My Pregnancy Journal: Day 12 : Maui : Molokini and Iao Needle

We woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, ate breakfast (I need breakfast within an hour of being awake, regardless of what time it is), and headed off to the airport to catch our plane for Maui. It had poured a lot of the night, and I was up most of it, worrying that we would either sleep past our 3 a.m. alarm time (it’s the first time we’ve woken up to an alarm in over 2 weeks), or that our flight would get cancelled because of the rain. I tried to not worry and just sleep, but something about having an alarm to wake up to makes me sleep pretty uneasy. I think I finally fell asleep at about 130 a.m..

We arrived in Maui at 6 a.m., got our rental car, and headed off to the B&B we’re staying at. We dropped off our bags, and then headed out to the Maalaea Boat Harbor. Our first ‘touristy’ thing we’ve done since getting to Hawaii…we booked a trip with the Pacific Whale Foundation (non-profit) to go out on a big catamaran to the islands of Molokini and Lanai to do some snorkeling. Our check in time was 745 a.m..

The seas were a bit rough from the storm that was still passing through in the early morning (although the weather the rest of the day was absolutely gorgeous), so Chris and I took a seat in the back of the boat when we boarded. I’ve never gotten sea sick before, but I’ve never been pregnant on a boat before either, so we didn’t want to take any chances. Well, that was the idea anyways…

About 30 mins into the trip, people started flocking to the back to toss their cookies overboard. Since I have a queasy stomach with this whole carrying a baby thing, we moved up some in the boat to the covered area. I started feeling somewhat bad…not awful, but it was hard to shake the people running back and throwing up. Chris thought I’d do better with some fresh air, so we headed upstairs. The captain started speeding up a little bit right as we hit the stairs, which was fine for Chris, but I lost my balance a little bit, and had to stay hanging onto the handrails in the stairwell. Chris went across to the front, and I decided it was too rough, and I was heading back to our seat. Chris joined after a minute and asked if I was okay, and I told him that was a bit too much, but that I wanted him to go upstairs and enjoy the fresh air and the scenary and I just wanted to sit for a few. We went like that (him coming down to check up every few mins, me sitting downstairs, looking outside) for awhile, and then someone lost it and got sick over the TOP balcony all down the window that I was looking at. That definitely pushed me over the edge and I had to go join all of the seasick folks in the back of the boat. Chris had come down just in time to see me getting up, so he helped me to the back (I’m so off balance without 8 foot waves and a slippery boat as is!), and I barely made it before getting sick. I apparently almost threw up on 4 people and Chris managed to tell them to move quickly enough.

That was the end of the mis-adventures though…after I got sick, I felt a million times better, and we were about 20 mins away from the island of Molokini. We had rented wet suit tops from the boat people, so we got those on, and jumped into the water as soon as we got there. Holy coldness!!! But, it was so incredibly amazingly beautiful.

Clear waters of Molokini. This is with my little point and shoot camera. We left the nice Nikon safe on land!

We both agreed that we’d never seen water that clear, a reef that formed, and a place where we could have such clear visibility. The only way I can sort of accurately describe the water and the beautifulness we saw underneath it was that it was what I would imagine swimming in a huge aquarium would be like. It was that clear, and that beautiful. We did two 45 min + snorkles, then came back on the boat, headed out of the cove of the island for them to grill us up lunch (chicken, veggie burgers, and hot dogs along with pasta salad), and to do some whale watching. The whales were going crazy just outside of the cove…flapping, breaching, all kinds of stuff, everywhere you looked. It was great lunch time entertainment!

After lunch, instead of bearing the rough seas to go to the other island of Lanai, we headed back into the cove in Molokini. Chris and I did another about an hour long snorkel run to end off the day. We saw so many beautiful amazing fish, all different sizes, and TWO eels!!! Chris thought they were so cool and wanted to hang out and observe them. I wanted to say ta-ta, you don’t bite me, I won’t look at you, and be on my way. Chris won, but he stayed closest to the eels!

Nice snorkle mask face I have!

On the way back to Maui, we had so many whales entertain us. The seas were calmer, and we were going with the waves, so it was so enjoyable. We got back into the port at about 3 p.m..

From there, we swung by Costco to get water and some snacks, and then headed off to hike the Iao Needle. It’s a big mountain peak that the Hawaiian’s used to use as a lookout point back in the 18^th century to see when enemies were coming. It was a short, steep hike, and the views were, as typical in Hawaii, amazing. There’s a stream that runs at the base of the needle, and Chris decided he wasn’t done swimming for the day, and ventured into the waters.