Looking back near four months now I cannot recall what we did of note for the three days after we connected with my cousin during our first full day on Maui. Only two salient things leap to mind: hanging at the nearest pool on the second day and driving the north coast a bit on the fourth. It seems as if we must have done something else…didn’t we? Our fourth day also represented our final full day on the western end of Maui. We had been told the natives didn’t really like tourists going up along the north shore, but we took a ‘chance’ and except for a bit of display for what I think represented a Hawai’i Separatist Movement we experienced no animosity. We certainly saw spectacular scenery as the road dove to near sea-level and then ascended to the tops of cliffs.
Our rental car, the ocean, and a spectacular sky above. Molokai in the distance. September 2024.Once upon a time I might have tried snorkeling but not now, and certainly not in this partially protected bay. (Little dots are people snorkeling.) September 2024.Unfortunately for my pictorial record, few pull-offs existed. At this one you can see a good representation of the north coast. The hill in the background has an incline in it as the road we’re on continues. We drove down to near-sea level in the bay out of the photo to the right. September 2024.
By my estimation I took around 100 photos of the coast and/or sunrises/sunsets while we lingered on Kapalua Bay. Dawn would start with the low-contrast promise of sun:
Pre-dawn, last morning on Kapalua Bay. Molokai to the left. September 2024.
And sometimes not so low-contrast…
This photo taken 20 minutes prior to the above it. Maui, September 2024.
I guess most of the time we stared at sunrises in the morning, sunsets in the evening and in between we ate and stared at stuff like this…
Breakers just beyond our shore, nearing sunset. Kapalua Bay, Maui, September 2024.
First sunset, with Molokai in background. September 2024.
Apologies, everyone. I’m going full Grandpa Mode in this one. It needs to be done.
After passing through three airports ranging from nice to delightful (see I Love You Hilo B. Airport), renting a car, and driving around the western lobe of Maui, we negotiated the contactless check-in process to our condo (another post for another day), unpacked, and stepped outside just as the sun set. Apologies for posting yet another sunset photo! It fits and I love ’em!
By the time our first full day in Maui dawned, we had made the decision we wouldn’t be driving around much. That drive from Kahului Airport to our condo at Kapalua Bay had taken nearly an hour. With little of interest in the miles and miles of condos stretching south of us to Lahaina, which itself offered much less after the 2023 fire wiped out half of its center, we realized going to any of the attractions mid-island would mean a two-hour roundtrip drive…every day. Attractions on the eastern part of the island (Haleakala National Park, for example) would be even further. If this had been our first few days in Hawai’i….but they were not.
We did drive back that very first day, however, so I could connect with my cousin whom I had not seen in 40-50 years. I grew up with only three cousins, all girls, who lived many hundreds of miles distant by the time I entered school (especially when they moved to Hawai’i for a few years). I gained a fourth when she was born as I finished high school and college, but the cousin one year older than me passed away about 20 years ago. With only three surviving cousins, and only two I actually knew growing up, seeing my Maui cousin qualified as a Big Deal. We met at the Maui Brewing Company in Kihei. After a delightfully long meal full of laughter, reminiscences, and plenty of beer, we toured the gated community where my cousin’s husband works as head of security. It’s a sweet gig: he works but two or three days each week and rubs shoulders with The Rich. He dropped some names, but I’m not allowed to pass them on to you. Suffice to say, when one of them purchases a home there, they promptly drop about a million to remodel it.
At the end of the afternoon we faced that one-hour drive back. We stopped in Lahaina at a Safeway for supplies, representing the first time I’ve ever seen a wine cellar in a Safeway.
Wine Cellar at Lahaina Safeway. September 2024.
That night the sun dutifully set, and I just as dutifully captured it photographically with twenty shots.
Sunset over palm. Maui, HI, September 2024.
The final dregs of sunset. Maui, HI, September 2024.
all the voices in my head 