The Adventures of Lory and Z's Travels: Chillin' in Maui

Where to start? We've been doing a lot of chillin' in the fabulous sunshine. It's really great staying in one place for the entire trip and not having the hassle of switching hotels, but I'm still torn on whether I prefer Wailea over Ka'anapali. Both are really great places to stay at. Our resort isn't overly busy this time around which is nice.

While the Marriott doesn't have direct beach access, there are two really great beaches on either side, Ulua and Wailea beach, and access is just a short walk along the boardwalk, which is also a great running route- very scenic with the ocean.

The snorkelling at Ulua beach is good first thing in the morning, but during this week we have found that the visibility hasn't been the best. I decided that I wanted to try out snorkelling with fins this time around to see if that would make things easier for me. I always get tired quickly when snorkelling, so we rented a pair from Snorkel Bob's for the week at a cost of $8. Out front of our hotel there are a bunch of "resident" turtles, but with no direct access point we needed to swim a ways out from Ulua beach so I'm glad I had the fins otherwise I wouldn't have made it out there. We saw 5 turtles this time out just swimming around. One of them swam under me which was cool though the entire time I was thinking that it better not swim up into me. One of the turtles was gigantic, it was probably a good 4-5 feet in length. Ulua beach is a great beach to just bob in the water too; the surf is usually quite tame. We ended up buying a boogie board for $10 and in the afternoon when the surf gets a little rougher, this beach is great for body surfing too. Buying the board was cheaper than renting one and some lucky kid will get a free board when we leave.

On the other side of our hotel we have Wailea beach. This is also a good beach for bobbing in the water. But it's also a good area for stand up paddle board. Z rented a board and after he was done paddling around he got me to try. It was fun, but harder than it looks. I had a lot of trouble actually standing up, so ended up kneeling instead. Maybe next time I'll get up.

We've hung out at Big beach where Z enjoyed playing around in the waves. I didn't go in the water here because I'm still gun shy from our last visit there where I got tossed around in the waves and felt like I might drown. We had read that the snorkelling at Little beach was supposed to be good, so we trekked over there but the waves were quite rough and so we didn't bother. Little beach is also famous for being clothing optional and well there was really no need to be surrounded by that.

One of our best beach times was up at Ka'anapali beach where our friends are staying. Here the snorkelling is amazing. The water is so clear and the afternoon we spent there the water was very calm. We got to see a bunch of different fish. The bonus treat here was when a pod of dolphins appeared and started jumping out of the water. It was such a cool sight. I've never seen dolphins in the wild before. One of them jumped out of the water and did a back flip, it was amazing to see. They played around in the area for a bit and actually swam quite close towards the beach just down from us. Definitely a highlight of this trip!!