eyes out for something either silver or white gold with a streak of black (onyx or something) in it, but had no luck. No biggie.

With it almost time for dinner, we made the walk back to our hotel and grabbed a bite (literally a bite) to eat over at the Lagoon Bar at the Sheraton. I say just a bite because the waiter misunderstood our order, so instead of us each getting a cheeseburger, we both got half of one. Oh well.

Dinner ended with the Black Rock cliff dive again, this time Cindy was taking her shoot at the video camera. I had the wrong lens on my Canon, so I didn't have much luck either, but it was still a nice night. We spent time on the beach afterwards and watch some of the stars and the first sliver of moon come out in the sky before calling it a day.