Maui: Days 13-14

Our last days in Maui continued to be sunny and relaxing. We spent a few more days at the beach and pool, plus got to take in a whale watching trip. Right off of Maui is one of the best places in the world to see humpback whales--they travel down from Alaska during December to mate and have their babies. We got to see several whales---many tales and backs coming out of the water, but no complete jumps out of the water (ironically enough, I saw a complete breach from the beach the next day!) We have never seen a humpback in real life, so it was an exciting trip. Until Rowan got sick. The trip was only 2 hours, but about an hour into it Rowan started getting sea-sick. It was no fun until we finally docked, and she announced "I got tired of all that whale-watching." She later explained to Bubba that when the "boat went up and down on the big waves, it made my tummy hurt." Joe did get one fabulous photo of the island from the boat (above). I love how the clouds gather just around the peaks.

Rowan continued to show her confidence in the water. Bubba joined us at the beach near our hotel on the last day and she tried to impress him with her body-surfing and tumbling around in the waves. Bubba is a true "water-man" who grew up in Maui doing all the water sports (surfing, paddling, cliff diving, cave swimming, deep sea fishing, kayaking, etc etc)--it's fun to watch him in the water. When the big storm came through Maui 2 weeks ago, and most people were running for higher ground, Bubba was surfing the 20 foot waves.

Joe and I went to a one-hour presentation on owning a time-share and got a $100 gift certificate in return--so we took Bubba out for a nice dinner on our last night. It was really fun to hang out with Bubba, eat good food (with an ocean view!), and have really great conversation on our last night in Hawaii.

Our trip to Maui was more than we expected--Joe got in some great training, and lots of food for thought from Scott (maybe I can nag him into posting more about that later!) We got to spend some very special time together as a family, and returned to California feeling relaxed, blessed, rested, and oh yeah...just a little bit tan.

Thursday morning we headed for the airport--had an easy 5 hour flight back to Oakland (Rowan was super on the flight)--and Joe's sister, Stephanie (who lives in Boston), picked us up in Oakland. She got to spend a few days with us (I'll blog about that soon) and left this morning (Christmas Eve).

There are a few more photos of our last days in Maui posted here.