PWF Whale Regatta Race '09

Get Your Whales Ready

It's just about that time of year again when the Pacific Whale Foundation is preparing for their annual Whale Regatta race to take place during their annual Whale Celebration Day, which will be held on Saturday, February 19th, 2009.

It is a Maui spin off of the familiar ducky races that they have in various cities (including here in Chicago), but instead they use little rubber whales, darn cute ones I might add. There is no cost to enter, although they to suggest a $5 donation per whale. Last year, our little entourage of 10 whales didn't take home any prizes, but this year, we'll be there on Maui to cheer them on in person.

This year's prize is round trip airfare to Maui from any major US city, and at the rate things are going with the airlines, that's quite a big deal. You don't have to be present to win, but in reality, just being there is just as good as winning anyway.

You can find more details about the race and how to enter at pacificwhale.org, and if haven't looked into their annual memberships, be sure to check it out. We've been members for about 3 years now, and visiting their store in Lahaina, talking with their staff and going on their boat tours, they are truly a great group of folks doing a lot of great things not only for the whales, but the environment, the communitity and childhood education in the islands.

Mahalo, and good luck.

Whales on Parade

Aloha Maui Fans.

So okay, the quality of this video I uploaded to YouTube isn't the greatest. It doesn't look as bad on my PC, so I just need to consult a few folks when I get home on what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway, this was shot from the lanai of our room at the Sheraton. It was shot on Saturday, April 19th, which is technically 4 days after the official end of whale watching season (according to the Pacific Whale Foundation). Apparently, no one told this group of whales.



To set the scene a little bit, there were about 3 or 4 sail boats out on the water, including the Teralani 3, Kapulua Kai and the Trilogy VI. They were sailing around in the area, chasing individual whales here and there. All of a sudden, a group of four whales (possibly three adults and one calf) emerged and starting heading north from Black Rock (left to right from our view on the lanai). They all starting swimming in one direction as a pack, taking turns rising up to the surface of the water and blowing water from their spouts.

About 2:30 minutes into the video, two of them simultaneously raise up with their flukes (aka tales) and dive into the water. It was truly amazing.

I took a boat load of photos, too, which I'll go through later in the week or next, as well as one or two other videos. For all the activity we've seen here in mid-April, we can't wait for what we'll see on our next trip in February.

Slow Saturday? Not Any More

Sorry to sound like a broken record here, but no sooner did I power up my Dell laptop to post about how quiet and peaceful today has been did a group of three whales start leading a parade of boats straight across the entire view from our lanai. I'm starting to feel like a whale paparazzi.




Wow, sorry, I had to stop yet again. Between my camera with the telephoto lens, my video camera and my binoculars, I might as well grow two more pairs of arms. Really, we thought this was the end of whale watching season. I'll have to go back to the wifi spot and upload this latest video I just shot to YouTube. Amazing.

Back to the plans that we didn't have for today. I woke up around 6am just because I couldn't sleep any more, and started going over some of the photos and video so far. Cindy woke up around 9am, at which point we turned on the TV and watched a little playoff hockey on NBC. It was only the last half of the third period, and Philadelphia couldn't overcome a Washington lead, so they're going to a game six in Philly. Tomorrow morning is Nashville and Detroit I believe, 3pm ET start, 9am HST. I love watching hockey in Hawaii.

Cindy and I walked down to the Westin this morning so she could book her spa day for Monday. She's getting a full 50 minute massage this year, so I think I'll have to carry her back after that one. Next it was on to lunch, where we just drove a little north of Ka'anapali and grabbed sandwiches from Subway. There were no tables left to eat, so we kept driving north looking for a beach park with picnic tables. We found Pohaku Park just near Kahana and had a windy bite there. After holding on to our napkins, we stayed and watch one lonely whale swim on by and about 4 turtles in the area.

Coming back to our room to figure out dinner before tonight's Hapa concert at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Cindy went out down by the pool to read and missed the view I had of the whales (described at the top of the post). She said she had a nice view from the beach, but she's looking at the video now and I'm sure she'll see my view was better.

We'll, getting ready to head out to Kahului in a little bit to go see the Hapa concert. What a day!!!

Aloha Friday from Maui

Alooooooooooooooooooooooha.

For a Friday in which we didn't plan anything, it's sure been a good day. We blew off breakfast (again) and slept in a little bit. Today was going to be about sitting out by the pool and catching some rays, and that's what we did. We enjoyed some cool pineapple wedges followed by some not-the-healthiest nachos for a lunchtime snack. We spent a good two hours down by the pool while I was catching up on some reading for my photography class.

Back at the room to cool off, what else did we see from our lanai? None other then more whales swimming out near the surface. Grabbing the binoculars again, we saw what looked like a mother whale with her calf, both slapping their fins in the water, and in some cases, at the same time. Maybe it was a swimming lesson of sorts. Either way, it was still a sight and is definitely not getting old.

Everyone's finishing getting ready now, and Cindy is writing up postcards for our family and friends, most of which don't follow this blog anyway (they don't know what they're missing). We have to make a stop to Whalers today so Cindy and mom can bring their rings in for inspection and then can start wearing them for the rest of the trip. Then it's off to Lahaina for dinner. We're thinking of going to BJ's for pizza, but nothing is really final yet.

As you can probably tell from the posts so far on this trip, everything is absolutely wonderful and just what we remember from our past trips. Steve (my boss) if you happen to be reading this, we definitely need to start talking about a telecommuting plan. Maybe one month intervals to start. :)

Our weekend plans look wide open at this point, and Saturday night is HAPA!!!! That, without a doubt, is going to be the ultimate highlight of this trip. Seeing that everything is been so perfect thus far, it says a lot.

Aloha and Mahalo.

Whale of a Birthday

Aloha Kakahiaka,




Looking back at what I had written would be my perfect Maui birthday, things didn't work out exactly as we had planned. Not to worry, though, it was still a wonderful day and any birthday here on the islands beats a birthday back home.

We were all excited about the whale watch tour during the morning, as we had seen a few sightings from our lanai as I posted earlier. Going out on the water to get even closer was going to be even more exciting. And it was. The narrator on the tour said that Tuesday was the last official day of whale watching season in Hawaii, yet we still found quite a bit of activity. Much like us and other annual guests, they try to stay as long as they can, too.

The first sighting that we saw on the boat was probably the most thrilling. Not more than 10 minutes in, we found a mother whale swimming with her calf. As the boat engine stopped and we watched for a little bit, the naturist on the boat also spotted a male escort whale nearby as well, which we were told doesn't happen a lot either. I tried snapping a few good photos and will be looking through them and post the best ones.

We moved on with the tour, finding a few more whales here and there, closer to Molokai. It was about a 2 hour tour, though, about 90 minutes in we all started to get a little uneasy with the motion of the boat and had to retreat into the cabin. Cindy and I have taken boat tours in Maui before and only had mild discomfort near the ends of them. But this time it was much worse. Unfortunately, we decided to cancel our other two cruises while we're here, which does free up time to do other things, though.

Even though the end of the whale watch wasn't great for us, it was still an amazing sight to see and a great memory for our trip. We'd absolutely love to do it again, but we just need to figure out a way to beat the motion sickness piece. Since we're planning to come back in February for just that purpose, we've got sometime to research and maybe practice back out on Lake Michigan.

After the whale watch, we stayed in Lahaina a little bit, hit Quizno's and Starbucks for lunch. After sandwiches, we walked over to Hilo Hattie for some serious gift shopping. Cindy and mom pretty much crossed off everyone on their list, and I picked up a kukui nut necklace to go with my aloha shirt for the luau next week. We killed about an hour there before heading back to our room for a little bit.

Cindy crashed for about an hour before we headed out to Whalers for the rest of our evening. The original plan was to eat at Leilani's for my birthday and celebrate it with a giant piece of hula pie. However, the timing didn't work out so well since we ate in Lahaina, so we moved that back to Thursday. I did get to eat my favorite Hawaiian pizza for dinner, though, which was still a nice treat. Cindy and mom also got to stop by the Pearl Factory to pick out their pearls and make their rings. We have to bring them back on Friday to be inspected and then they can start wearing them. Now they have something else to remember this trip by.

Around 6:30pm, we started towards the Hyatt for our Tour of the Stars activity there. When we checked in with the concierge, he mentioned that two of the viewings the night before were canceled because of the clouds, and it started to look like ours was going to be, too. Turns out it did end up being canceled, and we're going to try again next Tuesday.

All in all it was still a magical day, and funny as it sounds, it didn't really feel like my birthday at all. Being here on Maui to celebrate was more than I could have asked for anyway, so if things didn't turn out as planned, it still was perfect.

Our First Whale Sighting

Today wasn't even supposed to be that eventful, than just after breakfast, we went out on the lanai to watch for turtles and then, faintly out in the distance, something caught our eye. Just barely sticking out of the water north of Black Rock and a good ways out from the beach, we saw what we thought was our first whale.

I ran inside and grabbed my binoculars, and sure enough, it was a whale. It totally caught us by surprise because we thought we'd only see a handful on our whale cruise Wednesday and that would be far out of the harbor. It wasn't a giant breach or a 12 foot spout of water like you see in photographs, but it was still a thrill.

We went took another look after we went shopping at Safeway, and we saw a little spout activity. In fact, we think we saw one adult whale and one calf swimming together, which was awesome. The sad part was that while we could see them perfectly with our binoculars, they were too far out to get any good shots with my telephoto lens. Hopefully that will change on Wednesday's cruise.

Best Monday ever. :)

Maui '08 Trip Update - Tour Bookings

Well, we're under the two week mark for our upcoming trip, so I thought I'd post a few notes on what we've booked so far.

Boats and Cruises
This is our second year as members of the Pacific Whale Foundation and we are certainly taking advantage of the discounts. We have 3 tours booked with PWF this trip.

4/16/08 - Our first cruise will be a whale watch excursion our of Lahaina. We're well aware that it's almost the end of the whale season, and we don't have too high of hopes of being blown away by an up close encounter, but it will still be fun. After all, that's what telephoto lenses are for.

For the full whale experience, we're going back in Feb '09, right at the height of whale season in Maui.

4/20/08 - Sunday nights in Maui for us mean a dinner cruise, so that's what we have in store this time. This was the same dinner cruise that we booked last year, but because the ship went in for maintenance, we missed out. We hope to have better luck this year.

4/24/08 - Perhaps the saddest of our Maui trip traditions (only because of the timing) is our final night on the island. We reserve that for one last spectacular Maui sunset aboard a sunset cocktail cruise. As much as we don't want to leave, it is perhaps the closest things to a perfect end of a perfect vacation.

Back to Hana
4/15/08 - Since we are bringing along my mother for this trip, we figured it was time to go back to Hana and give her the total island experience. It is also another chance for me to fill up my memory cards with the stunning views of this magical journey. In fact, with the fun that I had creating this photo tour for the Ka'anapali Beachwalk, using my handy GPS travel recorder, doing the same for the magnificent Road to Hana should be even better.

Unfortunately, its no real secret that gas prices on Maui are hurting folks just like the rest of the country (the highest in the country by some reports). On that note, it appears that Roberts Hawaii had to pass some of that onto their guests. When doing the price comparisons for the trip, Roberts was almost twice as much this year for the same tour we did with them two years ago. Its a shame, because we really like them.

This time, we decided to go with Discover Hawaii Tours. It appears to be a bigger tour with more riders than Roberts, which is probably what helps to keep the price down. There are a few nice perks with this tour, but I'll save those specifics until after the tour.

Stars at Night
4/16/08 - After we were blown away by the stars over Maui last year, we couldn't help but to get closer. This year, we booked a Tour of the Stars at the Hyatt Maui Regency. It's a chance to tour the skies with the help of a professional astronomer and their powerful rooftop telescope. In fact, I couldn't wait, and bought myself a pair of Celestron binoculars for the trip.

Live Music
4/19/08 - Now, for the crown jewel of our trip, if there could ever be one. Reserved back in January, we were overjoyed to hear that HAPA was performing at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center while we were going to be on the island. Its going to be incredible.


As if all of this wasn't enough, we still have quite a few more things planned. We'll save that for another post, and we're certainly going to have quite a bit to blog about once we get back.

Mahalo.

My Perfect Maui Birthday

As I've posted previously, we're headed back to Maui this April and we'll be on our favorite island for my birthday (on the 16th). While it's still a ways away (77 days to be exact, but who's counting) I can't help but think what my perfect Maui birthday would be like.

We're still in the planning stages for booking all of our activities this trip (likely starting the end of February), but here's a little glimpse of what I would dream of.

1. Watch the Sunrise - Maybe not all the way up top at Haleakala this year, but definitely be out on the beach or somewhere to catch the sun greet me on the anniversary of my birth. Staying in West Maui, it might be a little tricky with the west mountains, but I think I could manage.

2. Whale Watching Tour - When it comes to watching the whales in Maui, April is getting a little late in the season. However, part of my perfect birthday would be heading out on a boat with the Pacific Whale Foundation, of which we are members, and hearing them sing Happy Birthday for me. Okay, maybe not singing a birthday greeting, but being up close enough to get just a few great photos and some memorable video would be just amazing.

3. Relaxing by the Pool - Why the pool when Ka'anapali Beach is right there? Just a little slower pace, and being able to order pineapple wedges and spiked lemonade which listening to HAPA on my iPod and reading whatever book I end up bringing with on the trip (probably something techie). I bust my hump 50 weeks of the year, so it'd feel nice to take it easy and try not feel too much older than I really am.

4. Dinner at Leilani's - While Cheeseburger in Paradise is hands down our favorite place to eat on Maui, we always reserve that for our first full day of a trip. Seeing that would be Monday this trip and my birthday will be that Wednesday, you get the idea. Besides, what better birthday cake could you want other than a slice of Hula Pie while watching the sunset over the horizon between Lanai and Molokai. I get chicken skin (pidgin for goose bumps) just thinking about it.

5. Touring the Stars - Most people would consider a gorgeous Maui sunset the perfect end to an evening, with perhaps the quiet stroll down the beach afterwards. We'll, it's my birthday and I want to stay up past my bedtime. After falling in love with stargazing on Maui during our first trip, it's been a big part of our trips ever since. Why not make this one even more special by having a guided tour of the stars, from the resident astronomer at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort. Their nightly Tour of the Stars sounds like the perfect way to enjoy the heavens above and create memories that will be the envy of birthdays for years to come. Besides, what better way to feel younger on your birthday than by watching stars that are billions of years old. :)

So that would be my perfect birthday on Maui. In all honesty, just being on the Valley Isle for my birthday is more than perfect enough. Having the chance to do just two of these things would be absolutely incredible. Getting to do all five would be truly unforgettable.

Bring on the Whales

While our first "whale" trip isn't planned until February of 2009, we saws this from Maui News and thought it was worth a post.

It looks like the first whale sighting of the season was reported over the weekend out in the waters between the island of Lanai and the town of Lahaina on Maui. The article reports that it's not uncommon to see the first whales in October, but it's more common to see them in November instead. I guess just like all of us, the whales can't wait to get back to Maui, either. :)