It was our last full day in this part of the island before moving east to Wailea Beach and our favorite hotel on the island. We didn’t have anything specific to do so after breakfast we headed off to the beach.

Beach Time

I’m not much of a beach person. The sand and sun get to me pretty quickly, and growing up in Maine the water is always brutally cold so I don’t have many positive associations with actually going to the beach, but in Maui, the water is bathwater warm. The sun is brutal, but first thing in the morning it’s bearable for a few hours so we loaded up on some sunblock and headed for the sand!

We started off tossing the Frisbee for a solid 20 minutes. It was windy but the kids are getting much better with their throws. It wasn’t very crowded which was also nice.

The kids decided they wanted to get in the water and use the inflatable rings they had gotten in Kona at the first hotel. They enjoyed riding the waves and seeing how far up on the sand they can get. The waves on the beach at our hotel were not very strong so it was very safe compared to other places we have been, such as the one at the hotel in Los Cabos, Mexico we had visited on our previous trip. That one was unsafe to swim in for even the lifeguards. This was practically a pool in comparison, but every now and then there was a relatively large wave or two that could catch them off guard if they weren’t paying attention.

I waded out to ride the waves and watch them. The water was pleasantly warm. I believe signs at the hotel said the temperature was 79 or 80 degrees so it took no effort to get in. The boys had a blast riding the waves in their tubes. I’m amazed none of them popped!

After about an hour total on the beach, I was feeling the sun and made the kids go in. They were still going strong and decided to continue in the pool, which was sunny but had some shade. My wife was working from the pool so I decided to sneak back to the hotel room to catch up on some blogging.

Lunch at the Mall

I was able to get most of the sand off and recover in the room until the boys finally got tired enough to remember they were hungry. Once they got changed we decided to walk over to the Whalers Village and try out the food court and restaurants there. The restaurants were overpriced and extremely crowded so we headed to the food court. They had a Subway there, but all four other options were more local in flavor which was nice.

After lunch, the kids wanted to play on the play structure nearby. They remembered it from our previous trip two years prior, though they forgot they had grown up in that time. They were too big for it and it wasn’t as exciting as they remembered.

While they played I headed to an ABC Store, which is a common general store/souvenir shop franchise all over the islands. We needed more sunblock since we go through it so quickly. By the time I got back, the kids were ready to go back to the room.

That is, they were ready to go until they spotted a gelato shop! We realized after ordering that it was a different location of the same shop we had gotten gelato in the first night in Lahaina. It was just as good at this location!

Lazy Afternoon

Back at the room, the kids had reached their quota of sun so they watched some TV while my wife took a nap. The boys love the Food Channel shows for some reason. Tomatico loves it for the food, but my youngest who, like me, is a non-foodie, is also a big fan. It must be something about the competition that keeps him interested.

While they watched I headed into Lahaina to pick up our laundry. They had said it would be clean and ready by noon and it was there waiting for us. I paid the bill and had a bag full of cleaned and folded laundry to bring back to the room. The boys were unexpectedly excited to have clean clothes to wear again.

I spend the rest of the afternoon catching up with my work emails making sure nothing had fallen apart too badly in my absence. Luckily they had been able to handle the hiccups that had come up, though it did take all afternoon just to catch up. At least it would give me a lot less to catch up on when I do return for real in a week.

Pizza and a Show?

We decided to head back to Round Table Pizza for dinner again. It was really close by and my wife really enjoyed the veggie pizza. She ordered it for a second time which is something she never does so she must have really liked it. Tomatico wasn’t as excited about the pizza the first time so he ordered a sandwich this time. His eyes lit up with excitement as he bit into his turkey and ranch sandwich so he was sold on the sandwiches there.

Afterward, we debated going into town one last time but there wasn’t much we were interested in doing there that we hadn’t already done. Instead, we played some Frisbee in front of our room until it was getting closer to the time when the person was going to do the ceremonial dive off the cliff.

We all headed down to the beach with the Frisbee in hand, of course, to get a closeup view of the action. In the shade of the cliff, we didn’t have to worry about any more sunburns, either. The person with the torch doing the dive came a little later than we expected but we still got to see it.

After the dive, the kids decided they wanted to go into the water to play in the waves again. They played hard, crashing into the waves at full speed and riding them back to shore. They must have gotten sand in places they didn’t know they had. They also made fast friends with a boy who was playing nearby. They all made up some sort of game to try to see who could ride the waves the farthest.

My wife and I watched and enjoyed the peacefulness. We also saw a lot of sunset sailboats similar to the one we had been on last night, only they were packed shoulder to shoulder with people. They looked a lot less fun than the one we had been on. We really lucked out on the cruise we had taken.

It was getting late and we somehow convinced the boys that it was closing time and they were “turning the ocean off for the night”. Not sure how they believed that for so long, but they didn’t figure it out until we were by the pool. They must have been worn out from battling all those waves!

Back in the room, they cleaned out as much of the sand as they could. They’ll be getting sand out of their hair for weeks, though. Once in bed, we were all out cold almost immediately. Tomorrow we were moving to the other side of the island to our favorite hotel with the added bonus of it being Friday so my wife would be done work for the weekend by noon local time!