Hawaii: Day 6

 This morning, I was bound and determined to hit the beach (Kamaole Beach I) early and attempt to get some photos. I happily had sand-covered feet before 7 AM (there are serious advantages to traveling this direction in terms of time zones... we are ready to start our days nice and early!). In the early morning hours, the water is calmer, which makes for rather tranquil landscape photo opportunities. I had a clear view of Molokini and was able to get shots of some pretty waves as they broke over the lava rocks. 

Molokini

Waves and lava rocks

While I was out, I happened upon a very chatty retiree who has lived on Maui for the past 7 years. He gave me the scoop on some of the sea life (including the helmet urchin we saw a few days ago), recommended we avoid going to Big Beach (no lifeguards + sudden depth change = unsafe), warned me about a venomous shelled creature on the beach, and offered some restaurant recommendations. All in all, quite a handy person to meet!

No clue what this is but it was really neat to look at.
It reminded me of a huge marble.

Sea urchin holding on for life

As luck would have it, a sea turtle surfaced while I was standing on a rock outcropping. Hurray!!! It stuck its nose out of the water a few times. (Eric says I should name it Sheldon, which seems very reasonable to me!)

Hello, Sheldon!

Sheldon showing me his big smile

After I got back from my beach photography excursion, we rallied the troops and hit the beach, snorkel gear in hand. We started out in water with very little visibility due to the churn and shallow depth of the water. As we made our way north (and into deeper water), we were able to see a bit further. During the first part of our snorkeling, we really saw nothing more than the sandy bottom. Fortunately, that shifted as we neared the lava rock jetty I'd visited a little bit earlier when I was out taking photos. Pretty soon, we started to see a variety of pretty fish and coral below us, not to mention sea urchin and interesting rock formations. Then... I saw it. A sea turtle! A big sea turtle was tucked up on the sandy bottom next to a rock formation. I swear that my heart skipped a beat when I realized what I was looking at. I tugged on Conor and pointed out the turtle to him. As soon as I knew he saw it, I popped my head out of the water and signaled for Eric and Annika to join us so they could see it, too. Needless to say, we were all quite excited. Then we saw another turtle ... and another ... and another! It was AMAZING. Before we came to Hawaii, I saw a video online that was made by a family to document their Molokini/Turtle Town snorkeling. At one point, one of the little boys in the family said, "I saw a gwampa tuwtle" (he coudn't say his R's yet). We DEFINITELY saw a "big gwampa tuwtle" today, too. The fourth sea turtle we saw was enormous. It took every ounce of strength not to just stay there all day watching it rest on the ocean floor. What is so neat about these marvelous creatures is how still and calm they were. They just hung out on the sandy sea floor while we gawked at them. (I can't help but wonder if one of the turtles that I we saw during our snorkeling adventure was Sheldon!)  After awhile, however, it was time to move on. Conor and I started to make our way back to our belongings on the beach so we could try out body surfing and because my left foot was getting a sore spot from where the fin was rubbing it. While we did that, Eric and Annika made another loop around the rocks to find any remaining sights to see before packing up for the day.

After wrapping up our snorkeling and body surfing adventure, we walked back to the condo, showered, ate breakfast, and relaxed for a bit. I briefly zipped out to return the snorkel gear and make a much-anticipated run to Starbucks for iced Americanos for Eric and me and strawberry lemonades for the kids. MMMM!! Coffee!!

I had hoped the turtles would be near the surface again during high tide (the retiree I met earlier said they are sometimes more visible then because the feed off of the rocks), so Annika and I meandered back to the beach around 3 to see if we could spy any. We didn't have any luck in the turtle department, but definitely had a great walk on the beach together. Annika had fun making feet prints, writing words and hearts in the sand... and trying out her own photography skills with my phone's camera. The water was very choppy due to the wind, which we guessed might have kept the turtles away from the rocks. (Smart turtles!) 

I could sit on this beach all day, every day
and simply watch the waves on the sand

Annika and I were here!

Annika making her mark on the world

Sharing a little love with Kihei

Annika's photo of the West Maui Mountains, palm trees, and the Pacific

Annika's palm tree reflections photo

While we were out and about on the beach, Annika found a coconut that was floating in the water. (Initially, I thought someone lost a hat, but it wasn't a hat at all!) She got a good case of the giggles because each time she threw it back in the ocean, it kept coming back to her. That coconut reallllly liked Annika! :)

Annika and her new best friend "Coconut"

For dinner, we opted to try a highly-rated restaurant called Coconut's Fish Cafe for takeout. Eric and I had mahi-mahi fish and chips while the kids had shrimp and chips. Prior to our trip, we all thought it would be fun to watch the Disney movie "Moana" while on Maui and tonight was the night. We sang along with the characters, laughed until our sides hurt (often before the funny part happened ... we just knew what was coming!), and simply enjoyed being together. We have a few family jokes/favorite movie quotes from "Moana" that simply don't grown old for us: "Boat snack", "You're so amazing", and "You're WEL-come" are definitely at the top of the list!

Hawaii: Day 4

Today was a day I have looked forward to for quite some time. Why, you may ask? Well, let me tell you! It was Molokini Crater snorkeling day with Trilogy Excursions! (Side note: We learned on the boat that it isn't actually a crater. It is a volcanic atoll. Huh!! Basically, it is a lava fin sticking out of the water.) People started calling it a crater at some point in history and the term stuck, even thought isn't accurate.

Because of the time zone change, having early morning events really didn't phase us, which is a good thing. We knew that we had to be at the marina at 7:45, so we were in the car a few minutes after 7 to ensure we had time to find parking and still had time to get to the boat on time. Driving to the marina was no problem (it was only 15-ish minutes from Kihei), and we were lucky enough to find a parking spot quite quickly. (The prep email said to allow for 15 minutes to find a parking spot, so we were a bit nervous. From the car to the boat proved to be our real navigation challenge. We took a bit of a circuitous route to the slip (aka went the complete wrong way not realizing that the odd slip numbers were on one side of the marina and the even slip numbers were on the other - oops!), but we eventually found exactly where we needed to be... and on time!

After checking in, we boarded the boat with the other passengers and were given our snorkel gear by the boat's crew. Before we departed, the crew went over safety information and provided a quick itinerary for the day. The long and the short of it was we'd go to two snorkel spots at the crater instead of snorkeling at the crater and then relocating to Turtle Town (which had 1 foot of visibility thanks to some recent storms that ran silt from the hills down into the water and completely clouded the water). The crew and captain were actually pretty excited about the change of venue because it is rare to be able to go to the 2nd spot due to weather/water conditions. Win for us! 

It took about 45 minutes to sail from the marina to the crater. The trip to the crater was very easy with smooth water and provided gorgeous views for as far as we could see. I was truly in Heaven - on the water with my family on a sunny day with snorkeling adventures just around the corner. Part of the excursion included a continental breakfast, which included fresh fruit and tasty cinnamon rolls that were apparently made using a 5th generation recipe. (Yes, my amazing family all told me that my cinnamon rolls were better!) 

It was highly recommended that people stow anything they didn't want to accidentally land in the water - including phones, hats, etc. - because the wind and waves could result in lost items. Fortunately, our phones being tucked away didn't leave us without photos for the day. Trilogy had a professional photographer onboard to take pictures of everyone throughout the trip. What really impressed us is how she remembered who went with who. At one point (while we were in the water and wearing our snorkel gear, which greatly obscures a person's appearance), she said "OK, I have photos of your husband and daughter, now let's get some of you and your son." Seriously impressive!! 

The Olsons Four

Greetings from Maui

Before long (ok, about 45 minutes), we found ourselves anchored at Molokini anxiously waiting for our turn to head down the stairs and get in the water. We donned our snorkel gear and hit the water with gusto. First of all, even there the water was pleasantly warm and talk about blue!! We had well over 100' of visibility, which was truly amazing!! Eric and Annika buddied up while Conor and I buddied up as snorkel partners. 

Our first snorkeling site is called Tako Flats and it was a perfect location, especially for the kids who didn't have any snorkeling experience. We spent a good amount of time just tootling around going this way and that to see what we could see.  It would have been incredibly easy to spend all day at the first snorkeling spot and still not see everything there. We saw all sorts of fish (note to self: find an online guide to fish at Molokini), countless sea urchin, coral galore, and an octopus that was tucked away trying to remain inconspicuous. Eric and Annika were very excited to see what they dubbed a rainbow fish while they were in the water. The really interesting part of snorkeling at Molokini was how shallow the water could get. It wasn't like a wall dive that had a sheer face to float along. The underwater terrain very gradually sloped toward deeper water. The slope was so gradual, in fact, that it was barely noticeable. 

The boat's photographer (Lauren with Island Dream Productions) even popped into the water to get photos of us! (This was a really good thing because our knock-off Go Pro died within 4 minutes of its first use - NOT impressed with that! But at least I got the three videos above.) And, let's face it, she could get mind-blowingly good shots with her setup... and did (see below), unlike what we could capture with our little underwater camera option. 

Eventually, Captain Dani sent out the call for everyone to return to the boat so we could move to the second location (Reef's End). She sailed us completely around Molokini so we could see the back side of it. While she did that, one of the crew members taught us more about Molokini, including how the flight pattern of some of the birds (which can have 6-7' wing spans!!!) can signal the upcoming weather (if they're lazily circling in the sky good weather conditions are in store; if they are all hunkered down on the top of Molokini, storms are coming). We also learned how the government used Molokini as target practice during WWII. There are a lot of divots on the back side of Molokini that were caused by mortar hits. 

After our 360 tour of Molokini, we approached our second anchor spot. The crew had to be a little extra careful throwing the anchor rope into the water because there was a group of scuba divers around the anchor. When it was deemed safe, one of the crew members threw the rope to another crew member (already in the water wearing snorkel gear) who tied the boat to the anchor. From what we were told, the conditions to snorkel at Reef's End have to be just right for people to snorkel there and today, they were. We basically drifted along a reef that is the line of delineation between the interior of the crater and the deep blue. (Captain Dani made sure we knew not to go past a specific point because the name of that current is called something akin to "road or current to Tahiti".) The coral and fish were truly gorgeous. We saw a type of coral (cauliflower coral) that was stunningly pink and had beautiful ridges all over. The current was quite a bit stronger on the outer side of the reef; once I realized that, I kept Conor close by and we stuck more to the top ridge of the reef instead of heading too far out in the deep blue. Like at Tako Flats, we saw brilliantly colored fish (some solo and others in schools) and a wide variety of colorful coral. 

We knew it was going to be a shorter snorkel time at Reef's End site than we had at Tako Flats, so after floating along on the reef, Conor and I started to head back to the boat. The current was no joke and seemed to pick up as time passed. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to make it back without any issue. Soon after making that decision, I happened to look back and noticed everyone else seemed to have the same idea and opted to head back, as well. The group of snuba explorers associated with our boat were very slow to return to the boat due to the current; they struggled with it but the crew member with them helped along and they eventually made it back safe and sound.

The crew served us a very good lunch (teriyaki chicken, salad, roll, and rice). Our stay at Molokini wound up being a bit longer than expected because one of the passengers accidentally dropped her iPhone into the water (WHOOPS). One of the crew members attempted to get it (45' feet down) but wasn't able to free dive that far. So, Captain Dani pulled off her outer clothes (she had a swim suit under them) and swam out to retrieve the phone. I made a comment about grabbing a tank, but she said "for 45' down? Nah!" Mightly impressive!! She was greeted with a boisterous round of applause when she climbed back onboard with the phone in hand. (Luckily, the phone was one of the new waterproof iPhones. Talk about lucky!)

Bye, Molokini

Once the phone was back with its owner and Captain Dani dried off a bit, we sailed back to the marina. The wind picked up considerably as we sailed (as it tends to do as the days progress), which allowed the crew to put up the sails. It was rather exciting to be almost directly under the sails as they went up, I have to say. 

When the day began, Captain Dani made a comment about letting people try steering the boat at any time during the day, so Annika asked if she could on our return trip... Captain Annika at your service. She took the helm and even helped with one of the ropes as the crew brought the sails down as we neared the marina. She did a great job! Captain Dani taught her some basics about captaining a boat and Annika was a very willing student. She soaked up everything Dani told her with gusto!

Captain Dani teaching Annika how to captain the boat

Captain Annika at the helm

Working on her rope-pulling skills

We think we found a summer job for her - crewmate on a boat!

To say we were wiped out after our day on the water would be an understatement. We were pinker than we'd hoped (guessing the zinc oxide sunscreen was a bit less effective than we had hoped, but was required to protect the reef). We've been slathering ourselves with aloe ever since returning to the condo and enjoying the cool air provided by the AC!

We picked up dinner from one of the food trucks outside the condo parking lot. Having two food trucks so close is really quite convenient!! We hunkered down in the living room around the coffee table, ate dinner, and watched the movie Shazam on TV. Nice and low key after a fun-filled, tiring day.

Disney Cruise: Part 7

Our last full day on the cruise was a bit different than anticipated.

On Friday morning, the ship docked at Castaway Cay, which is Disney's private island in the Bahamas. We did our usual port-day morning routine of sunblock, water bottles, and a quick breakfast before waiting for the ship's doors to open. We made a bee line for the family beach with the hope of securing some lounge chairs for our crew. Fortunately, that scheme paid off and we found four chairs right under a palm tree (hello, Caribbean!) and set up camp.

Once again, we were greeted with a lovely, sunny, warm day. Unfortunately, Annika's cold was keeping her from feeling as fun-filled as she otherwise would feel, and Conor was following suit. We donned our snorkel gear and made our way to the water. Fairly quickly, we also realized the water wasn't as warm as we anticipated... and Annika didn't like the taste of salt water!

Conor getting geared up

Annika raring to go

Conor and me ready to take the plunge

Annika snorkeling

Heading back to shore

We opted to cut our losses. Eric and the kids headed back to the beach while I abandoned them for a little "me time" in the water. I tootled around for a bit and happily discovered lots of fish and many artificial reefs. I also found the Mickey statue, the sunken submarine, a boat anchor, and a sunken fishing boat.

A fish
(Glad I pointed that out for you, huh??)

Not quite sure what this is/was

A stripy fish

More fish!

A winch?

Underwater Mickey

LOTS of fish

The Fantasy, as seen from the middle of the lagoon

Fishing boat

Submarine's tail

A stripy fish and the submarine

My snorkeling selfie

By the time I convinced myself that I was being unfair leaving my three family members alone for so long, I made my way back to the beach, only to find both kids on their lounge chairs shivering. Eric and I gave each other that knowing look and opted to cut our losses and head back to the ship. Along the way, we did stop for a few more character photos with Pluto, Chip and Dale, and Mickey Mouse, but didn't dally too much.

Over the last few days of the trip, Annika sounded more and more congested, and by Friday night, she hit the proverbial wall. She and Eric hunkered down in our cabin while Conor and I made our way to the restaurant to meet our dining companions for our last onboard dinner. Our two servers (Gavin and Dennis) were very sweet and expressed sincere concern that "their princess" wasn't feeling well.

Friday night was spent packing up all of our belongings so they could be outside of our stateroom by 10 PM and picked up by the crew for off loading the next morning. It was a tight squeeze, but we got everything in a suitcase and ready to roll!

On Saturday morning, we woke up painfully early to dress, collect our remaining bags, and get to the restaurant for our 6:45 breakfast call. Fortunately, we saw Gavin and Dennis at breakfast, which wasn't the case any other day, so everyone was able to say a proper goodbye to our wonderful servers before we left the ship for the last time.

After we finished breakfast, we said our goodbyes to Sara, Adam, and Jackson and headed our separate ways. We then ran into them, again, in line leaving the ship, so said our "for reals" goodbyes. We then ran into them again in the customs line. After weaving our way through customs together, we said our goodbyes and eventually got on our bus to our hotel in the airport. As we were slogging through the airport and passed the rather large fountain outside of the hotel, Annika shouted, "There's Jackson!" I was just about to tell her that it was just a little boy who resembled him, but alas, she was completely right. there they were AGAIN! We were just not meant to part company as early as we thought! The Colvins were waiting for their flight's boarding time, and decided to kill some time at the fountain. Our hotel room wasn't ready when we arrived, so we wound up killing time at the fountain with them. The kids had another fun (impromptu) play date in the airport for about 45 minutes, until, finally, our room was ready and we were able to quickly drop our gear before heading out to meet our friend Kris and her husband for lunch nearby.

Our friend Kris moved to Florida many moons ago and it was such a treat to see her there while we were in Orlando. We caught up and got to know her husband, Ron, a bit. So much fun!!!

After lunch, Kris and Ron took Eric and Annika (who was feeling beyond miserable) back to our hotel. Conor and I walked across the street to a Walgreens so I could stock up on cold meds for Annika (I used up my travels medicine stash while on the ship!), and then got a Lyft car to take us back to the hotel. The rest of the day was spent taking naps (Eric and Annika), redistributing our packed items so none of the suitcases was over 50 pounds, visiting the airport's lovely aquarium, grabbing a quick dinner in the food court, and getting ourselves to bed in preparation for, yet another, early morning.

Our flight home was uneventful (woo hoo), aside from Annika's ears hurting her during landing (boo!). After retrieving our car from the MasterPark people, we made our way home and began the transition back to real life... complete with grocery shopping and laundry. Hello, reality! :)