Hawaiian Family Vacation Day 2

Date: February 19th

After wishing my wife a splendid birthday, Mattix, the birthday-girl, and I decided to head down to check out the nearby beach. We let Princess Charlie sleep in. As we walked through the park, we passed our homeless friends. One of them was still sleeping in her hammock.

The cool, powder-soft sand felt great squishing under our feet. There was a small peninsula of black lava rocks to our right with a few tide pools and we kept seeing sea turtles poking their heads out of the water nearby. After about 10 minutes of joyously pointing out where we saw them, we decided to head back and grab the snorkeling gear to get a closer look.

The water was pretty cold, so we excitedly, but slowly submerged ourselves into the seawater. It didn’t take long for our bodies to adjust to the new temperature, and the coral teaming with fish made me forget that I was even remotely uncomfortable. The coral and rocks made a perfect home for all of the sea life. We saw two big turtles having a vegetation breakfast near each other, and a small one swimming out to sea. I was elated to be able to see the whole turtle instead of just a head peeking out of the water.

Mattix saw an eel, and he and I both saw what I thought was a small blowfish but was actually a pufferfish. Later, when I saw a bigger one, I tried to scare it into puffing out, but my weird noises didn’t phase the cute little guy. Charlie found her way to the beach after about ten minutes and hung out on the land with mom while Mattix and I continued to explore the shoreline from the water. The ladies went snorkeling for a bit after Mattix and I got out. We only had two full-face snorkels, and one traditional set, so we couldn’t all go at once. My mask kept taking on water, so I continuously had to surface to dump it out, but it didn’t have any effect on how much fun I was having. Something I didn’t know until I rewatched the footage is you can hear whales singing at times in the video. At the end of the video on this page, I stopped the music in an attempt to allow you to hear them at bit.

I probably could have snorkeled all day, but after around 45 minutes or so, we headed back to homebase and got ready to go to the Artisan and Farmers Market at the South Maui Gardens. The grounds were beautiful with tropical plants scattered around, various Buddha statues and fountains, and gravel walkways. Mattix and I sought out their resident tortoise, Dozer. He wasn’t very lively, but what tortoise is? We read about the rough life he experienced and how Lahaina Bird Stand has devoted time and effort to taking care of him now. Read more on Dozer here.

There are also a dozen or more food trucks at the Gardens, so we got the kids acai bowls and Jill and I grabbed some coffees from Da Green Coffee Bar and we started browsing. Mattix found a giant chess board and played himself in a heated match while I sipped my coffee and the girls shopped. Right about the time we were ready to leave, we saw the Lahaina Bird Stand guy strolling in with his colorful birds. We awed at these amazing feathered creatures for about ten minutes before deciding we wanted to take pictures with them. Their handler was hilarious and the experience was well worth the money we paid for the experience and photos.

We had planned to get some groceries on our way home from the Gardens. Since we had heard good things about the Times Market’s poke bowls, we picked up some poke and some sushi rolls for lunch as well as various meals and snacks for the rest of the time we would be spending in Maui.

After lunch, it was back to the beach for more snorkeling, some drinks, and tossing around the football. Jill found a POG (Passionfruit, Orange, and Guava) seltzer at the market that she really liked and I sipped on my Rolling Rocks. I should mention, I later found out that drinking alcohol on public beaches is not allowed, but no one gave us any grief for enjoying our adult beverages while soaking up the rays and waves of the Pacific. We stayed at the beach until around 6:00 before we realized there wasn’t going to be much of a sunset and headed back to the condo for tacos, chips and salsa. 

Jill said several times that day that she had a great birthday.