West Maui

Our day trip to West Maui started with following the coastal road, past many beautiful beaches and towns. West Maui was a play ground for the rich and famous. A hundred years ago, Hawaiin royalty spent considerable time frolicking in West Maui's calm waters and great beaches. There are some very luxurious hotel resorts up this way, however you can still access the beaches and notice all the hotel residents with their "hotel coordinated towels"

The beach that we played at was Napili Beach, the sand is steep, so waves slap the shoreline then recede quickly, creating an impressive undertow during high surf. Which made large strong waves. The weather for our first few day had been reported to have high surf and cool temeratures for that time of year!!! It felt utterly heavenly to us. I must admit that it did make me chuckle when listening to the News weather report on an evening when they warned people " So bundle up tonight!" Here we are just lying under a sheet. Okay!!! I suppose it depend on your perspective and coming from a Canadian winter it didn't really impact us!!

So we walked along the beach with the wave coming up as high as they could and placed our towels as far up the beach as possible into the bushes, and the wave still were washing up to the towels, so we moved to this spot and although it looks calm, the waves actually came up and soaked the towel as I grabbed the beach bag to rescue the camera and dry clothes.

"Dragons teeth."

The lava here is different from most Hawaiin lavas. It is light-coloured, dense and fine grained, bleached white in some areas, it flowed during the dying days of the West Maui volcano. Salt spray on the upwind side has etched the lave into thrusting shapes , hence the name 'Dragon's Teeth".

High Surf.

We also found a strange maze on the peninsula and warned not to remove any of the rocks as they are sacred to the Hawaiian people.
The ancient Hawaiian's believed that their spirits or souls would jump from this peninsula, leaving this world. each Island has such a point. When Hawaiian's died, it was here that their souls would leave this life and join there ancestors forever. If there were no family spirits to receive them, they would wander around the area, attaching themselves to rocks and generally causing mischief. That is why it is considered unwise to take any rocks from this area.

Nakalele Blowhole.

The ocean here has undercut the shoreline. The ocean pounds under the lava shelf , where it spits through a man sized hole in the lava. The blowhole varies tremendously in size depending on the surf. When we were there  the water was shooting more than 70 feet into the air every few seconds. We had to use wise judgement round this area and stayed on the dry rocks, unlike some other crazy people. Wouldn't like to slip and fall down that man-sized hole.....and it has happened before, as we saw two memorials on the hike down.

We ventured further round the West coast of Maui , less populated and less visited, we came across the Olivine pools. They are numerous natural lava pools ensconced in an ancient lava shelf, offering a safe place to swim with the ocean pounding at you from three sides. Natural lava steps lead down to these pools. However as we were there during high surf it gave a completely different appearance and quite dangerous. we observed again from a distance and spoke to one family where the mother had just been scraped up in the pools when large waves came crashing in and pulled her off the inshore side. Quite a dangerous place to be with an unpredictable tide and it demonstrated to Heather and finlay for a second time that day to have respect for the ocean.