Maui has incredible geology. Every kind of wave you can imagine breaks there, shorebreak, beach break, reef breaks, mackin' bay openings, you name it. At the top of the mountains you get 400" of rain a year, at Lahaina you get 10" and from the top of the mountain you can see the cars in Lahaina. I love it there.

We took our 3 daughters 5, 2 and 4 months, and a nanny/helper. Our first week was spent at the Whaler (bottom floor 45 steps from the beach). Here is a run down of the average day:

Wake up, walk to beach.



Make our set up and chill out.



We brought our beach tent as a carry on, it was a necessity for the baby.



Go chill in the ocean. The girls loved to just sit behind the breakers and ride up and down.



At about noon it was lunch time so we would wander back to the condo, and let the 2 y.o. (Aubrey) sleep, everyone else hung out in the sun.



Then it was dinner, followed by popsicle time.

Then we would go wander around Whaler's Village until the little ones fell asleep in their stroller and the chest pack.





That was the average day in Kaanapali.

Sometimes we went snorkeling. I brought my Olympus SW790. It worked pretty good, but I sucked at the underwater shots.

Wrasse



Fish



Turtle



Wife



Butterfly fish



Sasquatch



Fish at "Turtle Beach"

Thanks for the tour.

Cool pics..............cute kids.

I'm gonna go have a popsicle.

nice

Then we went to Kihei for the second week to stay at an estate my grandma rented for the family. It had two houses, with 5 bedrooms and bathrooms in each, 2 pools, and a jacuzzi. It was right across the street from the beach. It was awesome, there was about 15 of us by that point.

One of the pools



Best part about a private pool, just take the baby in naked.



I tried to kill myself, I was surfing out on the reef break in front of our house on this 8.5' Epoxy board with a really narrow pin tail. I pretty much was sucking it up, but the swell was okay. I duck dove under a wave and the board came out of my hands (I was just really shaky with it for some reason). I popped up looking for it and it came crashing down right on top of my head. I saw black for about 2 seconds. If it had knocked me out any longer that might have been it. I was 150 yards off the beach and it was 5:30 am, no one else was around.

Anyways, after that I didn't do much more surfing, mostly sponging and a lot of skimming. I had some of the most epic skim of my life. Kaanapali point had a N. swell the 2nd and 3rd days I was there, and it made an A-frame at the point, I had it all to myself those mornings, it was so much fun riding the chest-high shorebreak. I didn't get any good pictures of the skimming because I was always doing it by myself in the early mornings before the kids got up, my wife took some half-assed pictures if I was skimming around where we were set up, but I never got any good rides those times.

kaanapali point frontside



Slidin' out at Oneloa (Big beach)



fs schwack



We walked out to "The Aquarium" just north of La Perouse. The snorkeling there is mind-blowing. Dolphins, turtles, Ulua, eels and tons of fish. The only problem is that they are closing it for access on August 1st. You can only paddle there now from La Perouse.

Lava Rocks/trail



Went to a Luau



Got "Inked up"



Did the ziplines above Kaanapali with my folks. I thought it was okay.

Dad ziplining.



All in all it was an awesome trip. Taking small kids on a trip like that takes some extra planning, but seeing their reaction to stuff, and just getting to hang with them is worth the travel effort. If you let them dictate the schedule (proper rest and nutrition) it can be as much fun as an adult trip.

The only part that sucked was that the little ones shouldn't swim at Big Beach, and that is hands-down my favorite place on the island. Oh well they can only get bigger.

Nice trip, nice family.

Thanks for sharing. I broke my back and three ribs surfing in Kehei 9 years ago. I have wonderful memories of that.

Thanks for sharing. I visited Maui in 2000, my only trip there and first time in a tropical area. Made me want to make tropical trips a more regular winter time break from the PNW. Nice looking kids. Looks like you had a great family trip.

Sg

Glad to hear you had a good trip. That private pool looks like it would be awesome when vacationing with the little ones.

Jealous

Very nice RR

great post thanks for sharing your vacation with us.

Good pic with you & your baby in the pool, so is the one with your wife & little girl in her aloha attire with a shell lei – inked up. My great grandma loved shell leis. I totally forgot all about that until I saw the pic. Cool pic of the turtle!

I have also had my surf board hit my head, came out of a wave missing board, looking around, wondering for a second....where did it go? Then was hit hard, seeing stars for sure, hand to head to check how bad I was bleeding & yet no blood.

Thanks for sharing the Maui vac with pics– Most Excellent!

sounds like some killer R&R with the family. Good on ya! That is one place I have yet to go. Someday...