early morning catamaran

Our very first morning in Hawaii we scheduled an "early-bird" snorkeling cruise to the Molokini crater.  

We figured we'd still be on Utah time, so waking up would be no problem, and we were right. I was up at 3:30 that morning, wide awake and ready to go!  

 The catamaran picked us up right on the beach, and we got to watch sun rise over the mountains as we waited for the boat to pull in.  
That early morning light on the ocean? I think it's one of my favorite things about Hawaii. The colors are incredible!

Going in the early morning is the way to do it, we decided.  Our boat had about 30 people on it, and it was just us out there, exploring the crater and swimming all around.  

The boat crew said that later in the day, there can be as many as 1500 people at Molokini.  The crater isn't really that large, I can't even imagine that many people there!

This part of the island, Kihei, was about an hour away from where we stayed, but we both agreed that it was one of our favorite areas. So beautiful, green, peaceful!  (So much like Kauai....which is still my most favorite island.)

After our boat trip, we drove to a restaurant to try out the eggs benedict, a favorite dish on Maui--most restaurants served their own "famous" eggs benedict. We arrived at the restaurant, then drove straight back to the beach where we'd gotten off the boat.

Kent had left his credit cards in the bathroom there when we changed out of our swimsuits.
This type of thing typically occurs (from either one of us!) at least once on every trip we go on, so it was nice to get that out of the way on the first day. (And at least we weren't on our way to the airport this time!)

We retrieved Kent's wallet, then headed back to the restaurant again.  By the time we were finished, it was only 10 am.  Waking up early each morning was so fun to me--we could do a ton of stuff, and then we still had the whole day ahead of us!