Day 4 in Maui

Day 4 also started out relatively early:

• Got up at 5:30am to go snorkeling at Molokini with WinCo. Conditions that day were perfect--the water was calm and clear--it totally felt like going into an aquarium!
• Saw plenty of of really cool fish (including state fish humu­humu­nuku­nuku­āpua`a, which is, btw, not the longest fish name in Hawaiian). We even saw some sharks and a golden colored eel.
• Stopped at Turtle Town on the way back and swam with the giant sea turtles. Apparently "Turtle Town" is a tourist marketing word and the location of it depends on which tour company takes you there...but the place where we went was quite good.
• We were starving when we got back, so we stopped at Kihei Cafe, one of the local favorites, for breakfast afterwards.
• Across from the restaurant was the Kam II beach, where we went for surfing lessons right after.
• Trying surfing was a lot of fun, but we should have gone earlier in the day. Unfortunately, there were too many people in the water (got run into and knocked over a lot) and the waves also died out towards the end. Appletini came and took pics (one of which is posted here) as they had already taken lessons earlier.
• After surfing we all went to a health food store and bought a bunch of tropical fruit--mango, dragonfruit, papaya, and such--which we enjoyed at my condo afterwards.
• It had gotten close to dinnertime at this point so we headed over to Lahaina, where WinCo checked into the condo they were staying at there, and then all four of us met up at Aloha Mixed Plate for drinks/dinner.
• The restaurant was really cool. It has this patio-like seating by the beach where you can watch the sunset and also hear the Old Lahaina Luau next door. Apparently "mixed plate" comes from the sugar plantation days where each of the different ethnic groups that worked at the plantation would bring their own type of food--so a "mixed plate" restaurant serves a big variety of dishes (Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, etc).
• I made fun of the girls for getting drunk off their fruity, tropical drinks--but I also had a Lava Flow myself (Pina Colada with strawberry syrup), from which I felt a bit more buzzed than I expected to... (I blame waking up early and the strain of doing all sorts of fun water activities throughout the day... =)
• Appletini rushed back to the airport to catch their flight right after dessert while WinCo and I walked around downtown Lahaina for a bit before calling it a night.