Almost Maui

 

Yesterday morning we anchored off Maui near the port of Lahaina. We had planned a whale watching excursion. We were up at 7AM to get the earliest tender boat possible. Unfortunately, the weather had different plans. The captain made an announcement at 7:30 that our call to this port would be cancelled. While it was decent weather in the morning, the conditions would be deteriorating and make it unsafe to operate the tenders. So that was a disappointing start to the day. But when life gives you lemons?

Since we were up anyway, we had an early breakfast (Beef Tapas!!). And then we started curating our own whale watching excursion from the ship. We were able to see many spouts off the port side aft. So we headed to our port side balcony with both sets of binoculars!! And we saw so many whales. Lots of tails!! 

 

About an hour later the captain pulled up the anchor and we started making our way to Ensenada. As we were leaving, Angie saw what she thought was a windsurfer that was having trouble staying afloat. After a minute or so she realized that it was not a kite surfer at all. It was a humpback who was breaching on its side and showing us it's fin!! Kind of a wave goodbye from Maui. So while the morning didn't go as planned, the whales we saw were certainly magnificent!

 

We also didn't realize how tired we were from three very full days in port. So we stayed in our cabin most of the day and napped. About 11AM I went and got us some slices of pizza. The special one was the Princess pizza with fresh tomatoes and spicy sausage!! Later at about 3PM we went to the buffet for what they called "Tea Time". Princess does have a more formal sit down tea time every day at 3 in one of the main dining rooms. But we were just in the mood to grab some small bites. We were very impressed by the selection. In addition to the usual tea time snacks such as scones with cream and jam, they had several hot options such as fried fish, an Indian vegetarian dish, stir fried beef and of course chicken nuggets. Plus a great salad bar and tuna, egg and chicken salad with fresh rolls. I had a salad with a big dollop of chicken salad. Probably more like chicken salad with some greens!!

 Today is the second of six sea days until we get to Ensenada. The seas were a bit bumpy overnight. Lots of creaking in our cabin. But the sun is out now and the seas looks calmer. Definitely some more outside time today.