Maui Noku Oi

Maui Noku Oi or Maui is the best

Saturday we decided to spend some time outside at the hotel and take it easy in the morning.  I found my mom a chair in the shade where she could see the water and went down to the beach.  It was our last day so I wanted to just sit and take it all in.  After some lunch in the room we went to Lahaina for our whale watch trip.  Lahaina is an old town, it was the port originally used by the whalers and was the first capital of Hawaii.  There are remnants there of an old fort, a prison and lots of history.  There is a huge banyan tree in the city square and there was a craft show going on.  My pal Marty the photographer was there.  We were a little early for our whale trip so my mom sat at the dock and I looked around.  I found an old hippie making sandals from a pattern used by the Roman soldiers centuries ago.  Really a cool design, just a sole and one continuous piece of thong that attaches to the shoe and wraps around your foot and ankle.  We talked for a while, he’s been on Maui 30 years and before that lived in Lima, OH which is where I grew up.  More small world. 

The boat for our trip was really a big raft with some bench seats in the middle and 2 rows of stadium like seats in the back.  Mom was a trouper going down the narrow dock and onto the raft.  I got her settled on the bench and went forward to sit on the side tube.  There were 2 guys up there who started talking and we were having fun.  I asked them if they had seen the boys in skirts and Jerry said “honey, I was that boy yesterday”.  We talked about our favorite queens on Ru Paul.  When we spotted our first whales Jerry said we were lucky and we went right to “we’re all lucky”.  Jerry and his pal live in San Francisco now, but he lived in Toledo for a while, came to Columbus and knows my pal Andrew Willis.  Being with a small group on a raft was wonderful.  We saw some of the other cattle boats out looking, but we could get up close and not be intrusive.  The captain had such a good eye for spotting groups and predicting their behavior.  She also put a hydrophone in the water, sort of a microphone so you can hear the whales.  WOW.  We saw all sorts of jumping and diving and tails.  As we were getting off the raft my Mom told the captain it was the best thing she’s ever done, in all her 83 years.  That made me feel wonderful.

After the whales we had plans to have dinner with my pal Drea Blau who used to live in Columbus and was part of CSP.  She works for the Ritz Carlton and got transferred to Maui.  She picked us up and took us to Cool Cats, a sort of burger joint in Lahaina.  It was casual, the food was good and there was a guy playing guitar.  He broke into Friend of the Devil and one point and Drea and I sang along.  It was fun to see her and catch up, she is skating with some roller derby girls, diving and having fun. 

Sunday we few back to San Francisco and spent another night at the Fairmont.