Exploring Lahaina, & scuba at Lanai
On Friday night, our ship stayed in the harbour at Lahaina, Maui, allowing me to book an early-morning scuba trip to the island of Lanai for Saturday.
Just before 06:00, I boarded a tender to get back ashore from the Celebrity Solstice. The seas were rougher than they had been the previous evening, which surprised me.
It’s about a mile walk from the tender dock to Malo Pier, and the first few blocks afforded great views of the harbour and the Solstice.
Now that’s a Neighborhood Watch sign I hadn’t seen before!
At 06:30, I met the guys from Extended Horizons. Signing up was very well organized, and gave me confidence that we’d picked the right operator. The boat isn’t launched until all the paperwork, gear assignments and initial briefings are finished.
It was about 45 minutes across to Lanai, and although, the seas were quite rough, divemasters Erik and James gave more detailed information about our first dive site, called Wash Rock. It would allow depths of up to 80 feet, with bottom times of up to 40 minutes. My first impression was that the bottom had little colour compared to my best-ever dive at Grand Turk, but there were lots of fish, and wonderful lava formations.
A few minutes away by boat, our second dive spot after a light lunch was First Cathedral, an aptly-named lava formation that really has to be seen to be appreciated. The next photo is by Mike Cialowicz, who said about it “Lanai’s First Cathedral dive site… a religious experience indeed. It’s a beautiful cavern, with several ‘windows’ through which sunlight enters to create spectacular beams of light.”. I didn’t even bring my underwater camera – I don’t dive very often, and need to focus on things that are much more important than a camera.
First Cathedral only took us to 60 feet, allowing for 50 minutes bottom time.
I can’t say enough about the professionalism, and the passion for the sea, that all 3 of the Extended Horizons crew showed. All the way back to Lahaina, a post-dive talk about what we’d seen continued, and this summary was written up on a whiteboard as we talked. If we’d been on a Maui land vacation instead of a cruise, I’d have been diving with them every day after that.
Getting our gear together and saying goodbyes back at the Malo Pier (and buying a “Dive Cathedrals” t-shirt 🙂 )
The old Malo Pier is in tough shape and has been fenced off.
The road to the Malo Pier goes through the middle of a very large cemetery that has several signs posted stating “Burial Site. Keep Out!”.
I saw many of these signs posted on telephone poles as I walked back to town to meet Cathy and the others for lunch. Wild dogs killing pets – wow!
MJ wanted to have lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise, a spot she and Jim had discovered on their last visit to Maui 2 years ago.
Yes, the burgers at Cheeseburger in Paradise are large and very good! Add excellent service and a great local vibe and it goes on my Highly Recommended list.
A little park near the tender dock that attracts locals.
Back at Lahaina Banyan Court Park, an art show was being held, with dozens of artists in almost any media imaginable. Some of them are very good, but we didn’t add anything to the collection.
I was very tired from the dives and walking, so I took some final shots of Lahaina and we took a tender back to the ship just before 3:00.
At 6:00 pm, we sailed from Lahaina, bound for Honolulu, where we would disembark the next morning.
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