Hawaii - Day five

Saturday, November 1

It’s an amazing discovery; if you’re where the morning sun is not blocked by the dense foliage of a heavily wooded lot, you wake up when the Sun comes up. What a delight! Then to walk out onto a lanai that overlooks a deep blue ocean in the distance, that’s just heavenly!


We got an earlier start this morning after breakfast, and retraced yesterday’s route along the dry leeward highway along the ocean’s edge toward Lahaina, then turned right toward the resort town of Ka’anapali. A string of big hotels and upscale condominiums stand shoulder to shoulder along the beach. Manicured lawns, elegant landscaping, golf carts, uniformed attendants, and lots of “residents and guests only” signs make it abundantly clear that this is where the country club set play.

We drove around the end of the island on smaller and smaller roads that finally became a narrow single lane road curving high along cliffs that dropped down either directly to the ocean or to jagged black lava beds. When we met oncoming cars one would have to back up to the nearest slightly wider spot so that the two cars could squeeze past each other. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds if you weren't in a hurry. I poked along at 10-15 km/hr, and that worked well. The scenery was spectacular.

At a much wider spot on the road I pulled off and parked, and climbed down
over the rocks for maybe a half km to see a blowhole up close. As the big waves crashed against the cliff a few meters below, a hole in the flat lava would begin to moan, then howl, spitting a fine spray into the air that quickly became a jet of water that blew violently out of the hole perhaps 10 meters into the air.



Eventually the road got wider again and we began to see houses. We drove to a very deep steep sided valley called I'ao Valley, where the sides of the valley rose like walls up into the low overhanging clouds.

We finished off the day with a mahimahi fish dinner at “The Fish Market” in the town of Pa'ia.