Sunday, July 30: Ahhhhhhhh Beach
When planning, I knew it would be tough to fight against the urge of over-scheduling; the Maui bucket list could go on forever, but we had a limited time-frame. So I made sure to sandwich our days – i.e. alternating activity days and nothing days – so we didn’t forget to relax on our vacation. After such a busy Saturday, I woke up on Sunday patting myself on the back for this strategy. Actually, I woke up with a pounding headache (I guess the dozen or so glasses of water I had at dinner the night before didn’t work well enough). I took a bit of Advil and look wide-eyed at Rick when he cheerfully offered six words you should never hear on vacation: “Want to go to the gym?”
Excuse me, what?
His reasoning was sound though. (we’ll feel awful without exercising, better to get it out of the way, blah blah blah reason, logic etc.) On Friday, I had broken a 109 day running streak... which really packed on the guilt for me... so FINE let’s go to the gym. For such a large property, the Westin villas’ two workout rooms are a bit small and tucked away on either ends of the property. As a result, both were also reasonably busy around 9am on a Sunday. I think they expect people to take advantage of the beach path and beautiful scenery outside to exercise, but I noticed in the preceding days that hundreds of our running brethren DO take advantage of the path and scenery, and given that I turn such a spectacular shade of purple/red when I exercise (enough that strangers often ask after my health on the daily) and also huff like a St. Bernard... I'm not the best person to mix in on crowded running trails, unless you like a huffing, puffing purple monster machine approaching "on your left!" So off to the gym it was. I noticed while I was running that they have signs about limiting your time to 30 minutes per machine, which seems a bit strict for cardio machines, but given the limited space I guess it makes sense? We settled on the less busy of the two gyms and I knocked out a quick (for me) 2 miles on the dreadmill while Rick biked about 6 miles. We were done and back in the room relatively soon - guilt free and ready to enjoy a no-frills day.
We rewarded ourselves with a leisurely breakfast and coffee (which may have also included a touch of Bailey’s…) on the lanai. I think it always takes me a few days to get out of my hectic mindset and settle into vacation, so this morning was when I first really started to feel myself slow down and ease off a bit. I think we spent at least an hour out there, soaking up the Hawaii air and people watching. As we learned throughout our trip, there is a long and fascinating history about Hawaii and beach access. ALL shorelines, meaning all beaches too, are part of a public trust in Hawaii -- there are no private beaches, which is strongly reinforced from Hawaiian cultural norms and history (that is, the beach and ocean should be accessible to all), and encoded in state law. It's fascinating to learn about, as court cases and disputes and protests abound about what defines the shore line and what role private landowners are expected to play in making the public beaches their properties front accessible to all.
For us, however, this meant that the people watching from our lanai was fascinating and diverse -- not just a bunch of pale Mainland-ers sitting on a private beach in front of a resort. There were surfers and scuba divers and families and couples from all walks of life (and dogs! so many dogs!). We finally peeled ourselves away around 12:30, when we started to change and pack up to head down to the beach ourselves.
Confession: I’m not a beach person. My parents said that as a baby I would cry as soon as I was on the sand. There is even a photo of me at 8 months old – rigidly sitting on the sand just in front of the shoreline- looking indignantly at the camera. I could write a novel just on my hatred of sand. I find it uncomfortable, messy, and it gets EVERYWHERE. When I take the kids to a new playground and see a giant, communal sandbox a pang of fear runs through me. Why? Just why? Sand is impossible to get rid of –it’s itchy and hot – nope, nope, nope. Also the sun… up there… beating its death rays down on me… minute after minute… hour after hour… nothing to do, because I can’t use my phone due to sun glare, and reading is out because generally I can't pull away my train of thought from:
“God it’s hot...Is the sun getting closer to Earth? How many flesh-eating sea monsters are in the ocean RIGHT NOW? Am I going to get a book tan line? …by tan line I mean scalding burn line #ofcourse I’m pretty sure the sun just moved closer, GET BACK YOU VIOLENT BEAST Ugh has it been an hour yet? ...15 MINUTES ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What’s this book about again? ”
So I spend most of my time at the beach watching in horror at the people who are rolling around in the sand building castles or caves or prisons or whatever OR longingly looking back at the pool, where lounging comes with easy umbrella access and the beautiful feeling of clean, crisp concrete underfoot.
That being said, I am… evolving on my beach aversion. Rick loves lazy days at the beach, grew up in a beach-loving family and visited the beach with much more frequency than me. When we started dating I spent many long mornings and afternoons at the beach. And I guess exposure therapy can work, because I’ve come around to spending a few hours in the death trap of sand, sun, and human-eating sea monsters in favor of my husband’s happiness. And you know? It’s not THAT bad sitting there and doing nothing. I can appreciate the beauty of the vast, sparkling ocean, the horizon line in the distance, the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing – I like all of those things. I find them relaxing. I am not totally dead and cold inside. So in planning a trip to Hawaii, I knew I’d have to save some time for the beach – this place has some of the best beaches in the world; it be a sin not to have at least a few beach days, right?
So off we went – we had a cooler packed with drinks, beach chairs, and I put on half a bottle of reef safe sunscreen. Ready! (Reef safe sunscreen is great and necessary OBVI but man oh man it does not absorb easily so basically you have to walk around looking like a really nerdy ghost. We might as well have paired our swimsuits with knee high gym socks and a pocket protector.) Rick put on no sunscreen, despite me asking him at least three times if he was sure he didn’t want just a bit? I have experienced the equatorial sun a few times before – specifically when I lived in Brazil for a few months before college -- and I knew it took no prisoners, even for someone who can soak up the sun like Rick. I think I used almost the entire bottle of sunscreen throughout the afternoon, and I still got burnt.
The beach wasn’t too busy and we were able to carve out a little space for ourselves just to the south of our resort. Rick, the human fish, immediately hopped in the ocean for a swim, while I settled into my chair trying to get comfortable (impossible, really). I knew the snorkeling off our resort beach was supposed to be some of the best on Maui, and Rick confirmed this when he returned. The sand bar ended just a few feet from the shoreline and the coral reefs began immediately after. When putting in the beach chairs rental reservation weeks earlier, I had suggested also renting snorkel gear from Snorkel Bob’s, and, upon returning from the ocean after that first swim, Rick said he immediately regretted not renting the snorkel stuff. He at least wanted to get a pair of goggles, which became a more thorough search that we anticipated: good quality but not ridiculously expensive is an elusive duo on Maui, we would soon discover…
After a few hours (and way too long in the sun) of relaxing (Rick), swimming (mostly Rick), and sitting (me), we packed up and headed back up to the condo around 4:30. I noticed around 4 that despite reapplying sunscreen approximately every 30 minutes, I could start to feel my skin burning and that was a clear signal it. Was. Time. To. Go. After showers and a refreshing homemade aloha hour beverage by Rick (Dr. Pepper and Old Lahiana rum, yum), we were ready for dinner. I pulled out my eating cheat sheet and sent a bunch of suggestions to Rick – we settled on low key takeout by the pool to watch the sunset.
We put in an order for pupus from Star Noodle (we ordered the steamed pork buns and Thai nuoc cham wings) and then swung over toTamura’s (which was right next door) to pick up a variety of poke to compliment the appetizers. We were lucky – we got there just as the poke deli bar was closing up, and we got some of their last containers of poke: ahi wasabi poke, ginger ahi poke, and salmon poke. We browsed the aisles a bit at Tamura’s and regretting not hitting it up in lieu of Safeway for snacks! Such a great variety of snacks and wine there.
We headed back to the Westin and grabbed a couple of lounge chairs right on the edge of the pool complex near some of the grills, perfectly situated (and perfectly timed) for a sunset. I ran up to the condo for drinks (I had been guzzling water all day to field off another killer headache) while Rick set up the food. The food was ehrmahgod good. I’d put it in the top 3 meals we had all week. Maybe the relaxing, slow-paced day that preceded it let us savor it more, but the flavors from our pupus and poke were just delicious. I devoured the poke. Rick said the pork buns were his favorite, and those were gone soon too. We had somehow (through no real planning, really) timed this perfectly to have just the right amount of time to eat before the sunset began, and the sunset that night was one of the best we would see all week – gorgeous colors across the sky bouncing off the clouds overhead while Lanai lit up in the afterglow in the distance. We both took turns heading down to the beach for some photos and an unobstructed look at the sky, before finally heading back up to the condo around 7:45. To round out a perfect day doing nothing, we watched a bit of TV and had a low key evening with an early bedtime.
