That’s what Captain Dave seems to say to the people who take his excursion. The feeling is of someone showing some of his favorite places to a few of his friends. There were twenty-six of us on the cruise but the boat did not feel crowded at all and everybody seemed to have a wonderful time. It certainly was a full day.
It didn’t feel all that wonderful when the alarm went off at 5 a.m. but that’s what happens when you’re staying in Kihei and the boat leaves from Lahaina at 7 a.m. The trip is advertised as a 6 ½ hour snorkel trip that goes all the way around the island of Lanai. It was all that and more. The ride was very smooth for the most part though there were some roller coaster moments (deliberate in many cases). We had gorgeous weather and the ocean was amazingly cooperative.
Our first noteworthy stop was off Shipwreck Beach on the north shore of Lanai. The concrete hulk of the World War II Liberty ship was an awesome sight. From there, we were rewarded with an unscheduled stop to walk on a completely deserted white sand beach. Then, it was snorkel, caves, cliffs, snorkel, caves, cliffs, etc. Captain Dave likes to try to get his boat as far into some of the caves as possible. For those rotating to the bow, it feels like he’s about to beach the boat (or, more accurately, pile it onto the rocks). I saw a lot of passenger hands reaching to fend off the encroaching cliffs.
Our second unscheduled diversion occurred when we found ourselves surrounded by Lanai’s pod of spinner dolphins. You know how it goes–dolphins to the right of me, dolphins to the left of me, in front, behind, dolphins, dolphins, dolphins. They seemed to be playing with the boat and having as much fun as we were having watching them. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get in the water with them because they are a protected species. It’s all right if you’re in the water and they appear (that’s what happened to us a few years ago on an earlier visit to Hulopo’e Beach on Lanai and at Honolua Bay on Maui).
The snorkeling sites were very reminiscent of Virgin Gorda with lots of boulders and big rocks rather than extensive coral fields. Lots of large fish, some nice coral but, overall, the water was too deep for surface snorkeling. It’s hard to feel connected to the fish when they’re twenty to thirty feet below you. The other drawback was that snorkel time coincided with meal time so there’s a choice to be made. Trade-offs never seem to satisfy. I guess part of the problem was the extra time taken up with our beach walk and dolphin encounter.
We got back to the harbor at Lahaina at 2:30 p.m., gathered our gear, disembarked the boat, picked up our car and drove back to the condo in Kihei. Then we crashed. Talk about running out of energy. But tomorrow’s a new day, the beginning of our last week on Maui. There are still lots of places to see and snorkel. So, an early night tonight.
As an update to my earlier comments about on-line communications, the adventure continues. I downloaded a new version of Firefox for U3 so my stick works fine. Now the problem is permission to use it. Each time I visit iZone I get a different story. When I had my initial discussions with the owner before I purchased my temporary membership, I was told I could use my own laptop or the U3 stick plugged into their system. The first couple of nights I showed up with the U3 stick, the night manager set me up and things went fine. The third night the owner is there and he won’t let me onto the system with the U3. He says I can use a plain vanilla USB memory stick to copy files but not the programmable U3. Back to the drawing board.
The next night, I load my files onto a memory stick and drive down to their location. A new night manager tells me I can’t copy files from my memory stick because of their firewall. I can only copy files to the memory stick. However, he allows me to use the administrator computer which is outside the firewall so I do get my postings done. In the meantime, I’ve had much more success with the Hawaii Public Library where I took out a temporary membership so I could have access to some Hawaiian music. My membership allows me to use the library computers to access the Internet on an ad hoc basis. It also allows me to reserve one hour a week to ensure computer time. I got more accomplished at the library (including figuring out how to insert pictures into this blog) than I ever did at iZone. And, my library membership is also valid on Oahu.
It didn’t feel all that wonderful when the alarm went off at 5 a.m. but that’s what happens when you’re staying in Kihei and the boat leaves from Lahaina at 7 a.m. The trip is advertised as a 6 ½ hour snorkel trip that goes all the way around the island of Lanai. It was all that and more. The ride was very smooth for the most part though there were some roller coaster moments (deliberate in many cases). We had gorgeous weather and the ocean was amazingly cooperative.
Our first noteworthy stop was off Shipwreck Beach on the north shore of Lanai. The concrete hulk of the World War II Liberty ship was an awesome sight. From there, we were rewarded with an unscheduled stop to walk on a completely deserted white sand beach. Then, it was snorkel, caves, cliffs, snorkel, caves, cliffs, etc. Captain Dave likes to try to get his boat as far into some of the caves as possible. For those rotating to the bow, it feels like he’s about to beach the boat (or, more accurately, pile it onto the rocks). I saw a lot of passenger hands reaching to fend off the encroaching cliffs.
Our second unscheduled diversion occurred when we found ourselves surrounded by Lanai’s pod of spinner dolphins. You know how it goes–dolphins to the right of me, dolphins to the left of me, in front, behind, dolphins, dolphins, dolphins. They seemed to be playing with the boat and having as much fun as we were having watching them. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get in the water with them because they are a protected species. It’s all right if you’re in the water and they appear (that’s what happened to us a few years ago on an earlier visit to Hulopo’e Beach on Lanai and at Honolua Bay on Maui).
The snorkeling sites were very reminiscent of Virgin Gorda with lots of boulders and big rocks rather than extensive coral fields. Lots of large fish, some nice coral but, overall, the water was too deep for surface snorkeling. It’s hard to feel connected to the fish when they’re twenty to thirty feet below you. The other drawback was that snorkel time coincided with meal time so there’s a choice to be made. Trade-offs never seem to satisfy. I guess part of the problem was the extra time taken up with our beach walk and dolphin encounter.
We got back to the harbor at Lahaina at 2:30 p.m., gathered our gear, disembarked the boat, picked up our car and drove back to the condo in Kihei. Then we crashed. Talk about running out of energy. But tomorrow’s a new day, the beginning of our last week on Maui. There are still lots of places to see and snorkel. So, an early night tonight.
As an update to my earlier comments about on-line communications, the adventure continues. I downloaded a new version of Firefox for U3 so my stick works fine. Now the problem is permission to use it. Each time I visit iZone I get a different story. When I had my initial discussions with the owner before I purchased my temporary membership, I was told I could use my own laptop or the U3 stick plugged into their system. The first couple of nights I showed up with the U3 stick, the night manager set me up and things went fine. The third night the owner is there and he won’t let me onto the system with the U3. He says I can use a plain vanilla USB memory stick to copy files but not the programmable U3. Back to the drawing board.
The next night, I load my files onto a memory stick and drive down to their location. A new night manager tells me I can’t copy files from my memory stick because of their firewall. I can only copy files to the memory stick. However, he allows me to use the administrator computer which is outside the firewall so I do get my postings done. In the meantime, I’ve had much more success with the Hawaii Public Library where I took out a temporary membership so I could have access to some Hawaiian music. My membership allows me to use the library computers to access the Internet on an ad hoc basis. It also allows me to reserve one hour a week to ensure computer time. I got more accomplished at the library (including figuring out how to insert pictures into this blog) than I ever did at iZone. And, my library membership is also valid on Oahu.
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