For May 6th and 7th we were at Lahaina. There is no dock, so we tender in small boats to shore.
During the first night, the Spirit lifts anchor and cruises back and forth among the islands to
save on anchor fees. The first day we went up to Haleakala. This is a dormant crater extending
from sea level to just under 10,000 feet. The bus goes all the way up. Each day by noon, Haleakala
is shrouded in clouds, but at the summit you are above the clouds. The crater was spectacular.
Unfortunately the view down was shrouded in clouds, so we couldn’t see the islands to the north.
We did see the snows on Mauna Kea on the Big Island to the south though. Ironic that I had to go
to another island to see it. On the way down, the constant breaking on the 15 mph switchbacks for
nearly 1.5 hours made me quite ill. Add on a bouncy tender ride and I was actually in worse shape
than the snorkel trip at Kona, but Viki faired better on this one.
On the second day we took a tour to the Maui Aquarium. It didn’t start
well, when Viki and I got the 2 front seats on the second bus. The last 2 people to load were 2 old
gentlemen with canes. The driver asked us to move back for them, so we ended up sitting apart way at
the back of the bus. That was it for me and tour buses and I soon made plans for an alternate way home.
The aquarium was fabulous, but even with all my picture taking, we were ready to leave an hour before the
tour was done. We told one of the passengers to let the bus driver know we wouldn’t be returning on the bus.
We then called a cab and went to the Iao Valley and back to the cruise ship. So we doubled our tour time and
go away from the tour bus. The Iao Valley was lovely. In future, I’d rent a care and double the amount of
sight seeing that can be done in Maui too.
