Shopping and Subbing

We went over to Lahaina today for a little shopping. This is the busy side of the island. A cruise ship (the Golden Princess) was in port and people were everywhere. They also had an art fair under the banyan tree on the main square of town. This tree was planted some time in the 1800's and covers the entire square with its many secondary trunks. We found some neat things for sale, but didn't really buy much. It's really hard to get large carvings or paintings home and they really wanted a lot of money for them.

We continued to shop along Front Street and picked up some real bargains. Karen and I both found some really neat dresses. We thought we would wear them at Ed's birthday dinner Friday night. There were many sales going on. This was a real indicator of the lack of tourist numbers here. Most places wouldn't admit to reduced business but we could tell they were desperate.

Rob thought it would be nice to go on the submarine Atlantis while were there. He checked for tickets and found that some were available for today. We got on the 3:00 trip. The naturalist that led our little group was a real comedian. He made jokes all the way out and during the trip. We watched a school of goat fish form a bait ball and then get attacked by fish called jacks. One of the jacks was lucky and scored a fish. The naturalist then played taps and gave a short eulogy.

We got as deep as 128 feet and saw a lot of fish. We even saw a spotted eagle ray. Before we submerged we had seen a whale and her calf. When we surfaced and got back on the shuttle boat we saw some whales a short distance away start breaching. They jumped once together, then they separately jumped about six times each. The boat captain said he would have to charge us an extra $20 because of the additional whale-watching entertainment. Yes, he was kidding.

On the way back from Lahaina, we stopped in Kihei at the Who Cut the Cheese store to pick up some munchies. We also found the flavored sugar marketed by the Maui Culinary Academy as a fund-raiser. This stuff is great. Coffee will never be the same. We also got cheese and crackers which we nibbled on later while waiting for Rob to pick up a pizza from Mateo's. That was really yummy too.

What a fun day.