Hawaii Day 6 - Lounging in Maui

My main goal of this Hawaii trip was to make sure that I did enough "nothing." This day, more than any other on our trip, really epitomized that philosophy. We started off with a nice stroll over to Kihei Caffe for breakfast. We both enjoyed our Banana Macadamia Pancakes and the husband was so happy to be able to go out to breakfast, as I had been forcing him to eat cereal at the condo & hotel the entire trip! Walking was a great idea (and that was my husband's call, not mine) as we were able to really enjoy the views that we wouldn't have noticed from the car. A new trend since our last Hawaii trip was paddleboarding. I have definitely heard of this sport back in Santa Barbara, but it is HUGE here in Hawaii, and they even have lessons for tourists. Maybe we'll try it next time - but I've heard it is harder than it looks! We also really enjoyed the flowers along our walk. Everything is so different than back in Santa Barbara (except the hibiscus, which my mom insisted my dad plant at every house we lived at, since it reminded her of home!).

Banana Macadamia Nut Pancakes - Kihei Caffe

Paddleboarders at Cove Park


Pretty flowers - I love the yellow hibiscus

After breakfast and our walk, we spent some time in the water and sunning ourselves on the lawn outside our lanai. I think I overcooked it a little, because I was a little burned even while wearing SPF 70 sunscreen - I just LOVED reading outside in the sun and stayed out much longer than I should have. The burn wasn't too bad, but I got a little heat exhaustion that hit me later that night. We ate lunch at the condo and then headed out to buy more sunscreen (I went through an entire bottle of my Neutrogena spray sunscreen in 6 days!) and to finally purchase a boogie board! More on that later... After our errands, we drove down to the most Southern area of the island and stopped at the creatively named "Big Beach." While we love the Kama'ole Beaches that our condo is on, this was a beautiful humungous beach, and I'm glad we visited. It was a little too cloudy to swim here, so we headed back to the condo for our christening of the boogie board!

Big Beach is...BIG!

I have wanted the husband to try boogie boarding on every one of our last 4 trips to Hawaii, but I finally talked him into buying a cheap board on this trip. It was cheaper to just buy a cheap one at the grocery than renting, and we just left this beauty at the condo when we were done. Boogie boarding is so much fun, and I was pleased to find out that it is like riding a bike - I hadn't forgotten how after almost 20 years and was still pretty good at catching waves. Even more fun than riding myself was watching the husband learn how. He was so enthusiastic and we just had a blast riding around, calling out good waves to each other, and generally acting like children.

It takes a real man to ride around on this beauty! $11.99 at Foodland.

We had some difficulty choosing a restaurant for dinner, first visiting a recommended restaurant in our Maui Revealed book that ended up being closed, then heading to Ma'alaea Waterfront, a place with a great view and pretty good food. For the price, I think we would have rather gone back to Cuatro, but we were glad we were able to try someplace new. I had the Broiled Ahi with Hawaiian Salsa and the husband had another Mexican inspired dish - Onaga with Southwestern Flair. We both liked our fish and thought the preparations were inspired, but this restaurant was a little pretentious - they almost seemed offended when we didn't order their traditionally prepared Caesar Salad (at $11 each) and we were kind of laughing at how we really didn't fit in with the elite atmosphere (in Maui? Really?). We headed home where I promptly went to sleep at 8:00 (couldn't even stay awake for LOST!) because of my sun exhaustion.

Fish Dishes at Ma'alaea Waterfront