San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
ISLAND SOLITUDE
A family discovers the magic and beauty of Maui in isolation
Moored in the Pacific more than 2,400 miles from the mainland, Hawaii and its raw beauty have tempted U.S. travelers for decades.
We often ponder “getting away from it all.” Perhaps never more than now, in this time of COVID-19, do we crave isolation yet chafe at being cloistered in our homes.
And so, after Hawaii lowered its own quarantine barrier Oct. 15, we set our sights on Maui, the state’s second-most-visited island. Hawaii had vigorously enforced a 14-day quarantine on visitors but has since exempted those who provide a negative coronavirus test before arrival through approved partners (Kauai is the notable exception). Maui has also added a mandatory contact tracing requirement for all travelers.
We dreamed of waterfall hikes, humpback whales singing, sunset dinners looking across the Pacific and taming waves atop our surfboards.
And we hoped, selfishly, as all tourists do, that we would somehow have it all to ourselves.
The island did not disappoint. In trying to maintain a buffer against other travelers, we divided the trip into three segments. My wife and I rented a camper van via Rvshare and went exploring the first week. Then our two youngest, ages 24 and 15, joined us for a second week split between an oceanfront vacation rental home through VRBO and a resort villa at the
gorgeous Fairmont Kea Lani.
Locales roughly followed our three lodging choices: unspoiled Hana and the sparsely populated Upcountry communities of Kula and Makawao; west and southwest Maui’s beaches, restaurants and shops; and south Maui’s relaxing resort vibe.
Before our flight, guidebook author Andrew Doughty — whose deeply researched Revealed guides are a must for a Hawaii trip — offered some pre-trip reassurance.
“You do have to wear a mask and that is enforced,” he said. “Most of the restaurants are open, and the beaches are not crowded. If I were a mainland traveler and willing to endure being on an airplane and going through the hassle of testing, yeah, it’s a great time to be here.”
Maui in recent years has been a victim of its own popularity. In 2019, as annual visitor numbers topped 3 million for the first time, locals loudly lamented crowding, traffic and the specter of paradise lost.
The island’s economic history is one of boom, bust and exploitation: stripping stands of native sandalwood, whale hunting, diverting mountain streams to irrigate vast swaths of sugar cane and, later, pineapple. If Native Hawaiians appear less than lukewarm toward the notion of “progress,” consider this: In the century after Captain James Cook arrived in 1778, Western diseases killed off 90 percent of Maui’s local population.
Today, Maui markets memories: its beaches and golf courses in Wailea, a dreamily romantic meal at Mama’s Fish House, the glorious waterfalls of Hana.
Enter the pandemic. With quarantine requirements in place, Maui summer and fall visitor numbers tumbled an astonishing 98 percent. “It was like a ghost town,” one local told me.
Bypassing the quarantine through advance testing has begun to reverse the trend — Maui visitorship in December was about onethird of normal. That meansthat for the time being we can experience the island without a crowd. With rare exceptions, we found visitors and locals masking diligently, even on remote trails.
Act 1: Exploring Hana and the Upcountry
My wife, Mica, and I landed at Kahului Airport on Jan. 9. There waiting was our 2019 Mercedes-benz Metris pop-top camper van, complete with a fold-down queen bed, retractable awning, electric refrigerator and a battalion of necessities: lantern, guidebook, flashlight, umbrella, eight USB connections, cooking utensils, bedding, towels and even a hammock.
The pandemic has closed the island’s state and federally run campgrounds to tent and car camping, so we booked our first four nights in and on the way to Hana through Hipcamp, an outdoor sharing website that includes public and private land.
The road to Hana is that legendary 51 miles from Kahului packed with tight turns, one-lane bridges and waterfalls . Hana itself, population 800, is tiny, but it’s a hiker’s paradise.
We got our feet wet, literally, with Hike Maui and guide Gail Rice, who led us through gushing streambeds and ultimately to a plunge into a waterfall-fed pool. All the while, she maintained a steady stream of insights on the flora, complete with tastings.
We took walks through the scenic Kahanu Garden and near the pounding surf of nearby Wai’anapanapa State Park, parked the camper on Koki Beach for a sunset dinner and hiked four-plus miles on the Pipiwai
Trail through a bamboo forest to the 400-foot Waimoku Falls.
We had the pristine Waioka Pond (known as the Venus Pool) at sea level all to ourselves at sunrise, and by that sunset stood atop Mount Haleakala, the island’s 10,023-foot dormant volcano. On the roads up, we began an exploration of the island’s quaint Upcountry, along the volcano’s slopes.
We meandered through the family-owned Kula Botanical Garden, the charming shops of Makawao and loaded up on lilikoi, or passion fruit, and avocado at self-serve farm stands.
We drove the scenic curves of Route 37 to Maui Wine in Ulupalakua. There, over tasting glasses of kula (a white blend, like a tropical pinot grigio) and malbec, cellar master Keone Labuanan talked to us about tourism’s economic value and a desire to return to normalcy.
The conversation mirrored a brief one we’d had the night before at Hali’imaile General Store, where chef/ owner Bev Gannon was making the rounds of tables just as we dived into the pineapple upside-down cake. “We need tourism to survive, that’s a given,” she said.
We headed west to Kahului, then north along the island’s northeastern perimeter. The coastal views are spectacular, but with the blind hairpin turns and narrow one-lane stretches, I’d recommend following the main roads through the island’s midsection.
Our destination was Camp Olowalu, a private campground in west Maui, roughly halfway between Kihei and Lahaina. If I were designing a modern, COVIDSAFE campground, with touch screen check-in, Wi-fi, immaculate greenery, an oceanfront setting, enclosed single-stall outdoor showers and single-stall restrooms, this would be it.
Every year from typically November through May, as many as 12,000 humpback whales winter near here after migrating from Alaska. They put on a show, breaching headfirst at times.
Zeke Churchill, a guide with Maui Kayak Adventures, lectured us on whale habits and habitat during a three-hour paddle from the Olowalu shoreline. We listened between watching a mother and calf nearby and another whale breaching repeatedly in the distance.
Faintly, we heard the eerie traces of high-pitched whale song, the complicated variation that the males sing, perhaps to warn off other males. Churchill taught us that dipping our aluminum paddles into the water and holding the opposite end to our ear works as an amplifier.
Act 2: Home base in western and southwestern Maui
After trading our camper van for a standard rental, we discovered that our next lodging choice came complete with whale watching from the backyard.
We had hoped as much when we booked the oceanfront home in the southwest community of Kihei on the VRBO website. The modest 1,260-foot, three-bedroom, three-bath dwelling proved to be all that the photos and reviews promised. The star is the rear patio and lawn, where only a few palm trees interrupt the Pacific view. My wife and I sat there every night of our visit, watching the sunset, the turtles bobbing up for air and the humpbacks breaking the ocean’s surface. We also did our own stand-up paddleboarding and went for long beach walks, rarely seeing others. We fell asleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the breakwall.
The Kihei location made a convenient base for exploring west Maui. We shopped in scenic Lahaina and rented road bikes for an 18-mile pedal to lovely Napili Bay and back.
One afternoon, the kids and I met Dustin Tester, the founder of Maui Surfer Girls, near Ukumehame Beach Park for a surfing lesson. Whether it was Tester’s expertise, the stability of a giant 12-foot board or the 20 pounds I dropped last year, something strange happened. On my second attempt, I stood up. And stayed up.
Act III: southern Maui resort
The massive bulk of Haleakala, which forces trade winds to dump their moisture on the Hana side, leaves Wailea sunny and dry nearly year-round on the other. The area has sprouted a thriving crop of golf courses and high-end resorts, among them the Fairmont Kea Lani.
It’s emblematic of the dreamlike Hawaii resort experience, with meticulously groomed grounds of colorful hibiscus and fragrant bougainvillea and plumeria, swimming pools and a water slide. Our spacious villa looked directly onto Polo Beach.
Occupying the villa, with its private patio and plunge pool, represented our attempt at COVID-ERA distancing. But what we found in walking the grounds and in a full day under a main pool cabana is that crowding is nonexistent, at least for now.
We did occasionally venture away for a round at the Wailea Golf Club’s Emerald course and a family lesson at the Wailea Tennis Club.
I went on a shore scuba dive with instructor Mike Sasso of Maui Dive Shop, who helped me spy sleeping sea turtles, spotted puffers, white-mouthed eels and much more. Under the water, the humpbacks’ song prevailed. We heard it again while snorkeling the colorful coral of Molokini islet with Redline Rafting Co.
Sean Pierce, who captained the 35-foot inflatable raft, narrated an entertaining trip that mixed snorkeling with stops as spinner dolphins or humpbacks came into view. Pierce said crescent-shaped Molokini acts as a kind of amphitheater for whale “concerts.”
At the resort, the on-site Wailea Scuba, Surf & Paddle has beachfront board and kayak rentals and lessons. We paddled out to where a knot of other kayakers were observing a humpback and her calf, which occasionally poked its head above water.
Complimentary for guests, the Fairmont Kea Lani also offers outings on an outrigger canoe, captained by two locals. A morning excursion would be our family’s last chance together to commune with the humpbacks.
We paddled out from shore and waited. Not a splash, nor a spout. So we headed toward a shoreline reef, slipped on face masks and tumbled into the water.
There it was: the otherworldly sound of whales singing. It’s a constant chorus reminding us, as English poet John Donne once did, that we never navigate alone.