2016 Hawaii - Maui (Day 24)

Our last day on Maui, we decided to take it easy. We started the morning off at Iao Valley. People said it is a must see destination, but we didn't find it too special. Yes, the history was interesting, but other than that, there were way too many tourists!

We continued with a drive along northeast corner of Maui. The road is not for weak drivers. Tight blind corners and hills, and single lane cliff side roads were the norm...about 25km of it that took 45 minutes to go through. If you thought Road to Hana was challenging, you should definitely avoid this section of Hwy 340. It was fun to drive, but also raised my blood pressure quite a bit. The horn was our friend and might have saved us from a head-on, roll-off-cliff accident.

But the scenery was pretty nice.

At the end of the road of death, there was a dirt lot with lots of parked cars. We wondered what the fuss was all about. Apparently, there were some tidepools at the base of the cliff where people love to swim. We didn't bring swim trunks so took some pictures.

I was just gazing at the fishy-looking rocks when there was a puff of spray that looked out of place. A more intent look at the area and we finally found who was making the splash. This humpback whale got as close as 70 yards from the rocky shore, tail slapping as it coasted along, giving everyone a great show.

We continued to Makaluapuna Point, nicknamed Dragon's Teeth for the unique rock features. The area is special to Hawaiians. We were initially interested to fish the area but decided to move on.

We checked out Kaanapali but there was no parking remotely close to the location where we wanted to fish, so we move onto Lahaina.

After grabbing some poke for lunch, I was pretty tired. Michael still wanted to fish so we found a jetty to spend the afternoon. We didn't think much of the area initially but, on my second cast, a beautiful African Coris, aka Yellowtail Coris, surfaced.

African Coris (Coris gaimard) - Species #547

Thereafter, we saw cool species after cool species. There were Achilles Tang, Fourspot Butterflyfish, Belted Wrasse and even a juvenile Rockmover Wrasse. It was actually a very species rich area! The reason I listed them was simply because I could not get any of them to bite.

Michael tried for 3 Paletail Unicornfish that I spotted earlier and they either snapped him off or the hook pulled out. We waited until dusk hoping for some Moray to show but they never did. With an early morning flight, we decided to drive back to the hostel for an early night sleep.