Our Maui
Experience
December 16, 2001
At 9:00AM, we met our instructor
from B&B Scuba at their store in Kihei and we followed her to Ulua
Beach, just South of Wailea, for our Navigation Dive, the first
segment of our Advanced
Open
Water scuba certification course. Sandra opted for a full-length
3mm wetsuit, while I chose a long-sleeved shorty. Our shore dive
went only to 20 feet, and I'm not sure we really got the hang of the
navigation. Our instructor was clearly going through the
motions, and didn't care whether we knew what we were doing or not.
The reef at Ulua was far from spectacular, though there were some
spotted morays, tang, trunkfish, flounder, needlefish, and a bit of
nice hard coral. Visibility on the sandy bottom was only about
50 feet, and we just tried to get the whole thing over with.
Wailea is clearly the Bel-Air of
Maui, with extravagant hotels, beautiful condominium resorts, and
outstanding golf courses. The town is beautiful, but feels more
like Los Angeles than Hawaii. Makena is a more artsy type of
town, but as construction rages on, the character of Makena seems to
be melting away, revealing an extension of Wailea. We traveled
south of Makena to LaPerouse Bay, where the lava fields begin.
There is good snorkeling offshore here, but watch out for razor sharp
lava rocks. The road ends here, and we backtracked to
Wailea, where we lounged at the incredible Maui Prince hotel, enjoying
the 85° sunshine and tropical drinks. We checked out the
Renaissance hotel as well, which was also grand, with goldfish ponds
and jungles in the lobby, and the magnificent Grand Wailea.
We headed back to B&B's shop for our
night dive that evening, and headed immediately back to Ulua Beach,
though with a different instructor. Our lights kept breaking,
but eventually we scrounged enough to make it happen. We saw and
handled urchins, crabs, octopus, and
morays, but overall the site was pretty devoid of life. It was a
pretty boring dive, but at least we got our certification so we could
go on the Manta Ray night dive later in the trip.
After a shower, we headed into Kihei
to check out the dining and nightlife. We quickly realized that
there was none. The town was dead, except for a bar called
Life's A Beach, but after waiting to order for about a half hour, we
got up and left. We ended up driving around town looking
desperately for somewhere to eat or some kind of entertainment, but we
were sorely disappointed. We ended up eating at Jack in the Box
(the only restaurant in town serving "dinner" after 10:00PM), and went
back to our hotel and tried to get some rest for the next morning's
dive.
Kihei is a town of condos and
American-style strip malls. We didn't care for the town at all,
as the beaches were not very good, the snorkeling was poor, the
traffic was bad, and nightlife was nonexistent. There are no
grand hotels here, for good reason. The closest ones are to the south
in Wailea. Next time, we'll stay in West Maui.
DAY 2
DAY 4 |