Nightglow Window

Maui

Maui is something altogether different. There's none of the "fear in the pit of your stomach" vibe that big waves and alpha-male locals give you while on the North Shore of O'ahu. It's tourist friendly and gorgeous. We're staying at the Royal Kahana, about a mile south of Napili Point and Kapalua Bay.

Yesterday was mostly smooth with a long flight and short drive over to this, the windy northwest corner of the island. The trades are howling and fast-moving rain squalls keep your eyes to the sky, watchful. But it's in the high 70s, so no complaints.

One hiccup: Susie, Sydney and Hannah's suitcases didn't make the trip with us -- choosing to go to Chicago instead.

But all else is right with the world.

I'm up this morning before dawn for a surf check up at Honolua Bay. It's an incredible setup for a world-class wave, but the surf is flat. Six cars park on the bluff, the only sound that of the incessant trade winds, but only a few people are out and they're getting starved. Whitecaps fill the Pailolo Channel, but you can see an occasional humpback breech far offshore.

I paddled out in front of the hotel yesterday evening while the girls played in the pool. I caught a few waist-high waves, and now I'm thinking this will be another snorkel day. I throw the car in reverse, head back through the cane fields to the the curvy highway that leads to the hotel.

The girls are already up and over a JP and Susie's room. An agile rain shower passes overhead, leaving naught but the arc of a rainbow. It's a sight so common that it begins to escape notice. Pretty thrilling right now though.

We head over to Kapalua Bay -- Sunset Magazine's "world's nicest beach." No argument from me on that call. The reef is packed with colorful tropical fish and huge coral heads dot the length of this protected bay.

Dinner is back in Lahaina, a touristy town still loaded with charm.



Honolua Bay


The first-morning rainbow from our hotel room.


Kapalua Beach & Bay.









Sydney enjoys the trade winds from the balcony of our room.


William O. Smith was Maui sheriff when he planted this Banyan Tree in 1873. Now it reaches upward to a height of about 50 feet and stretches outward over a 200-foot area, shading two-thirds of an acre on the almost two acres of land in the courthouse square. Pretty cool.


The gang, off to dinner.



Lahaina Town.



The Pioneer Inn, Hawaii's oldest continuously operated hotel, opened in 1901.



The soft, after-sunset light of Lahaina, near the huge Banyan tree that dominates the central square.