Lanai Valentines Trip

For Valentines this year, Ari and I took a short trip to the island of Lanai. It's been on her list of things to do for the longest time, and this would be our last trip before the baby comes. We flew over on a little plane and stayed at the Lodge at Koele. It's fancy-fancy, everyone working at the Lodge and the sister resort down at Manele Bay seems to know you by name in some semi-eerie but comforting way. The lodge has rolling gardens, lawn bowling, separate English and American croquet fields, and an 18 hole putting course that became a favorite daily ritual.
We got there a little early on Saturday, so we went down to the 1 square block town center and ate at the Blue Ginger Cafe and browsed the art shops. That night we opted out of the piano-voice-clarinet concert in the main hall, but did do some formal dining. A very nice evening.
Sunday was our beach day, and we shuttled down to Manele Bay where they set us up with toweled lounges and big beach umbrellas after we did a little tidepooling. Ari read and watched the tourists try to swim after a pod of spinner dolphins that came by. I did a little snorkeling and got out far enough to see some ulua. We lunched back up at the pool and kept scanning the horizon for the occasional whale sighting. We relaxed back around the lodge in the evening playing the lawn games and dining a little more casually while the fireplaces at either end of the main hall crackled. It's a little chilly up there.
Monday we just explored the gardens leisurely before getting back on the early afternoon flight to Honolulu. We didn't do any trapshooting or rent a 4x4 to go explore the remote reaches of the island, but we need to save something for a "next time."


There may be a slideshow running at the bottom of this page, or you can see our photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ThunderWookieHui/Lanai2009#slideshow