by Denise Rogers
It used to be a shorter trip or so it seemed — having a meal served then watching a movie — six hours passed quickly. Now it feels like an interminable amount of time.
Is it worth it? Oh yes. We land, retrieve our luggage and walk out into the sunshine. The Trade winds are blowing; those wonderful, gentle breezes that caress the palm trees and carry the scent of plumeria, just one of the many flowers that grow in the Islands. I can feel my body letting go of all the stressors. We are back on Maui.
Our time is spent doing absolutely nothing. No agendas, no schedules and no appointments. We wake up to the sound of tropical birds coo-cooing, eat our breakfast which always includes sweet, yellow papaya, go for a walk either through the magnificent Norfolk pines or along the ocean, return to our condo, maybe read, have lunch on the lanai, drive into Lahaina to shop for dinner, perhaps rent a movie then go to bed. We do the same thing pretty much every day in what we call “Paradise”. There are no nasty bugs and dangerous critters in Hawaii. We also like being in the good old US of A in case we need medical attention.
One of the highlights of our trip is driving to upcountry Maui on the slopes of the now dormant volcano, Haleakala. Every time we make the trip it feels like a new adventure. We are never bored by the scenery – the sugar cane and pineapple fields, the red earth, the rows of hibiscus and the sea below where earlier we had just squished the wet sand between our toes.
Our destination is the Kaluanui Estate – a former sugar plantation and home built by the Baldwins, one of the missionary families. Here Ethel Baldwin invited friends to come and create art. The estate is now the Hui No’eau, a Visual Arts Center and Gallery.
Maui has become our second home and just like Bali Hai in the musical “South Pacific,” it “whispers in the wind of the sea, here am I, your special island. Come to me, come to me.” A hui hou.
If You Go:
♦ There are non-stop flights from Vancouver to Maui return via West Jet or Air Canada. You could also fly out of Bellingham, WA.
♦ Accommodations vary from hotels to condos depending on your needs. We prefer the north west side of the Island, Napili. Kaanapali is just next door then a short drive takes you to the old whaling town, Lahaina. If you want a more arid, desert experience then stay at the south end in Wailea or Kihei. Check the website: www.gohawaii.com/maui
Maui Tours Now Available:
West Maui Whale Watching and Snorkeling Excursion
Full-Day Maui Tour: Road to Hana Tour
Myths of Maui Luau Dinner and a Show
Maui Day Trip: Haleakala, Iao Valley, Old Lahaina from Oahu
About the author:
Denise Rogers’ background is in training and development and adult education. She edited professional journals, company newsletters, designed training manuals and contributed to a column in the Burnaby NewsLeader. While creating art with children in various programs for the City of Burnaby, she was inspired to write and publish her first picture book; Today is the Day to Run Away. See: www.bigtoepublishing.com
Photo credits:
All photographs are by Denise Rogers.
My first image of Kaua’i is from high above on the final approach to the Island. The vibrant red earth is a stark contrast to the intense cerulean ocean. The dirt is red due to the fact that the high iron content of the volcanic soils has had plenty of time to oxidize, especially with the wet conditions of the island. Incidentally, Kaua’i is the rainiest place on Earth.
“I don’t eat the chickens myself, but my wife’s family are always chasing them things,” The cab driver chuckles. “Her family’s a bit crazy,” he adds in a hushed tone.
The concierge at the Resort offers an alternate explanation to the recent chicken explosion. During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, sugarcane plantation labourers imported and raised the chickens for eating and as a form of entertainment (“cockfighting”). Over the years, some of the chickens got loose and formed the wild clan. He concurs that the massive hurricanes certainly contributed to the over abundance of chickens.
As if this display of ferocity is not enough to deter swimmers, there are many notices warning of dangerous tidal conditions. At the end of the road, I arrive at a secluded, romantic beach teeming with tourists, locals and yes, more chickens.
We arrived in mid-March 2010, one week after a category-four cyclone had torn through the Fijian islands and destroyed buildings, homes and roads. Driving from the tiny airport, we saw lots of damaged structures and broken tree limbs being chainsawed into manageable pieces. The once-verdant jungles, stripped of foliage and flowers, were tinged a mottled shade of brown. At the Cousteau resort we saw numerous downed trees, and a tour of the organic vegetable garden revealed a heartbreaking mess of broken seedlings. From the pier, we could see how the coral had taken on a variety of beige tones, and on the beach, piles of broken pieces had washed up, free for the guilt-free taking.
The size of our oceanview bure rivaled our Vancouver apartment, with enough closet space to keep our stuff hidden. Two walls were plantation blinds, the domed ceiling thatched, and the entire bathroom earthy-tone tile. After being briefed on everything from the best way to keep mosquitos out and the various organized activities, we were given a foot bath and massage on our porch. Talk about a fine howdy do, this was an effective way to make a visitor feel welcomed home. It made me want to curl up on the beach with a good book.
Before, during and after dinner we were entertained by the Cousteau’s house combo, the Bula Band, a group of young men who sang and played guitars. These guys were big on kava and encouraged us to sing and drink along. Joining them became a great way to relax after a long day of, well – relaxing.
On our first night, we were treated to a traditional Fijian feast, cooked mostly in the lovo – a fire pit lined with heat-resistant stones. All afternoon, the smoky savoriness wafted over the resort, piquing our appetites. The buffet included lovo-cooked pork, chicken, beef as well as a whole walu – or Spanish mackerel – and were augmented with chunks of baked taro, sweet potato and plantain, smoked to perfection.
The good eats are not limited to the Serenity dining room, however. True romantics can have a table set up at the end of the pier for more privacy, an arrangement we saw working nicely until the wind and rain forced a quick evacuation. The kitchen will also load a gas grill, tables and chairs into a boat and set up a full lunch on Naviavia Island out in the bay, an event that impressed the large party of Californians who participated.
Our waiter told us he had worked on Fiji’s big island and it was expensive and a tough place to live, “but here, I can pull down a coconut or catch a fish to eat and it’s free.” Sounds pretty idyllic to me, although the village suffered some big-time crop loss in the storm. To support the village, the resort requests donations for a fund to benefit their Fijian employees and their families. Assistant Manager Bart Simpson – his real name – told us the Fijian’s hospitality comes naturally. “A lot of the nice things they do, we don’t ask them. They just do it.”
The resort’s nannies are available all day, so parents can have time alone if they want. Although kids are not allowed in the Serenity dining room, families can dine together in an equally beautiful space on the other side of the infinity pool. This separation of kids and adults is not only a welcome respite from the noise and frenetic energy of children, it also make you appreciate them more.
My wife Annie and I are immersing ourselves in the history and culture of Hawaii’s less crowded “outer” shores, far from the lights and traffic of Waikiki. It is like opening a Russian doll, so many hidden dimensions are revealed. We keep getting vivid glimpses of long-vanished ways of life. It is a rich, diverse and sometimes shocking tableau, full of extreme contrasts. On the one hand, there is the fondly imagined paradise of dramatic geography, a sultry climate and beautiful native people. On the other, a history of brutal warfare and the oppressive traditional social system, in which commoners might be killed for stepping on the king’s shadow. On the Big Island, however, people were safe if they reached sanctuary within the walls and temples of the City of Refuge, now painstakingly restored.
Also surprising is how rapidly Hawaii changed after Captain Cook arrived in 1778. By the 1820s, Lahaina was a bustling center for whalers and missionaries, with grog shops and churches, brothels and hotels. That was fully two decades before the Gold Rush led to the growth of San Francisco. In fact, Lahaina had America’s first high school west of the Mississippi. Since then, entire industries, such as pineapple cultivation, have come and gone, vanishing almost entirely. Great forests of koa and sandalwood were pillaged for export. Where fields of sugar cane flourished until quite recently, there are now virtual ghost towns and abandoned mills.
Then, we join a cruise that starts at the Big Island and ends on Maui. Carrying around 30 passengers, the 
Other evenings, special guests come on board. A hula troupe gives a performance that is nothing like what tourists experience at most resorts and commercial luaus. The lead dancers are men. They do aggressive, warlike steps, much like the Maori haka in New Zealand, rather than gentle, flowing ones. The moves are accompanied by chanting and drumming. There is not a ukelele or guitar in sight. We join them in drinking awa, a mildly narcotic ceremonial potion known elsewhere in the Pacific as kava. Another night, we meet Lawrence Aki, a hulk of a man who exudes quiet dignity, and his young disciple Kawika. Lawrence is a kumu (teacher) from a remote valley on Molokai. Kawika has lived with him for five years, helping at first in the taro patch and learning the old ways. This includes speaking the Hawaiian language and reciting genealogies. “It’s a lifetime commitment,” Lawrence says.
The final morning, a humpback leaps in the distance. It is a fitting sendoff. We have an entire afternoon to enjoy before a midnight flight home, and we have decided to visit a small museum about Pacific whaling. It features the old tools and equipment and the many products produced from an estimated 292,000 great cetaceans killed by the American fleet alone between 1825 and 1872. Fortunately, the humpbacks have made a remarkable recovery in recent years, from a low of around 1,000 in the 1960s to 20,000 or more today. On display outside is the impressive skeleton of a 40-foot sperm whale.
In 1790, near Tahiti Island in the South Pacific, English sailors staged a mutiny on the board the ship ‘HMS Bounty’. Nine English mutineers, their Polynesian ‘wives’ and a few Tahitian men and women took the Bounty on a desperate search for a safe hideout. They found it on Pitcairn Island. After being settled by mutineers, the island’s early history was bloody, with many feuds and violent deaths. Now Pitcairn Island is peaceful and its fifty families, many of them descendants of that infamous Bounty crew, welcome visitors to their idyllic tropical home.
A Saulsalito, California company Ocean Voyages Inc. called organizes yacht charters from French Polynesia to the Pitcairn Island. Every year between January and April the Rarotonga-based research vessel ‘Bounty Bay’, arranges cruises from Mangareva Island to Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and paying guests are welcome.
