Mele Kalikimaka On Maui?

Christmas has lured families to Hawaii for decades.

Julie and I arrived in Hawaii about a month too early to celebrate the actual holiday, but the islands had already begun decorating for the season, as evidenced by the huge Christmas tree beside Ka'anapali Beach on Maui.

I snapped a photo of Julie right after we finished lunch at the Hula Grill and Barefoot Bar, which she calls her favorite restaurant in the world.   We split the Kapulu Joe sandwich as we have each time we've visited Maui.

That morning, we'd taken the tender boat from Star Princess into Lahaina.  A conversation started with passengers sitting across from us, and as always happens in this world filled with seven degrees of separation, we found we had lots in common.  The man saw my "Let It Be" T-shirt and asked if I'd seen Ron Howard's documentary about the Beatles that had been showing on the in-room TV's, with a conversation about classic rock ensuing.

Next thing we knew, we were parting company to go in different directions.  Julie and I caught the public bus to Whaler's Village, which is fronted on its ocean side by the Hula Grill.  Our first destination, however, was Black Rock for what has been consistently great snorkeling each year we've visited.

On our last visit, we had become concerned about a combination of beach erosion and Maui slowly sinking, but the beach seems to be back as it was in earlier years.

I don't know if this occurred naturally or there had been a civil engineering project similar to the one we'd seen done in Redondo Beach, with sand dredged and pumped to rebuild the ideal beach shape.

It turns out there was a project scheduled to bring in 75,000 cubic square feet of sand to "re-nourish" Ka'anapali Beach in the fall of 2019, and perhaps that explains it, but I didn't find any articles about the work actually being done.  It's logical and comforting to understand that the Hawaiian Islands can respond to gradual geologic or climate change.  Humans have engineered solutions or adapted in other ways to deal with changing water levels throughout history.  The Netherlands, for example, would have much of its territory under water if left entirely to natural forces.

It's human nature to adapt to changing technologies as well as changes in the natural environment.  Unfortunately, the rapid emergence of selfie culture now encourages people to seek out situations that look scarier than they are, like jumping off cliffs, to share on social media.  I admit I like to do this kind of thing myself, but for the fun of it.  The first time we went to Black Rock, a couple of local kids climbed up on the cliffs as evening approached and dove off, but that was a very rare event.

With the selfie revolution, however, now there's a line of tourists from little girls to middle-aged men constantly climbing up the jagged rocks and jumping down, with their friends in the water filming them.  Some even do impressive high dive tricks like back flips and twists. Snorkelers have to be careful swimming past that spot, either sticking right next to the rocks or swimming out around the gawkers holding camera phones.  Just for the record, this place is not supposed to be like a water slide at Raging Waters.

In any case, the snorkeling was terrific as usual, with beautiful coral and sea urchins as well as all of our favorite fishy friends.  Julie saw a turtle and sea snake on her first swim, and while I didn't find them that day, I had a close encounter with a huge turtle the day before in Kauai.  I found other amazing sea life.  I especially liked the cove just around the point, where no cannon balls scared away fish and few other snorkelers ventured past the waves at its mouth.

While we did break for lunch, we returned to snorkel before I went back to the Hula Grill for the live music and Julie did a bit of shopping.  Seeing Maui Brewing's Coconut Hiwa Porter on the menu, I ordered one, as that had been specifically recommended by my beer connoisseur friend Christy.  I think I might have been the only one actually watching the young lady playing the guitar and singing.  Upon seeing me struggle to hear from a stool at the bar just outside of the restaurant section where she played, she turned it up a bit.  Hula Grill always seems to have great local performers.

Julie returned saying we needed to get to the bus.  She'd bought some new Maui T-shirts for me on her shopping spree, which was a win-win-win situation as far as I was concerned.  Should you decide to do this very affordable snorkel excursion with the $4 round trip public bus between Lahaina and Ka'anapali Beach, remember that locals have priority for boarding, and if there happen to be a lot of cheapos like ourselves on your cruise, you should have a contingency plan to pay for a taxi to catch the ship.

This was our last port in Hawaii, and it would have been quite expensive to get to the next stop in Ensenada to catch the ship and legally cruise back into the USA.

If you like to snorkel, many other great spots accessible by boat, including Molokini, but for easy beach access, it's hard to beat Ka'anapali Beach. Then again, there are lots of other terrific excursions available on Maui like the Road to Hana, pineapple plantation tour, luau and bicycling down a volcano to the beach.