It’s broken

As I type this, it’s 5:30pm HST (8:30pm Pacific), and we are supposed to be a little over two hours from landing at OAK (Oakland) airport (I refuse to call it “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport”). But we’re not. Instead, we are firmly on the ground at OGG (Kahalui, Maui) airport, sitting in the Hawaiian Airlines lounge after a partially-paid-for-by-Hawaiian dinner at Stinger Ray’s, conveniently located across from our gate.

Our flight was supposed to leave at 2:30pm; Hawaiian’s best guess right now is 9pm. They are ferrying in a new plane and crew to replace the ones which were supposed to take us home – maintenance worked on the original plane for at least an hour after we got to the gate, but eventually, the gate agent came on the PA and said that “the plane is broke.”

They originally said we’d be able to leave on the replacement plane at 6pm, but I had my doubts – they had to find a plane (easy) and a crew (more difficult) and fly them from Honolulu to Maui. 9pm seems realistic. I hope.

We had plenty of time to kill before coming to the airport (we left the resort around 9:30am and didn’t need to be at the airport until 12:30pm), too. We had a disappointing lunch at Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie (both of us had the seared ahi sandwich, which was a terrible waste of a small serving of ahi tuna; the chocolate chip cookie was much better), and then went to Costco to look for souvenirs (successfully).

Oh, well; there’s wifi here, it’s air-conditioned, and we’re not on a plane with bad engines!

Finally!

The new plane and crew arrived about 7:40. We boarded about 8:20, left the gate at 8:43, and were in the air at 8:53. ETA is 4:34am.

Only amateurs take 45 minutes

Diane tried out her new mask this morning – it leaked, so it’ll go back to The Snorkel Store with the rest of our rental gear tomorrow morning. Despite the leak, we managed to snorkel for a few minutes, and it was a great day for it — there were turtles just about 30 yards offshore!

We headed Upcountry again today, stopping for lunch at Kula Bistro before finally getting to Ali’i Kula Lavender. Their website suggests allowing 45 minutes for a visit; we were there for nearly two hours (to be fair, we did spend 20 minutes in the gift shop and cafĂ©) and left just a couple of minutes before closing time.

The views were spectacular, and the flowers weren’t bad either. We were still a few weeks too early for peak lavender bloom, but the trip was worth it anyway.

The Buddha on the Hill

We drove back to the Westin with a much-needed stop for gas (I paid $3.69/gallon with my Safeway discount; according to GasBuddy, gas at the station I usually visit at home is $4.99/gallon…who says Hawaii is expensive?), then took the Beach Walk for dinner at Leilani’s Beach Bar (and another free slice of Hula Pie, thanks to our Westin Owners Privilege card).

Another Maui Rainbow

We enjoyed dinner and sunset before walking back to the Westin.

It was pretty dark most of the way back, but the nearly full moon lit things up nicely.

Moon Shadows