Of course, the reason we were in Maui (other than the fact that we love it there) was for our 5th wedding anniversary. So we booked dinner at Merriman’s the restaurant we had dinner at the day we got married. It’s arguably the nicest restaurant on Maui, and we go back every time we’re on the island. We had a great meal, and they surprised us with a little treat at the end.
Monday morning I had booked a sort dive trip out to Lanai. It had been a couple of years since I’d been diving, and I was really looking forward to it. The boat ride out to Lanai from Lahaina was pretty quick - about 45 minutes - and we got some free “whale watching” along the way. We saw a few whales at a distance.
We tied up just off the very rugged coast of Lanai, and got ready to dive. Just was we were getting into the water, a humpback surfaced then dove less than 100m from the boat. That would've been amazing underwater! Timing is everything I guess.
The Lanai coast, from our first dive.
The dive was really nice, and as Hawaii is all volcanic, it means that there are some very cool underwater formations. In this case, we got to do a swim-through, into an area the call the “Cathedral”. It was very nice.
Getting ready to head out on the boat.
Not the most attractive photo...
A pretty big moray ell that we saw on the first dive.
The "Cathedral". You can see where it got it's name.
We took the standard surface interval, and repositioned the boat slightly. There was a pro photographer on the dive with us, and I ended up buying the photos from them, which are included here - you should be able to easily tell which are his, and which are mine…
And the coastline on the second dive. Quite similar, but very beautiful.
A nudibranch on the reef.
An octopus, hiding in a crevice.
Me getting back onto the boat at the end of the second dive.
The dive trip left very early in the morning, and we were back to town by lunch time. Justine met me at the boat, and we grabbed some food. We had decided to spend the afternoon driving up the coast from Lahaina, was had not seen that part of the island previously.
Looking back at downtown Lahaina.
The drive was, as you would imagine, pretty spectacular. The highlight was a short stop we made at the Nakalele blowhole, where the ocean waves come crashing against the rocks, shooting a huge plume of water up into the air. We hiked around it, and watched for a while before continuing north.
A typical view of the coast as we drove north.
There were great beaches all the way up, with people surfing in the most seemingly remote places.
The Nakalele blowhole - look at the people for a sense of scale.
At some point, we knew that the road got a bit sketchy, and it wasn’t long after the blowhole that we found it. The road eventually narrowed down to the point where it was only feasible for one car to get by at a time. And with some crazy drops down to the ocean, we found a spot to turn around and headed back. We stopped at D.T. Fleming State Park for a while and watched the waves and the surfers, before it got dark, then headed back to town for a relaxing evening.