Maui - Day 5 (Part 2)

It was only 12;30 when we got back to the marina, so we decided to go to the Maui Ocean Center for the afternoon. It's a remarkably good aquarium and we make a trip there every time we're on the island. The marina is about a block away, so it made sense to do them both the same day so we wouldn't have to make another trip up there.

The exhibits were basically the same as last year. They did add a tank with baby turtles, which had letters on their shells to identify them. The kids thought that was kind of fun. The octopus was out and swimming around it's exhibit, and our youngest was absolutely fascinated by that. She watched for probably 15 minutes as it swam up and down and dug around in the sand with it's tentacles. I love octopuses, so I was happy to stand there with her. Our son really enjoyed the marine mammal exhibit this time. There are a lot of hands-on activities in that room and because he reads so well, he was able to check them all out and understand the point of them all. His sisters were not nearly as interested, so we finally had to drag him out of there to head to the shark tank.

The largest tank at the aquarium is the shark tank. It has a big room with a large viewing window, and next to it, there is a tunnel where you can watch the animals swim over the top of you. There is also one spot in the floor that is plexiglas and you can watch the fish swim underneath you. The kids have all loved that window in the floor and they lay down and become road hazards as they look down. This tank also has a tiger shark, which is rare to see in an aquarium. It has been there for quite a while - we've seen it on at least 3 trips now - and it's a cool shark to watch.

We headed to the gift shop from there and the kids were each able to choose something from either there or the next store. Our older daughter got a pretty necklace and the other 2 decided to wait and choose something later. We got a couple of things for the people who took care of the cats for us as well.

We were done with the aquarium, so we walked over to the Pacific Whale Foundation store, another one of our standard stops. Our son and younger daughter both chose stuffed animals from here (an angelfish and a dolphin) and I got 2 new rash guards. They have some of the best rash guards I've found and I was needing a new one since one of the ones I brought was completely stretched out. Got one more gift and then we were done.

We headed back to the condo for a quiet evening. We went down to the pool to swim until sunset and then went back and made a frozen pizza for the kids. I went out and picked up sushi for Mike and me from Sansei to round out a very big day.