Kihei, Maui

Last updated on January 24, 2022

The Maui airport boarding area is open air with a few small shops and a place to get take-away. A quick 35 minute flight from the Big Island on Hawaiian Air went smoothly. You go up, you level off, you gulp down a tropical juice cup and you start to descend. Easy peasy. Car rental went smoothly and we got, you guessed it, a white minivan! Our new condo is in Kihei which is considered South Maui. We got a little spoiled at our last place which was HUGE and had 3 bathrooms. This one is pretty small with 2 tiny bedrooms (but bunk beds) and 1 bathroom. It is newly renovated and pretty nice inside. There are many wild chickens roaming about the yard. They have few natural predators here and are the true definition of free roam. We haven’t found any eggs yet. Compared to our chickens at home, these ones seem much smaller and more agile. 

We spent sunset at a local beach with a nearby VW van playing reggae music. The kids know Bob Marley and their favorite song of his is “Tree Little Birds.” We did a bit of rock exploring on the beach just off Kalama Park and had dinner at a place with fun, live music that really felt like Key West. 

The next day we drove south to a tiny cove of a beach where you can snorkel out and around a rock point and back to the beach on the other side. This was one of Trey’s favorite beaches from a previous visit to Maui and he was excited to have found it again. It is aptly called Secret Cove (Hawaiian name is Pa’ako Beach). Trey and Marin saw a few turtles and a lot of fish. We played there all afternoon and watched the gorgeous sunset. This beach is known as a great place for weddings and around sunset 2 families showed up for pre-wedding photos. We hope they didn’t get any photo bombs of 2 maniac boys covered in sand from head to toe, sprinting by them chasing each other with sticks. The kids dug a giant pit and then buried themselves up the the waist. It took just as long to get out as it did to dig the pit! 

When in Maui in the wintertime it is a must to go whale watching. The Pacific Ocean around Hawaii is teeming with humpback whales. Humpbacks migrate over 3,000 miles from Alaska to the warm waters of Hawaii to mate, have their calves and let them grow up in an easy environment before making the trip back north later in the season. Apparently the mother whales do not eat while they are here and lose on average 33% of their body weight. We have taken tours in the past with the Pacific Whale Foundation, an awesome NGO based in Maui, so we went with them again for a 2-hour whale watching tour. The captain was very funny and if you closed your eyes to listen you would have thought Jonah Hill was doing your tour! The marine biologist was knowledgeable and open to any and all questions. We saw a mother, calf and a little pod of dolphins all swimming together. They said it wasn’t common for dolphins to hang out so long with whales, but they seemed to be playing together. Its like a humpback whale nursery here now! We have zero good photos of the whales as its really hard to get a good shot unless you are posed and ready for the entire 2 hours and just happen to be aiming at the right spots. We did not do this. Let’s just pretend this whale shot is mine… not from the brochure. Griffin and Sy found it very hot in the sun and only survived because they got a ginger ale and a bag of chips and laid in the transient shade for rejuvenation.

Afterwards we went to Laihana for lunch at Down The Hatch. It had outdoor seating, a decent kids menu and a curvy fish pond running through the whole outdoor table area with a bunch of big coy and a turtle that we initially thought was fake until it moved. Marin spent most of the time there trying to catch a mourning dove that had a sandwich stick somehow stuck on its left leg causing it to limp. I told her if she caught it I would help her remove the stick. I tried to catch it also and got my fingertips on it, but it could fly quite well and took off just out of reach. All the doves there had chronic bumblefoot and were in various stages of losing toes and feet. Even the double amputees were peg legging around the place pretty well. 

We walked around Laihana for a while, had the requisite shave ice, and checked out the Peter Lik gallery, which is always amazing. He is a self-taught landscape photographer who sells photographs for millions of dollars! He does some incredible things with light and color.

We spent the afternoon until sunset at Napili Beach. This is one of the beaches up in West Maui where all of the fancy resorts are. It’s great for small kids with a low surf and nice sand. The snorkeling game was good here too with a lot of fish pretty close to shore. Marin met a very chatty, slightly inappropriate, kooky woman with a dog who she spent an hour chatting with. The way to Marin’s heart is with any kind of animal. She also met a young Czech couple and heard them talking about their country and traveling in that area. A giant underground village was constructed with and extensive underground network of connecting tunnels.

Side note: We finished our family watch of the Netflix series Lost in Space last night. It is so hard to find shows that the entire family can enjoy and this fits the bill perfectly. We are holding out hope they will create another season! 

We forced ourselves to have a lazy day at the condo…school work, late breakfast, waddled over to the pool just down the row for a few hours of pool time. The kids did some laps and raced each other and the grown ups before devolving into pool games of jump, dive, twist, “hit the hands”, in and out of “hot tub and cold pool”, and measuring the perimeter of the pool in Daddy lengths. Sy just learned about calculating perimeter on IXL so this was a helpful real life follow up! We ate lunch on the lanai with a few wild chickens and a rooster with iridescent dark green tail feathers. Kids polished off our stash of apples while playing Roblox together on the iPads in the afternoon. Trey found a good running trail and took off for a run in search of pick-up basketball courts. After making his way through all of the wild chickens at the Kam iii parking lot he headed off on this trail, which was really just running out and back on the Kamaole beaches.

The saga continues. We finally settled on an itinerary for Egypt and Sri Lanka, but the Covid related travel issues continue. We have to get to Honolulu for better flights to Egypt, which is the easiest part of this trip with $50 flights going 20 times a day from Maui. We need visas for Egypt that have to be submitted a week prior to arrival in Cairo. We also have to find PCR covid tests that provide a QR code with the results AND the results have to return within 72 hours of departure, but no one will guarantee that their results will return in that time period AND the tests are booking up the second that appointments are released to the public. Honolulu to Cairo is at least 3 flights and layovers can be 40 minutes to 7 hours! KVB is working hard to find us the best flight options.

We stopped at Ho’okipa Beach which is known for windsurfing and a large population of green sea turtles that come up to sun and rest on the beach. We watched some swim ashore, ride the waves in and then laboriously haul themselves out onto the sand. We had an açaí bowl in Paia at a small cafe with live music and walked around town window shopping. Marin loved watching the two man band perform and interact with everyone. We then went for a brief outing into Makawao to browse in some cute stores and then onto the Surfing Goat Dairy for a tour and cheese tasting. This is a place that we have been to several times in the past and everyone had a blast with the goats. They do some amazing specialty goat cheeses and we bought home the French Dream and one mixed with mustard seeds.

We ended the day at Makena Beach, another great South Maui beach. These pictures are from Big Beach. A short walk over a rocky outcrop takes you to Little Beach which is clothing optional…and not the good kind. Eldery people opening jars of pickles abound.

Big Beach had very big waves that break close to shore. The boys spent most of the time jumping smaller waves and running for their lives from the huge ones, and creating timed racing laps around the beach, while Marin did some gymnastics. They all finished it all off with another giant pit. The light is incredible at sunset and we had to weed through tons of photos to narrow it down to a manageable number. Trey played with some different settings to get some of the wave shots.

We got take out dinner from a local (mostly) fish restaurant tonight and had some small food victories. Marin tried and likes coconut shrimp! Griffin loved grilled mahi mahi and Sy likes kalua pork quesadillas. One of our unspoken goals for this trip was to expand everyone’s palate a bit and so far I would grade us as “fair” on this goal. We technically haven’t left the US yet so the availability of familiar foods is high and the keiki menu often includes chicken fingers, cheeseburgers and pasta. Looking forward to Egypt, Sri Lanka and South America for new food experiences!

Our final day in Kihei was another lazy morning doing schoolwork, pool fun and late lunch/early dinner at Paia Fish Market. We have figured out to time our meals off schedule to avoid lines at the popular places. We walked right in at 4 PM and got fresh mahi mahi platters and a lilikoi margarita. This is our last afternoon on this side of the island and we spent it at Kamaole Beach Park (Kam iii). An impromptu barefoot “partido de futbol” broke out (go Duolingo!), some wave jumping, a random fire juggler (which was beautiful as the sun was going down), and then home to pack up again.

Heading to Hana tomorrow morning!