Wanderung 33

During the night we awoke to the type of star-filled black sky that you only see far from cities and pollution, so we spent some time outside on the balcony just watching it before returning to bed until morning. But in the morning we watched the ship coming into position off the Lahaina coast. The mountains were still clad in a morning fog.

The Explorer of the Seas moored offshore Lahaina in Maui and the lifeboats were let down to do tender duty. But after breakfast the tender lines were still quite long so we had a quick round of mini-golf up on the sports deck. Then we used our iPhone's portable Wifi hotspot feature to log on to the Internet for a bit to check email and Facebook, etc.

But by ten o`clock the queues to get onto the tender boats and go ashore had wound down from the morning rush of passengers taking island tours; so we shut down our iPhone`s hotspot, put the iPads in the safe, and headed down to Deck 2 to board one of the lifeboats. The sea was relatively calm, so we had a quick and easy 10 minute ride to the dock near the old, historic part of Lahaina.

Walking over to the huge old banyan tree, which spreads over a park just behind the historic customs house, I think. The amazing expanse of 1 solitary tree was created by the patient work of generations of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. As I recall they hung used pickle jars filled with water on the branches to make them grow parallel over the ground like that.

Over near the customs hosue I met an old friend, a small plumeria tree whose blossoms I had used to decorate Monika's hat during Wanderung 26 on our way back from Australia in 2012. Well, wouldn't you know it, that little plumeria tree was once again in blossom. So I picked a couple of the blossoms that had just fallen on the ground and decorated Monika's hair to take another picture of her with a crown of blossoms. She was so beautiful, and those were great memories of our previous visit. Sometimes, even if rarely, you can really "go home again".

We then walked down Long Street, which stretches along the seashore and is the main tourist shopping drag for Lahaina. Again, that street did not appear to have changed at all from the time of our last visit to Maui on Wanderung 26, which was somehow reassuring after the sad changes we had just seen in the Aloha Tower shopping center in Honolulu.

Our major goal for the shopping was to just see what was being offered in the quite varied set of boutique shops, art and craft galleries, and cafes that line both sides of Long Street. One new thing for me was a scrimshaw shop that had scrimshaw done in color, which I had not seen before. And two of the art galleries featured paintings done on sheets of aluminum, which produces a very light effect as if the painting were being illuminated from behind. That was also a new technique and I suspect that the aluminum reflects incident light rays back up through the pigment in a way that brightens the lighter colors.

But our final goal for our walk was Foodland, a grocery store with good reviews on Yelp, to buy some mouthwash as we had only brought a 4-6 day supply with us. We were also short on toothpaste, but had enough to reach Australia where we figured it would be easy to pick up another tube.

So we continued up Long Street quite slowly until just past Bubba Gump`s Shrimp, where we cut inland to find Foodland. It was quite warm, so I bought a cold, Guava-flavored drink sweetened with real sugar, and Monika bought a cold Stella Atois Belgian beer. We returned to the small Outlet Mall kitty-corner from Bubba Gump`s shrimp shack because we had seen a nice shady bench there with a great view of the ocean where we could each enjoy our cold drink and a protein snack bar Monika had providentially brought along.

Rested and refreshed, we ambled back up Long Street, looking for a light Summer dress for Monika to use over a swimsuit. In the end, she was successful in finding a nice white one and a tan version with an artistic pattern and colorful accents. Surprisingly, I also found a tie rack with a large selection of Hawaiian-themed ties, and finally chose one tie featuring sea turtles, and one depicting a beach scene that ranged from yellow sand at the tip to a deep indigo sky up on top. Monika found two pairs of earrings at that store, one pair made from abalone, so she was happy also.

But heat gets to us rather quickly, so by the time we returned to the tender docking area. We were hot, hungry, and altogether ready to return to the Explorer of the Seas. The tender ride back to the ship was noticeably rougher than when we rode in because a wind had kicked up a bit of a chop and passing boats created an occasional cross swell.

Still, we did get back to the ship in time to hit the lunch buffet in the Windjammer dining area, which took care of the hunger, and then rest in our room, which took care of the overheating. So we were rested before dinner and watched the lifeboats to-ing and fro-ing.

After dinner we just read and do puzzles for the evening until it was time to turn in for the night.