Maui Wowie

The entire wed­ding group gath­ered for din­ner at Mala restau­rant, over­look­ing the Pacific Ocean and the islands of Lanai and Kaho‘olawe. At this time of year, the Maui sun­set passes in the blink of an eye.

From the plane, you can see the low-hanging clouds cast­ing dis­tinct shad­ows on the islands.

The air­port in Honolulu has wait­ing gates out in the open air, and large trees like this grow­ing in the mid­dle of the terminals.

Both the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort & Spa and the Four Seasons Resort are along the beach, with a path that con­nects them together. Most of the coconut trees bear fruit, but the ones found in resorts are kept bare, out of fear that a coconut may fall and injure some­one. As you move to less busy parts of the island, there are coconuts aplenty dan­gling from the tops.

Table for one with a view of the sun­set. Gigantic crispy coconut shrimp, served with Chile de Arbol dip­ping sauce. The coconut makes this a very mild but deli­cious appetizer.

A gift bag from Jenny and Dave, await­ing my arrival at the resort, filled with good­ies and essen­tials like bot­tled water, hand san­i­tizer, gum, water­proof sun­block, a towel, a first aid kit, candy, lip balm, Gravol (for sea sick­ness), Aspirin, and an under­wa­ter camera.

Toasts with the par­ents from both families.

China, the best man, shows us his underwear.

Found this col­lec­tion of fish tail skele­tons at a dock.

The typ­i­cal Aloha shirt and occa­sional kukui nut lei (neck­lace) are part of the uni­forms, for the bell boys to the dri­vers to the jan­i­tors. This shop had sev­eral flavours of the Aloha shirt, each adorned with a pic­ture of Tom Selleck as Magnum PI wear­ing that exact shirt.

There are sev­eral pools at each resort, with water slides on some, and loung­ing chairs sur­round­ing them.

There were about 30 peo­ple in our group, a decent num­ber for a des­ti­na­tion wedding.

The per­fect place to lie in a ham­mock and read a book. This ocean-front lawn was also the venue for the wed­ding cer­e­mony and reception.

My first time find­ing an infin­ity pool, which was salt­wa­ter for some reason.

The koi pond at the entrance of the Marriott. Animals run around every­where, and I even saw a tiny gecko crawl­ing on the walls of the resort. When arriv­ing and depart­ing there are lots of warn­ings and con­trols to pre­serve the del­i­cate state of nature in Hawaii, due to the fact that there’s so much endemism here.

Waiting for the sun to clear the trees on a Maui morning.

The main foun­tain that greets peo­ple as they enter the resort proper at the Four Seasons.

Each island has it’s own weather pat­terns, due to the moun­tains caus­ing micro cli­mates; some are hot and dry while oth­ers are humid all year round, even though they’re all in close prox­im­ity. The topog­ra­phy here is very varied.

Complimentary orange blos­som mint tea, in the lobby at the Four Seasons. So refreshing.

The Marriott has water infused with pineap­ple and sugar cane.

Mr. Cunningham and his fash­ion­able stubble.

The air is superbly clear and mild. One of the first things I noticed when I stepped off the plane was how neu­tral every­thing smelled.

I had to ask peo­ple where they go for vaca­tion when they live in a place where the weather is per­fect year round. Aside from one cab­bie who said that he goes to Idaho to visit his fam­ily (and he always looks for­ward to the end of his vaca­tion so he can come back), every­one else said Las Vegas. Apparently there’s a big Hawaiian com­mu­nity there.

Sunblock train on the boat ride to the crater. The skies are clear and the dis­tance to the sun much shorter, so it’s a good idea to stay well protected.

Molokini Island is a par­tially sunken vol­cano crater.

I was even pro­vided with a mask that matched the pre­scrip­tion of my glasses. When I first put the snorkel in my mouth, I thought, “Wow, the last per­son who used this must have been eat­ing some really salty chips”. Then I real­ized we were sur­rounded by salt water, which I’d never been in before. Turns out it stings much worse than fresh water if you get any up your nose, and leaves your skin and hair cov­ered in a film of salt.

The pho­tos from my mod­est, 800 ISO dis­pos­able under­wa­ter cam­era don’t do jus­tice to the clar­ity of the water. The fish are so tame they swim up to you and nib­ble your fin­gers if you can keep still for long enough. I hadn’t shot on film since I was a lit­tle kid.

I only had 27 expo­sures and no viewfinder to pre­view my pho­tos, so I did my best to make each shot count. Unfortunately, try­ing to get the proper shot under­wa­ter also tends to scare away the fish.