Uleoli Beach

This morning, we went to Mass at the beautiful Maria Lanakila church where they have a wonderful choir. Afterwards, we had lunch in Lahaina and walked around Banyan Tree Park. I kept to my diet and had the seared tuna.

After lunch, we visited the Maui Ocean Center, where we saw lots of sharks, fish, sea horses and turtles. Afterwards, we visited the highlight of our day, Uleoli Beach, also known simply as the Black Sand Beach.

Here the beach, instead of being made out of seashells by the pounding action of the surf, is made out of black lava or a'a. I'd only visited a black sand beach once before many years ago, on the island of Lanai and found it very coarse under my feet. Uleoli's black sand was much finer and softer to walk on. The wind blew warm and gentle on us. What a beautiful day!

We had much fun chasing sand crabs all over the beach. My husband and son worked at scooping them out of their holes and catching them so that they could hold them in their hands for a few brief moments before letting them go again. Fortunately, they weren't big enough to pinch!