Morning note: Here is what is above our apartment. Dan’s family took a fun photo over the railing above in a prior visit:
Today was a pretty chill day by our standards. We set out to explore the southwest shore of the island, Kihei and Wailea. I didn’t know anything about these areas except that they are a resort area. I’d seen a bit of Kihei when we went to Maui Pies, and I liked the low-rise 70s resorts there.
First stop was Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge, a boardwalk over a wetlands. We saw some neat birds, and Dan had a good talk with a friendly naturalist employee while Stef did the pee-pee dance.
Endangered Hawaiian Stilts:
And what are these? Turtle nests? Maybe! Let’s say they are.
Then we made haste to Sugar Beach Bakery, which we had been right next to at the ABC store, and I hadn’t even seen it! Fantastic little bakery. We got a jalapeno cheddar corn scone, and a coconut malasada (we had not heard of this, but it was like a less-sweet donut filled with coconut cream) – delicious!
A very aggressive chicken got a peck of our scone, but we did better than the next table over, who lost their whole cup of coffee to the marauders.
We found the Kihei library! Nice style. We didn’t go in, but I did like the building.
We headed into Wailea, which was the farthest south I had been on the island. It was gorgeous! What amazed me was the incredible landscaping everywhere. Probably the watering practices here are laying waste to the rest of the island, but it was lush, lush, tropical, and lush. Lots of new big-money resorts down there.
We headed to Polo Beach, recommended to us by Kelsey. It was beautiful! And hugged by BIG big money resorts:
We found the best shady cove to post up in our beach chairs.
The waves here were powerful. I don’t know if it’s always like this here, or if the hurricane still had things stirred up, but it was fun at first until two massive waves right in a row tumbled me around like a clothes dryer, but that was enough for me. Still, look at this cozy spot and its view.
Lunchtime! We intended to go to the Paia Fish Market, recommended to us by a colleague, but got completely distracted by a very appealing cart pod right next to the condo we had originally rented, which fell through, leading to our Honokeana Cove rental at Napili Point. We got fried Spam with sweet potato fries, ahi tacos, a coconut mocha, and banana coconut ice cream. Hooray!
Our barista was from Grants Pass!
We dipped across the street to Kalama Park to see if they had a beach. They barely did, but it was neat to see the waves crash on the rock retaining wall. Nice park, with lots of shady picnic benches.
We headed back north, and stopped in Kaanapali. There was a big outdoor mall there, very fancy but in a Maui low-key way.
Live orchids!
We really enjoyed this local-handcraft store, and got some fun Christmas ornaments there:
Kaanapali Beach was one of the prettiest we’d seen – long and wide, very appealing. Still big waves though. Smaller waves, I suppose, than Polo Beach.
We got home pretty early and showered off a day’s worth of sand. So much sand I had to sweep after pulling off my clothes and raining down sand.
Mahalo Maui!