Lahaina is a tender port, we have to take a ship’s tender (lifeboat) to shore. We had signed up for a ship’s tour so we went off on one of the first tenders to leave for the shore.
Lahaina was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the early nineteenth century. It was also a historic whaling village during the whaling boom of the mid 1800's. We boarded our bus to see the island. Our first stop was at a small beach, Ukumehame Beach Park, overlooking several other small island. It was supposed to be a good spot to watch whales. The whales had other ideas. We did not see a one. The next item on the schedule was a visit to the Iao Valley Park, a beautiful gorge running three miles into the mountains. However, its parking lot was washed out several months ago, so that visit was skipped. The next spot was the old sugar cane refining plant. This was just a drive by visit since the plant has been closed for several years. The tour proceeded on to the main city of the island, Wailuku, and the harbor area. After a quick ride around town, we drove on to the main event of our tour, The Maui Tropical Plantation.
The plantation has a number of fields and gardens with examples of the various commercial plants and ornamental trees and flowers. There is a tram that takes everyone around fields of sugar cane, pineapples, mangos, kiwi fruit and many more. The guide identified the various types of palm along the road. She even demonstrated how to harvest a coconut, from removing the husk to cracking open the hard shell and removing the meat. She described how to drink the coconut water and how to get coconut oil from the meat.
Back at the main plantation area, they have created The Mill House Restaurant decorated with some of the large iron gears and equipment salvaged from one of the old sugar mills. The restaurant even displays one of the old steam engines used by the sugar mill. The engine was named the “Claus Spreckels” after the island’s sugar baron. We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant before returning to the bus. Our bus took us back to Lahaina were we had enough time to walk around the main shopping street and to see some of the sights.
Back on ship, we had a quiet dinner in the Britannia Restaurant followed by the evening show. The entertainment was a wonderful flautist by the name of Clare Langan who played many different kinds of music. We are on our way to Apia, Samoa.
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At Ukumehame Beach |
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The gear is from the sugar plant |
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Pond by the restaurant |
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Steam engine |
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Christmas palm |
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Pineapple |
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Banana |
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