The next day was another early day for us. Our snorkel tour to Molokini. Molokini is a crescent shaped volcano crater off the coast of Maui.
It was a beautiful, calm, sunny day. We were going out with #Trilogy. They run a nice tour on a catamaran. The water at Molokini was super clear. Had a great time snorkeling, although it is a small place to snorkel for the number of people that are there. I managed to get a few pictures under water before my camera froze up on me.
Our second stop for snorkeling was called turtle town. Got to swim with a couple of sea turtles, which was really cool. Trilogy then provided us lunch which was quite good. And of course the mai tais were really great as well. Hawaii is the winter home to the humpback whales. So, we also got to do a little whale watching on our snorkel trip as well. One of the whales was putting on quite a show with all the tail flipping and flipper waving he was doing. Prehaps he was hoping to star in the next version of “Humpback Whale Gets Rowdy” at the Maui aquarium. The wind picked up enough that the crew put up the sails and we were sailing into the harbor for the last part of our tour.
That night we checked out a beach near our hotel and back to Lahaina for some shave ice. No, shave ice is not a snow cone. The snow cone is made from crushed ice and shave ice is shaved from a block of ice. I really prefer the shave ice, especially when you add a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream in the bottom.
Alyssa was flying out the next day and we needed to stay out of the sun. So, we went to the aquarium. The aquarium is listed as a good rainy day activity or if you want to stay out of the sun like us, it’s something to check out.
Will and I then went to check out the Iao Valley State Park. And the site of the Iao Needle. There were limited hiking trails there. Most areas have been closed off, although, if you are into jumping off rocks into a small pool of water this is the place for you. The locals were having a blast. Other than that this would be one park I would skip. Just wasn’t much of anything to do other than to get the iconic photo of the Iao Needle.
We started off the next morning hiking the King’s Highway or the Hoapili trail. This trail is on the south side of Maui and goes across a lava field. You really do need hiking boots to hike this trail. The lava rocks are sharp and the footing is really uneven, especially when led off trail on another WG shortcut. We made it to the black and white sand beach only to discover that it was a little too rough for snorkeling that day. It was still a nice place to rest and cool off and strange to see a beach in the middle of all that lava. Plus we had the beach all to ourselves and it came with full outdoor seating. We found the actual trail on the way back which is very clear cut and easy to follow although still really rough on the feet.
