Honeymoon in Hawaii, Day 3
We were up and on the road early on Saturday morning. We needed to be at our boat, the highly-recommended Four Winds II, by 7:00am to go snorkeling. The drive down the west Maui coast was beautiful as we passed beaches full of early-morning surfers and people paddling their old-school longboards out in the small waves. As we came around to the southeast side of the island, we passed through short tunnels and drove along rocky cliffs. Up on the hillside, huge wind towers spun slowly in the swirling winds of the Pacific Ocean. And then we were in Ma’alea. Smack dab in the center between west Maui and the rest of the island, Ma’alea is a tiny town that consists mostly of a deep water harbor. But it also includes the Maui Ocean Center aquarium, a strip mall, and a Carl’s, Jr.
As we pulled into the town’s parking lot (yes, essentially the whole town has one big lot), we realized we’d forgotten to bring towels along. Fortunately, the Four Winds II wasn’t the only boat leaving for a snorkeling trip, and one of the local shops was open to check in their own customers and sell us a couple of beach towels. The moment of panic quickly passed. Then we trudged down to slip 80 and boarded the boat. After claiming a spot on the large catamaran’s upper deck, we left our gear and went down to partake of the fruit and bagel breakfast provided on the boat. We headed back upstairs only to find our gear shoved into a corner and another couple occupying our spot. Staring daggers at them, but not wanting to start off the day with an argument, we grabbed our stuff and went to find another place to sit.
The trip out to the snorkeling location took maybe 90 minutes, during which the staff briefed us all on snorkeling techniques and tried to sell us on the idea that the water would be cold enough to rent a wetsuit. It turned out that the water was super-pleasant, cool but not cold and a great temperature in which to spend a couple of hours swimming. I wore my contacts, of course, but Judy, who always wears glasses, was able to get a special mask that matched her prescription.
Since I have a mustache, I got to experience the thoroughly unpleasant task of covering the mask’s nosepiece and my upper lip in Vaseline to make a tight seal. It worked, though, as I had no trouble with water getting into my nose while I was out there. I was able to snorkel successfully maybe 50% of the time that I was in the water. I’d breathe fine for a while, but inevitably some seawater would sneak in around the corners of the snorkel, searing my throat as I reflexively swallowed. This frustration limited my snorkeling to a couple of short sessions and one swim without the snorkel at all.
Despite that, snorkeling off the coast of Maui was a pretty incredible experience. All the snorkel trips in Maui head out to Molokini, a half-submerged crater in the shape of a crescent. The landscape makes for great snorkeling territory, as a dozen different varieties of tropical fish swim in and around the vibrant coral reef that covers the sea floor in the crater’s interior. The crater was crowded with at least a dozen different boats, but the captain told us that weekends are actually slower than weekdays, and that there are often over 20 boats in the crater on snorkeling trips during the week.
Judy, in contrast to me, had absolutely no problems with snorkeling. She loved it unabashedly and only climbed back onboard the boat to eat the delicious barbeque chicken lunch the crew served to us. She spent time following various fish around, including a humhumunukunukuapua’a, the colorful (and colorfully named) Hawaiian state fish.
On the way back from Molokini, the captain and crew kept a watch out for sea turtles while warning us not to expect too much. The water was both choppy and murky that day, so it was harder to spot them, but we ended up seeing maybe a half dozen in the end. Mostly it was just glimpses of heads and occasionally a bit of shell, but it was still cool.
After snorkeling, we drove back to the hotel to relax for a bit. Judy took a nice long nap while I puttered around on the internet, waiting for her to wake up. And then it was off towards the north end of west Maui to see the sights. There are a couple of places on Maui that are reachable only by the determined. It’s possible to drive around the north side of the western half of the island, but the road gets narrow and treacherous and the rental car companies warn against it. We didn’t really have the time to go all the way around, but there were a handful of spectacular-sounding spots that I really wanted to check out.
Once you pass Kapalua, where the airport is, you leave civilization pretty quickly. You still see individual houses once in a while and there are a few beach parks, but there really isn’t much there, as the shoreline turns rough and rocky. The road, meanwhile, stays nicely paved, but it gets very twisty. We even had to slow down and carefully drive over a handful of one-lane bridges on our way. In a short 10 miles, we went from tropical palm trees to towering forests to beautiful green rolling hills, all the while gaining altitude. We spent the afternoon with the top down on our convertible, and it made this drive even better.
Eventually we arrived at our first stop, something the guide book called “Acid War Zone to Nakalele Blowhole.” The blowhole is a popular destination on Maui, where ocean water blasts upward in spectacular fashion when the seas are rough. Summertime usually brings calmer seas to Hawaii, but on this particular day the waves were really crashing to shore. We were hoping for a great show, and we got it, although not exactly like we planned.
We had to wait for two police cruisers to pass by before we could turn into the small dirt parking lot. And as we did, a fire and rescue SUV pulled up right next to us. Three men piled out of it and began picking their way through the weeds down towards the coast. We let them get ahead of us, and began hiking in the same direction. The Acid War Zone, the book assured us, is a spectacularly weird quirk of geography, in which the rocks all along the coastline have been eaten away by the constant sea spray. But first we had to get there.
This involved trudging through high grass and small woods, trying to find the best way through a mostly unmarked trail. At a couple of different points there were signs that said “Kapu No Stack Stones.” We later learned that at one point tourists started piling up rocks in places for no discernible reason, and other tourists followed suit without really knowing why. So those signs popped up trying to tell people not to do it, as “kapu” is Hawaiian for “forbidden.”
Eventually we passed the small light beacon (not a full lighthouse, just a high post with a light on top) our guide mentioned and made our way down the steep descent to the war zone. Around this time, we noticed the same fire and rescue guys had stopped at the bottom of the descent at a nearby cliff. Up above, a helicopter lowered a harness and picked up a rescue diver while another rescue worker zipped around in the crashing waves on a bright yellow jet ski. Clearly something bad had happened, or this was an elaborate training exercise.
We sort of shrugged and decided not to approach the rescue workers and ask them what was going on, and continued to the war zone proper, which was as cool and bizarre as advertised. The way the ocean had eaten away at the landscape was awe-inspiring, and, after a short hike through the area, we came to a spitting blowhole. The guide book warned of a false blowhole that wasn’t nearly as good as the real thing, but this one was going crazy. It was shooting water anywhere from 50-75 feet in the air, and it was spectacular. We were aware that this might not have been the real thing, but once again, there was no real trail to follow, and this blowhole was awesome enough.
After hiking back to the car and driving a little further down the road, we passed a second dirt parking lot, the easier trail to the Nakalele Blowhole. In it, what looked like a command post with several more police and rescue vehicles and a table set up. Clearly this was no training exercise. A couple days later, the Maui newspaper confirmed it, with a tiny article entitled, “Man Who Fell Into Nakalele Blowhole Still Missing.” Yes, just about three hours before we arrived, a man literally fell into the ocean through the blowhole. Turns out that we were indeed at the secondary blowhole, but if we had continued on to the main blowhole the police would’ve turned us away anyway.
Our next stop was a nondescript point a few miles further down the road. High in the hills, a tiny overgrown path led to a broken cattle fence. We were able to easily push through the fence and finish the short walk, which included a descent of several hundred feet and another hundred feet back up. At this picturesque point, the green hills all around us looked spectacular, while the uninterrupted view of the ocean was equally impressive. The high winds blow amazingly fresh, clean air across the point from out in the middle of the ocean, where it hasn’t touched land or civilization for weeks. And then there’s the point’s main curiosity, the decaying ruin of a Pontiac Grand Prix. There’s no discernible way for the car to have ended up out there with the rough terrain on the way to the point, but there it is.
I wanted to make one more stop further along the road, but late afternoon was beginning to transition into early evening, so we thought it’d be best to turn back and see our final sight of the day, Kapalua’s Dragon’s Teeth, before dark. The Dragon’s Teeth is an area where, hundreds of years ago, the ocean cooled flowing lava into a series of upthrusting spikes that indeed looks like dragon’s teeth.
We pulled into Kapalua and walked across the golf course and down to the rocks. Besides the teeth themselves, which were as impressive as advertised, the whole area was very, very cool. In places you could see where the lava cooled in midstream, and it still looks like flowing, albeit black, magma that is just on pause. The waves crashed and swirled around, splashing all over the place and generally being very impressive thanks to the rough seas of the day. We arrived at Kapalua at sunset, which was very nice, but it was mostly overcast so we didn’t get a spectacular backdrop. But it was still a great way to end our little road trip.
For dinner we ended up at the Hula Grill again, sitting in the sand and enjoying great food while a live band played. Once dinner was over, though, we once again turned in before 10pm. Because on Sunday we needed to be up early so we could drive the Hana Highway, one of Maui’s most spectacular trips.
As we pulled into the town’s parking lot (yes, essentially the whole town has one big lot), we realized we’d forgotten to bring towels along. Fortunately, the Four Winds II wasn’t the only boat leaving for a snorkeling trip, and one of the local shops was open to check in their own customers and sell us a couple of beach towels. The moment of panic quickly passed. Then we trudged down to slip 80 and boarded the boat. After claiming a spot on the large catamaran’s upper deck, we left our gear and went down to partake of the fruit and bagel breakfast provided on the boat. We headed back upstairs only to find our gear shoved into a corner and another couple occupying our spot. Staring daggers at them, but not wanting to start off the day with an argument, we grabbed our stuff and went to find another place to sit.
The trip out to the snorkeling location took maybe 90 minutes, during which the staff briefed us all on snorkeling techniques and tried to sell us on the idea that the water would be cold enough to rent a wetsuit. It turned out that the water was super-pleasant, cool but not cold and a great temperature in which to spend a couple of hours swimming. I wore my contacts, of course, but Judy, who always wears glasses, was able to get a special mask that matched her prescription.
Since I have a mustache, I got to experience the thoroughly unpleasant task of covering the mask’s nosepiece and my upper lip in Vaseline to make a tight seal. It worked, though, as I had no trouble with water getting into my nose while I was out there. I was able to snorkel successfully maybe 50% of the time that I was in the water. I’d breathe fine for a while, but inevitably some seawater would sneak in around the corners of the snorkel, searing my throat as I reflexively swallowed. This frustration limited my snorkeling to a couple of short sessions and one swim without the snorkel at all.
Despite that, snorkeling off the coast of Maui was a pretty incredible experience. All the snorkel trips in Maui head out to Molokini, a half-submerged crater in the shape of a crescent. The landscape makes for great snorkeling territory, as a dozen different varieties of tropical fish swim in and around the vibrant coral reef that covers the sea floor in the crater’s interior. The crater was crowded with at least a dozen different boats, but the captain told us that weekends are actually slower than weekdays, and that there are often over 20 boats in the crater on snorkeling trips during the week.
Judy, in contrast to me, had absolutely no problems with snorkeling. She loved it unabashedly and only climbed back onboard the boat to eat the delicious barbeque chicken lunch the crew served to us. She spent time following various fish around, including a humhumunukunukuapua’a, the colorful (and colorfully named) Hawaiian state fish.
On the way back from Molokini, the captain and crew kept a watch out for sea turtles while warning us not to expect too much. The water was both choppy and murky that day, so it was harder to spot them, but we ended up seeing maybe a half dozen in the end. Mostly it was just glimpses of heads and occasionally a bit of shell, but it was still cool.
After snorkeling, we drove back to the hotel to relax for a bit. Judy took a nice long nap while I puttered around on the internet, waiting for her to wake up. And then it was off towards the north end of west Maui to see the sights. There are a couple of places on Maui that are reachable only by the determined. It’s possible to drive around the north side of the western half of the island, but the road gets narrow and treacherous and the rental car companies warn against it. We didn’t really have the time to go all the way around, but there were a handful of spectacular-sounding spots that I really wanted to check out.
Once you pass Kapalua, where the airport is, you leave civilization pretty quickly. You still see individual houses once in a while and there are a few beach parks, but there really isn’t much there, as the shoreline turns rough and rocky. The road, meanwhile, stays nicely paved, but it gets very twisty. We even had to slow down and carefully drive over a handful of one-lane bridges on our way. In a short 10 miles, we went from tropical palm trees to towering forests to beautiful green rolling hills, all the while gaining altitude. We spent the afternoon with the top down on our convertible, and it made this drive even better.
Eventually we arrived at our first stop, something the guide book called “Acid War Zone to Nakalele Blowhole.” The blowhole is a popular destination on Maui, where ocean water blasts upward in spectacular fashion when the seas are rough. Summertime usually brings calmer seas to Hawaii, but on this particular day the waves were really crashing to shore. We were hoping for a great show, and we got it, although not exactly like we planned.
We had to wait for two police cruisers to pass by before we could turn into the small dirt parking lot. And as we did, a fire and rescue SUV pulled up right next to us. Three men piled out of it and began picking their way through the weeds down towards the coast. We let them get ahead of us, and began hiking in the same direction. The Acid War Zone, the book assured us, is a spectacularly weird quirk of geography, in which the rocks all along the coastline have been eaten away by the constant sea spray. But first we had to get there.
This involved trudging through high grass and small woods, trying to find the best way through a mostly unmarked trail. At a couple of different points there were signs that said “Kapu No Stack Stones.” We later learned that at one point tourists started piling up rocks in places for no discernible reason, and other tourists followed suit without really knowing why. So those signs popped up trying to tell people not to do it, as “kapu” is Hawaiian for “forbidden.”
Eventually we passed the small light beacon (not a full lighthouse, just a high post with a light on top) our guide mentioned and made our way down the steep descent to the war zone. Around this time, we noticed the same fire and rescue guys had stopped at the bottom of the descent at a nearby cliff. Up above, a helicopter lowered a harness and picked up a rescue diver while another rescue worker zipped around in the crashing waves on a bright yellow jet ski. Clearly something bad had happened, or this was an elaborate training exercise.
We sort of shrugged and decided not to approach the rescue workers and ask them what was going on, and continued to the war zone proper, which was as cool and bizarre as advertised. The way the ocean had eaten away at the landscape was awe-inspiring, and, after a short hike through the area, we came to a spitting blowhole. The guide book warned of a false blowhole that wasn’t nearly as good as the real thing, but this one was going crazy. It was shooting water anywhere from 50-75 feet in the air, and it was spectacular. We were aware that this might not have been the real thing, but once again, there was no real trail to follow, and this blowhole was awesome enough.
After hiking back to the car and driving a little further down the road, we passed a second dirt parking lot, the easier trail to the Nakalele Blowhole. In it, what looked like a command post with several more police and rescue vehicles and a table set up. Clearly this was no training exercise. A couple days later, the Maui newspaper confirmed it, with a tiny article entitled, “Man Who Fell Into Nakalele Blowhole Still Missing.” Yes, just about three hours before we arrived, a man literally fell into the ocean through the blowhole. Turns out that we were indeed at the secondary blowhole, but if we had continued on to the main blowhole the police would’ve turned us away anyway.
Our next stop was a nondescript point a few miles further down the road. High in the hills, a tiny overgrown path led to a broken cattle fence. We were able to easily push through the fence and finish the short walk, which included a descent of several hundred feet and another hundred feet back up. At this picturesque point, the green hills all around us looked spectacular, while the uninterrupted view of the ocean was equally impressive. The high winds blow amazingly fresh, clean air across the point from out in the middle of the ocean, where it hasn’t touched land or civilization for weeks. And then there’s the point’s main curiosity, the decaying ruin of a Pontiac Grand Prix. There’s no discernible way for the car to have ended up out there with the rough terrain on the way to the point, but there it is.
I wanted to make one more stop further along the road, but late afternoon was beginning to transition into early evening, so we thought it’d be best to turn back and see our final sight of the day, Kapalua’s Dragon’s Teeth, before dark. The Dragon’s Teeth is an area where, hundreds of years ago, the ocean cooled flowing lava into a series of upthrusting spikes that indeed looks like dragon’s teeth.
We pulled into Kapalua and walked across the golf course and down to the rocks. Besides the teeth themselves, which were as impressive as advertised, the whole area was very, very cool. In places you could see where the lava cooled in midstream, and it still looks like flowing, albeit black, magma that is just on pause. The waves crashed and swirled around, splashing all over the place and generally being very impressive thanks to the rough seas of the day. We arrived at Kapalua at sunset, which was very nice, but it was mostly overcast so we didn’t get a spectacular backdrop. But it was still a great way to end our little road trip.
For dinner we ended up at the Hula Grill again, sitting in the sand and enjoying great food while a live band played. Once dinner was over, though, we once again turned in before 10pm. Because on Sunday we needed to be up early so we could drive the Hana Highway, one of Maui’s most spectacular trips.