Day 9 Maui

While the financial meltdown may have affected many things, by all appearances, Maui along with the other islands we visited in Hawaii do not seem to show any signs of a weak economy. Today we landed at the port city of Lahaina which is remarkable due to the presence of the largest Banyan tree in the world which over the years has expanded to encompass an entire city block. We have included a picture of the tree which does not do it justice since you only see a small portion of the tree. We have also included a picture of the two of us in our newly acquired Hawaiian outfits. ALOHA!!!

There is a small island to the west of us which gives the feeling of being in a large lagoon. This lagoon is teeming with whales. As we cruised in this morning we saw nine whales in the period of about 45 minutes. During the day as we were on the beach at Ka'anapali we could see their spouts. Today we dropped anchor and used the life boats to tender into Lahaina.

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Chris - Finally able to blog after my "big" Thursday night wine tasting! Maui was a delight as usual...plentiful whales, beautiful beaches, fabulous weather and great shopping. Lahaina has grown since we were here about 10 years ago, but still maintains the look of an old frontier town with clapboard facades. Some of the facades are a century old and some clever imitations. The biggest difference I saw were the number of high end stores, particularly bordering the beach. Back to the water for 3 days of cruise and snooze.