Day 3 :: Brunch, Whales, Water Spouts

Ah, Sunday morning brunch at The Plantation House Restaurant ... Divine! This restaurant with a rich heritage as a pineapple plantation sits high upon the coast with wide-spanning views of the ocean and its highly acclaimed golf course. After feasting upon treats like Crab Cake Benedict with Roasted Red Pepper Hollandaise, the Signature Plantation House Omelette with Portuguese Sausage & Molokai French Toast, we watched the local birds fly in and out of the open air windows (no screens here ... no bugs either) and took a stroll around the grounds. Sunday brunch at its finest!

 Birds on the back of Luke's chair.

An entertaining addition to the ambience!

This morning was a bit cloudy, but the views 

were still amazing! In the distance, our condo was

just to the left of Reid's shoulder.

 Mama & her sweet little men

The great thing about Maui is that if the weather is rainy on one part of the island, you just drive a little and the sun is shining. And so was the case as we departed cloudy Kapalua to head south to sunny Lahaina to catch our whale-watching excursion. March is wrapping up whale season in Maui, where the whales venture to enjoy the warm waters during the winter, breed & raise their babies until they are strong enough to make the 3,000 mile swim back to Alaska. As we boarded the boat, we hoped to catch a glimpse or two of these magnificent creatures. Little did we think that we'd have non-stop sightings of whales all around the boat for the 2 hours out on the open waters. We couldn't believe it! Just when we spotted a whale in one spot ... another would pop up elsewhere on the horizon. Our tour guide shared some great knowledge with us on the whale culture & their behaviors, and he even gave a shout-out to our Reid because the guide shared the same name! Funny side note about the whale-watching trip ... both Grant and Reid fell asleep. Maybe it was the rocking of the boat, but they both worked in good naps!

 On the lookout...

Just a little whale watchin' with Papa...

 

The tail of a humpback whale 

with distinct white markings.

Taking a dive...

 The whales weren't the only ones in the water that day.

This Princess cruise ship was docked for the day,

while the passengers explored the island.

 Captain and Little Skipper

 Cheers to the Whales!

The whales often are sighted in groups. Here the male
whales competed to be noticed by the female whales.

 Two whales here. Can you see the spray 

and his mouth on the far right?

 All that whale watching worked up an appetite.

Time for some gelato ... yummy!

(Reid loves to sneak in funny faces in photos now.

Grant likes to sneak in bites of other people's gelato.)

After the whale-watching adventure, we did some shopping in Lahaina and then ventured a little further north on a drive. On our map, there was natural landmark for the Nakalele Blowhole, where the ocean water comes into the rock formations and spouts up high into the air. We missed the sign for this somehow on our drive out, but our adventure led us along a one-lane road to a little coastal village. If you met another car on the road, you had to pull over off the side of the road to let them pass. We stopped to ask for directions at a little house selling shaved ice and banana bread. What a hidden treasure this detour was!

 Driving into the village. And yes, chickens 

were randomly hanging out on the side of the road.

We joked that they were true "free-ranging chickens."

 View of the village tucked into the bay.

 An old church & just a few houses.

We turned around at the village, traversed the one lane road back, and eventually found our way back to the blowhole.

 

Many of the landmark signs are hand-painted.

This one was interesting with its words of caution:

"Warning: Stay clear of the blowhole. You can be

sucked in and killed. It's not a waterpark."

We heeded the warning and stayed well enough away!

 The blowhole bubbling up...

 "Thar she blows!"

 Always up for an adventure!