Monday, September 18, 2023

Maui, March 2023

We were in Maui in March. We stayed in Wailea. We had great time. However our hearts go out to the residents of Maui. The wildfires in Lahaina and Kula were tragic.

Traffic was an issue on Maui on the trip. Our return home was delayed at the airport by about 5 hours. Most departures at the airport were delayed due to a bad car accident on the road from Lahaina to Kahalui. Flight crews could not get to the airport. This event seems now like a warning signal to the accessibility and emergency preparedness of the Lahaina area.

I am not sure of the logistics or engineering involved but the road to Lahaina continues past Kapalua and actually goes back to Kahalui but it becomes one lane and not easy to drive.

To quote Joni Mitchell " they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". Traffic on the islands has become unbearable and there is an imbalance between tourists and their needs and desires and local residents and needs and desires. The road to Hana has become a mess of illegally parked cards and tourists overrunning obscure natural attractions.

The afternoon rush hour is a mess. One afternoon traffic was backed up from Wailea to half way to Kahalui.

We stayed in the Ekahi condos in Wailea where we have stayed many times. The units are individually owned and very inconsistently furnished. Our unit was OK. We rented from a company in Maui specializing in rentals. Maui Paradise Properties.www.mppvacations.com They had a better price than Airbnb or VRBO. These days many rental units are listed on more than one service and the fees on each service can really vary.

The great feature of Ekahi is that it is on Keawakapu beach, one of my favorite beaches, Incredibly on this trip a storm had temporarily made the Wailea beaches disappear. They were mostly rocks.

Costco as usual had some very good wines at very reasonable prices. This Bordeaux, Lilian Ladouys 2019, is a great bottle and to find it on Maui and the price below was great.

This is the beach path in Wailea after a rainstorm. It was not safe to cross this floodway.

Sunset. Always beautiful in Wailea.

Our porch.

Sunset.

We took a fishing trip instead of our usual snorkeling trip. It was fun to fish. The boat trolled for larger fish on our way to a fishing destination and then we bottom fished for a few hours. Unfortunately not much was caught. My wife caught a tiny snapper.