It's only taken two months, but this is the last post from our Hawaii trip. On our last day in Maui, we booked a whale watching trip early in the morning. Our flight wasn't until much later that evening, so it gave us lots of time to do the trip, get back to the condo and pack up before check out.
We chose to go out with a company we had gone with previously, mostly because their boats are smaller, and you don't get crammed in with hundreds of people. The morning started off pretty well - there was some blue sky, but there was also a lot of cloud forming, and the ocean was pretty choppy. Not exactly ideal conditions, but it wasn't like we had any options at this point.
Our first sighting, not far from the harbour as we headed out.
The whale sightings ended up being pretty amazing. There were lots of whales, even though it was getting late in the season, and they were still really active. There were lots of whales breaching, albeit most of them were pretty far away. There was one whale that was enjoying getting a fin out of the water.
This one just kept putting the pectoral fin up and out of the water.
And of course there were lots of tails, as the whales dove under the ocean.
Eventually we found our highlight of the day. A mom and baby, with mom in teaching mode. She was lying on her side, with her pectoral fin and tail up and out of the water. Baby meanwhile was learning how to breach! The baby was up and out of the water so many times! It was pretty amazing.
Baby breaching, mom on her side.
After staying on these two very entertaining whales for a while, we had to start heading back to port. There was lots to see along the way, with spyhopping being the highlight. It started to rain just as we got back into the harbour - perfect timing really.
We walked back to the condo under the huge banyan tree downtown. The weather was definitely turning, and we needed to get organized, packed and checked out. We had wanted to use the afternoon to drive up the volcano, but there were severe weather alerts indicating that the road wasn't safe. Instead we drove to Kihei to have one last meal at Coconuts. The rain was torrential at that point, with streets flooded and the rain looking like it wasn't ever going to stop. Given that the weather was so foul, we headed to a mall near the airport, and went to see a movie. Not how we planned to end our time on Maui, but it was still an amazing trip!