Maui, Hawaii 2015 – Part 1

Jim & I visited Maui, Hawaii from April 25, 2015 through May 4, 2015.  Together we had over 2,000 photos, which have taken forever to go through, mostly because of an issue I mentioned at the bottom of my last post:  we took photos during our trip with 5 devices: my cell, Jim’s cell, my Nikon DSLR, Jim’s point and shoot, and Jim’s Nikon underwater camera. Our phones were the only devices that automatically changed over to the Hawaii time zone [EST minus 6 hours].

        

My Nikon DSLR [for who knows what reason!] was set to EST minus 40 minutes, so to correct the time stamp on those photos to local Hawaii time I had to subtract 5 hours and 20 minutes.  That was fun to figure out.  Jim’s Nikon underwater camera was set to EST minus 18 hours [WTF?], so to correct the time stamp on those photos to local Hawaii time I had to ADD 12 hours.  Jim’s Olympus point and shoot was the only one displaying the actual time [in EST] so I had so subtract 6 hours to calibrate those photos back to local Hawaii time.  OMG!!!  Thanks to Google I learned that Windows Photo Gallery lets you edit the time stamp on a ton of photos at once – just select the ones you want, go to edit, tell it how many minutes &/or hours to add or subtract, and click OK:

        

So without further ado, here is a recap of our first 3 days in Maui:

Well, the first day doesn’t really count because we spent the entire day getting there.  Darwin helped me finish packing, then it was off to the airport for an 11am flight out of Boston.  We got to Maui at 6:30pm local time [midnight 30, Boston time], just in time to see the sunset from the plane:

       

We spent most of the day super jet-lagged!  And napping.  Although we did find time to marvel at the beauty of Lāhainā:

      

We also did some shopping at our favorite Hawaii convenience store ABC, and grabbed a bite to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise [check out the hat on the woman behind me – gah!]:

        

We also gaped at one of the world’s largest banyan trees [planted in 1873], which was right next to our hotel [all those “other trees” you see?  They’re just root sprouts from the main tree]:

       

We also stared at the majestic beauty of the mountains from our hotel [you can pretty much see them no matter where you are on Maui] and played in the waves at a local beach:

       

All in all, not bad for a very jet-lagged first day in Lāhainā, Maui!

We slept in a bit, then wandered across the street from our hotel and took some shots of the water [you can see the island of Lanai across the water], and some morning surfers:

        

        

Here’s a cool pic of our hotel [The Pioneer Inn] that hubby took from the end of the pier, looking back at it, and a closer pic I took later that afternoon:

       

After breakfast we decided to check out what was supposed to be one of the best snorkeling sites on Maui:  Honolua Bay, about 20 minutes north of Lāhainā [I’ve circled Lāhainā on the map, since that’s where we stayed]. Honolua Bay is just above Kapalua on the map – pretty much the most northwest tip of Maui:

It’s a gorgeous place:

        

I say “supposed to be one of the best snorkeling spots” because it wasn’t.  I guess it’s hit or miss depending on current, water temperature, tide, time of year, etc.  We found it murky, colorless, devoid of most life [except rocks], and boring:

        

But it was still a really cool trip – you have to park on the side of the road then hike about 10 minutes through the jungle [which apparently is private property, but everyone does it, so we did too] to get to the rocky beach.  There were all kinds of birds and things chirping in the jungle, and tons of chickens, baby chicks and roosters everywhere, including all over the beach:

        

       

        

        

        

My mom actually called while we were there, to check in.  Hi Mom!

        

       

After that we went back to our hotel for a late lunch of nachos and fish tacos [well, I had fish tacos, hubby had something vegetarian] – numnumnum!  The hotel restaurant always had good food, great views, and cool ocean breezes:

       

After lunch hubby wanted to check out a beach we could see in the distance from our hotel.  It seemed like an easy enough walk, so we headed up the road.  25 minutes later we finally found the beach, which was down an unmarked side road and next to a crumbling pier:

       

Hubby got these really cool shots with his Olympus point and shoot – it has really cool filter functions:

       

We walked along the beach a ways, but it was pretty overcast, so we decided to head back.  Upon leaving the beach we stumbled upon an open-to-the-public Japanese temple and Buddha!

       

And roosters of course:

The Buddha had impressive offerings [if you zoom in on the little tree you can see all kinds of necklaces made of shells and other trinkets]:

        

The sky kept getting darker and darker:

We got back to the hotel and up to our 2nd floor deck just as the skies opened up:

       

And that’s where we stayed while Lāhainā got hit with a freak storm with tons of rain and wind.  According to the hotel concierge, that just doesn’t happen in Lāhainā!  I’ll end this post with a pic of a very wet Myna bird, and one of the bright, funky public transportation buses complete with pink whale tail:

        

Stay tuned for Part 2!