Today we were taking the ferry to spend the day on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. I packed a huge beach bag with everything I could think of, including a new coverup that I could wear since after the beach, we planned to have lunch at the Four Seasons on Lanai.
We ate breakfast at the condo and left at 8:00 am and drove to Lahaina. We had reserved our tickets by phone and stood in line to get them boarding the 9:15 ferry. The ride was pretty bumpy even that early. It made me wonder what we would be in for on the ride home as the ocean would become much rougher as it got later in the day and we weren’t planning to come back until the 4:30 ferry.
Lanai coming into view.
The walk to Hulopo‘e Beach Park at Manele Bay was about 10 minutes from the ferry.
We arrived at the beach and got set up-thanks to Trip Advisor, I knew to bring a sheet to lay out on since we decided we did not want to bring our chairs. This worked great and kept our towels from getting sandy.
I got us set up under a shade tree and then went to check out the snorkeling conditions. Lanai can have wonderful, calm snorkeling conditions but right away I could see today was not one of those days. Ben was able to go out and he saw some fish although the conditions weren't the greatest.
I got in the water to watch Ben snorkel since there weren't a ton of other people in the water with him. I thought the beach was really pretty here.
I also walked the beach and took pictures.
Around 12:30, we were all hungry so we packed up and washed up and I put on my new coverup and we walked over to the Four Seasons.
We looked around the grounds a bit and then went to the Sports Bar and Grill for lunch. The boys each split the ahi tuna burger and the regular burger and I got the surfer grilled cheese which came with a garden salad.
I also had a lava flow. The lava flows we made at the condo were so much better!
We then went down to the bar by the pool where we sat and had a few drinks.
There was a worker with two beautiful birds and he let me take pictures of them and let Ben hold one of them.
I walked around the grounds and took pictures.
Before we knew it, it was 4:00 and we had to rush to make it back in time for the 4:30 ferry. The ride back was very bumpy and although I was fine, the boys got pretty woozy since they ate and drank more than I did!
Back at the car, we agreed we just wanted to go back to the condo and clean up and maybe have a bite to eat. We showered and changed and decided to go to a nearby sushi place. But it was packed so I went back to the condo and had a hot dog and the rest of the Maui onion chips and the boys went to McDonald's so Ben could try the saimin noodles--I told him he probably picked the worst place possible to try them but he wanted to anyway!
We were treated to one of the best sunsets all week.
After sunset, it was an early night for all of us, and we were asleep before 9:00 pm.
