Mele Kalikimaka! What a day!

What a crazy incredible day! We got up at 5:30am and headed to the beach for snorkeling with turtles. At least we hoped we'd see turtles....no guarantees. We ocean kayaked to the snorkel spot and found at least a dozen turtles at a spot the locals call "turtle cleaning grounds". It was great! The turtles would swim right by us and pop their heads up for a breath. The water started getting choppy after a bit so we headed inland to a calmer spot. The guides knew it as a place where some beautiful coral was. What they didn't know is that we had a visitor waiting for us. Just as we dropped from our kayaks into the water, a Hawaiian Monk Seal appeared!
When we tried to leave, the seal kept trying to get on one of the kayaks. Because he's an endangered species, we couldn't touch him! Poor Greg (this is his kayak) he had to wait until the seal was distracted by something else before he could move his kayak! We were told to stay away from it (pretty tough to hide from a 600lb seal!!) and that they weren't very friendly. Great. Wrong! This guy was so cute and so funny! He kept playing with the anchor and watching us. We actually snorkeled in the water with him. I can't wait to develop my underwater camera. It was amazing! Our Maui Eco Tour guides Deja and Chris said this was the first encounter they've had in the 8 years they've been guides. This picture is me and Deja. We headed back to the condo after the snorkeling to clean up because we wanted to shop a bit in Lahaina. We headed up there around noon and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. We try to go to one at each city we visit and have been to about 20 so far. As we bought t-shirts in the souvenier shop, we talked to the cashier and found that she graduated from Santa Rosa High School....in the Art Quest program (where my son Ian is right now!). Small world.....

We continued shopping down main street in Lahaina and I saw someone familiar in one of the shops. When I was growing up, my parents ALWAYS spent money on ONE thing: shoes. My sister and I were born with deformed legs and we had braces and bars on our legs when we were very little. Needless to say, parents wanted to spend money on "good shoes", nothing cheap. We ALWAYS went to Smith's Shoes in Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa. Larry Colombo was the owner/manager and we knew him well growing up. Well, Larry now lives on Maui and we ran into him in Lahaina! REALLY SMALL WORLD!!!