David and Enid's Travels

It was quite calm this morning, so we felt it would be a good opportunity to go to Honolua Bay and snorkel.  The bay is a marine preserve, and is supposed to be good snorkeling, but only when it is calm.  We drove north to just past mile 32 where there is a parking spot on the side of the road, and a very jungle-like trail through tropical forest about a quarter mile to the bay.  There were no jungle birds though — just a lot of crowing chickens.  Many, many chickens!

As it turned out, it probably is good snorkeling here sometimes, but it wasn’t great today.  The fish were very large, probably some of the biggest we’ve seen, but the water just wasn’t very clear.  We stayed out for about an hour, then sat on shore for a while.  Most of the people didn’t stay long.  We saw several come and go right away.

We also decided not to stay any longer.  On the way out we talked to a couple from Australia.  They didn’t even bother to walk all the way in, based on our advice (they’d been here before and wondered if it might be clearer today).  Instead we just came back to the condo, and spent the day here reading and relaxing.

It didn’t get very windy during the day, but it must be very windy somewhere.  The surf kept building all day, and by evening there were quite large waves at the seawall.  On the weather information it says there is a high surf advisory until tomorrow morning.

[Show thumbnails]

We got up early to take the trip across Maui on the road to Hana.  It is a very slow drive on a narrow winding road.  We stopped along the way at every interesting spot, where we could find parking.  Although the road wasn’t extremely busy, parking spots were very limited at some locations, even though we thought we had gotten an early start.

Our first stop was at the surfing beach at Hookipa Beach County  Park.  As we entered, the viewpoint parking area had a huge sign declaring it “Hawaiian Kingdom Land”, and a number of people there, so we didn’t bother to park.  Instead we continued on down to the lower parking lot, where there were many surfers.  It is a one way street, and when you come to the end, a sign which says “No Left Turn” to get back onto the highway.  Since there was no traffic, I ignored the sign, otherwise it would be a long drive back along the highway to find a place to turn.

We planned to stop at the Twin Falls area and walk in, but there was no parking available.  So we drove on, stopping at a few of the small streams and falls along the way, and other viewpoints.  We pulled in to Kaumahina State Wayside, which has a very short trail to a lookout over the harbor towards Keanae Point.

We went in to the Keanae Arboretum, and spent about 45 minutes there, looking at all the trees (labelled) and plants on the small 6 acre grounds.  We also stopped to look at the taro plantation at Keanae, and next stopped at the Wailua Valley State Wayside, which looks out inland to the valley, and seaward over the village and the ocean.

We stopped for lunch at Puaa Kaa state wayside, where there was a very tiny falls on a stream, and a swimming hole.  After lunch we continued on the very much more twisty part of the road towards Hana.  One of the nicest stops along the way was at Waianapanap State Park, a drive in off the road of about a kilometer.  There is a beautiful black sand beach, and the blue water crashing surf against the black rock of the old lava flow.

We didn’t stop in Hana, since there doesn’t seem to be much there.  We did drive by the General Store.  On the way in we thought it wasn’t open, it looks like such a dump.  However, on our return we did see that there were many people there.  However we didn’t stop.

The farthest point of our trip was to Koki Beach Park.  There was huge surf here, again on the black lava rocks, though the beach is regular sand.  Enid decided to go swimming, and walked in about 100 m before she decided that it was too rough and came back out.  We saw what could have been a disaster.  There were two little girls with their mother out in the same area as Enid.  When we got back to our car, a male surfer and another man and a woman in a wet suit were leaning on our car, and talking to each other.  We were just about to leave when the woman, who had moved back across the road towards their volkswagen micro bus called to the male surfer, “there are three kids in trouble!”

Sure enough there were three heads out in the surf being swept out to sea in very rough water.  The man sprinted down the beach, he paused to look at his surfboard in the back of a halfton, then ignored it and got into the water very quickly.  By this time the people were screaming very loudly.  The other man who’d been leaning on our car, who also looked very fit, had by now run to the water, and several other men with surfboards were making their way to the scene.  The first man there was the one who’d been talking at our car, and he got one of the people (we believe it was the mother who had been trying to save her two children) to swim back to shore.  Together with the other surfers they gathered up the children.

We were going to go on further but after just a few hundred meters farther we came to a stop light, where they were controlling traffic as the road was under construction.  Instead we headed back towards Hana and home.  As we got back to the original beach, an ambulance with paramedics was now on the scene.  As we drove back we met two police cars, and then finally a fire truck.  I was impressed with how quickly they got to the scene, but if the surfers hadn’t of been there, I am afraid that it would not have been quickly enough to save the children.

We spent the day snorkeling at Kapalua Bay, for a second time.  It was a rather windy day, but in the bay it was sheltered enough that snorkeling was good.  We started snorkeling up the north (right) side of the bay, then I crossed over to the left while Enid went in.  After lunch we went out again, this time in the opposite direction.

A very large turtle surfaced right beside Enid.  She didn’t see it coming up from behind her and it surprised her.  The turtles certainly aren’t afraid of people, as they swim right beside you, then dive down and lodge themselves under a coral ledge and rest.

We stayed at Kahana Reef yesterday (April 29).  While Enid finished up the laundry, I went snorkeling in front of our condo.  It was not too windy, so it was quite calm.  I was surprised at how shallow the reef was.  The water was clear enough to see, though not too good for photography.  The highlight of the day was to see a Lionfish (which is a first) and a Tiger Snake Moray Eel.  The moray was at least 6 feet long and perhaps 2-3 inches in diameter.  It slithered along the bottom for quite a while in front of me, poking it’s head into holes in the coral, until finally it found one hole and entered it completely.

Today we had planned to go north to Honolua Bay; however by the time we got ready to go it was obviously getting windy, and from the north-west so that we decided it would not be wise to go to this more open bay.  Instead we went south to Olawalu Reef, which is at mile 14 of the Honoapillani Highway.  There are no toilet facilities there, and the best part of the reef is a long swim from shore.  But it was well worth it.  The water stayed calm, we snorkeled twice, once in the morning and once after lunch, and saw some great coral formations and some new varieties of fish as well.

It was probably a very good decision to go south.  When we returned to our condo tonight the ocean in front was extremely rough, the roughest we’ve see it, and the waves are crashing into the seawall in front.  It is very noisy tonight.

No snorkeling today, instead a day spent looking at plants and flowers.  First this morning we stopped at the scenic lookout along the highway, where you can see whales in season (though not now) on our way to the Maui Tropical Plantation.  This is an old sugar plantation, which has been converted into a tourist area to show how agriculture is now done.

You can go on a tram ride for $16 per person around the agricultural area, but we didn’t bother.  Instead we walked around the grounds, which have many nice flowers and plants, and a small central pond with ducks, and a heron that was eating fish from the pond.

Next we went to the ‘Iao Valley.  It was cloudy as we drove up the mountain a way, and actually started to mist rain, though it was clear and sunny at the bottom.  There is a fee of $5 to park, then a short walk of about a kilometer to see the ‘Iao needle.  The forest is lush and green, and there is a very small stream that runs from the mountains.  All in all, it was the least impressive part of the day.

We’d been planning to eat our lunch there, but since it only took half an hour to complete the walk we stopped instead at the Kepaniwai Heritage Gardens.  These are actually closed for repair, but they have a number of picnic shelters there which we used to eat lunch, as it was once again misting rain.

After lunch we planned to stop at the Bailey House museum, but there was no where to park (there are only about 8 spots) so we didn’t stay.  Instead we stopped and looked at the exteriors of a couple of old churches, including the Kaahumanu church built in 1876.

Next we stopped in at the Maui Nui Botanical Garden.  This was quite interesting as it is all plants which are either endemic to Hawaii, or were introduced long ago by the Polynesians who settled the islands.  The plants are similar to those of today, but often less spectacular, since the flowers (for example on the hibiscus) are smaller.

Finally we stopped at Walmart and got some inexpensive beach chairs, since there are none at this condo, and a few more groceries, before driving back to Kahana Reef.

Once again we were snorkeling today, this time at Kapalua Beach, which is about 4 km north of our condo.  The beach is very nice and sheltered from much of the wind.  It was the nicest snorkeling we’ve had so far in Maui.  The water was quite clear and calm.

While we were out on our first swim, we kept hearing an air horn.  Enid quit just a few minutes before I did, and when I got in she told me that there was some kind of a problem at the far end of the beach.  She said the fire truck had come by.  Later I saw the people from that end of the beach leaving, and it looked to me as if they had been having a wedding.  Most of them were wearing leis and it looked as if they had very nice bouquets of flowers on a large tray.

We swam a total of three times, twice before lunch and once after.  In the morning I saw the largest coronet fish I’ve ever seen.  It was at least 2 m long.  In the afternoon I went out by myself, and swam all the way to the far side of the bay.  There were some nice coral “islands” there just below the surface, and they had schools of fish, especially large numbers of Hawaiian Dascyllus. My goggles kept fogging up, and I couldn’t seem to get them clear, so I swam all the way back to where we were set up on the beach.  Enid wasn’t there, but I couldn’t see her anywhere in the water, so I cleaned my lenses on the goggles and went back out.  When I returned about half an hour later, Enid said that she had gone swimming again as she was far too hot sitting on the beach with no shade.

We’ve been getting up half an hour later every day, so I guess our time is getting readjusted.  It rained quite a bit overnight, but this morning was sunny and the wind didn’t seem as strong.  We stopped at a supermarket on the way to Kahekili Beach, to see if the store was worth shopping at (it was, so we stopped there on the way home tonight to shop for groceries).

Kahekili Beach is quite nice.  There is a good sized parking lot, with picnic tables, toilets, and shower.  Today there were a lot of people for “Earth Day” at the park, and they were picking up garbage.  Afterwards they had a picnic lunch.

The beach is sandy, but quite steep and drops off quickly.  The coral start not far out from shore, and rapidly gets better as the water deepens.  About 50 m from shore there is a very large bed of coral that parallels the beach.  It was about 5 m below the surface, so you could see it well, and the water was reasonably clear, considering how windy it’s been.

Several people were here Scuba diving.  I think they were a class.  I used my video camera on the extension pole for the first time.  It was hard to hold it steady in the waves, but I could get quite a bit closer to the fish.

After lunch the wind picked up, and periodically it would mist rain.  The wind was from on-shore (North East) so the water was not too rough, but it was picking up and whipping around the sand, so it wasn’t really all that nice on the beach.  We were back in the shade, and a bit sheltered from the wind.  I did get a little bit sunburned on my arms and back of my legs, as I was snorkeling for quite a long time today.

It has been very windy since our arrival in Maui, and today was probably the windiest yet.  I saw on the weather that there were small craft warnings out for today.  The surf is really crashing into the seawall outside our condo.

However, we found a place where we could snorkel, Black Rock, and the waves were not bad.  Find is the operational word — we had a great deal of difficulty finding the place which is at the Sheraton Hotel, but not very well signed.  The first time we drove in we thought we were in the wrong place as we passed the Westin Hotel.  We turned back and went farther down the highway until we knew that we must have missed it.  Turning back we drove about 100 m farther on the same road we’d been on before, and found a sign.  There was only one empty spot in the parking lot, and I squeezed in about 6 inches away from a large truck.  I could hardly get out the door and by the truck mirror.

There is a large beach, and there were lots of people there, but around the point a couple of hundred yards from shore there was hardly anyone.  As we rounded the point we saw an Eagle Ray.  They swim very fast, so I barely managed to snap one quick picture of it.  We snorkeled for about an hour in the morning, then walked back to our car to get our lunch.  After lunch we snorkeled once more.  

On the way to go snorkeling we stopped at the farmer’s market and got some vegetables, and a pineapple.  They weren’t cheap, so hopefully they taste good.

I was surprised after we went through US customs in Vancouver to find that it was exactly a year ago today that we last went to Hawaii.  I guess WestJet must always run cheap flights to Hawaii at this time of year.  This year of course we came to Maui, instead of the Big Island where we have been the last two years.

The plane was not crowded.  In fact, we had three seats between the two of us, which meant that Enid got a good sleep in the plane on the way over.  We were however delayed leaving Vancouver.  They announced that someone could not get clearance through customs, so we had to wait while they found and removed their luggage.  Because of that we were about an hour late landing on Maui.

We got a bigger car than I’d expected, a new Dodge Charger, jet black, not the greatest color for the heat of Hawaii.  I guess the rental company would rather rent it to me than some young male driver!  We stopped at the first restaurant we saw and split a Hawaiian plate lunch of teriyaki chicken between Enid and I.  Both of us were very hungry, as it was now about 7:30 pm Vancouver time.

After stopping in Lahaina to get groceries we reached our condo just before sunset.  We watched the sun go down from our lanai, so it is a very nice view.  We are just about 25 m from the ocean.  After sunset we walked along the beach, a nice sandy beach which starts just north of our condo.  Tomorrow we plan to swim there.