Napili Beach

We had stopped at Napili Beach during our 2009 trip for lunch at the SeaHouse Restaurant. So we knew we wanted to go back again during our latest trip. It was the perfect place to stop for lunch after a morning snorkel trip to Honolua Bay. It was a bit of a challenge to find some parking, but once we found a spot we headed for the Sea House Restaurant. It was not too busy, so we got a table right at the front along the edge of the beach:

The view of the beach from the restaurant is quite impressive. You can just see Lanai on the left, and part of Molokai on the right. We saw a few brochures that said you can sometimes see whales from here as well, but we didnt see any on this day – although we werent here during peak whale season either. But we had seen plenty of whales the day before on our amazing whale watch adventure . The photos above and below show the view from our table, with only a small row of plants and a walkway between us and the beach:

The waves were pretty big, and there were quite a few boogie boarders. We enjoyed watching them try and catch the big waves as we enjoyed a cold bevarage while we waited for our lunch. We had only planned to go snorkeling on this day however, and had left the boogie boards back at the condo. Too bad because it looked like a lot of fun. We definitely would have tried it out if we had the gear. They would start quite a ways out, and attempt to ride all the way up the beach. Only a few were successful, and only on the biggest of waves. There were also a number of people waiting closer to shore and taking a shorter ride up the beach. Many of the smaller kids were waiting here, and it looked like they all were having a great time. One or two of the waves even washed all the way to the top of the beach, suprising the poor sunbathers who had been laying there peacefully and dry.

But since the waves were too big for snorkeling, and we had just been to Honolua before lunch, we decided to head up the coast and do a bit of touring. We stopped at Punalau Beach and the Nakalele Blowhole, but did not make the adventure all the way around the coastline on the crazy road we had travelled in 2009.

A few days later we decided to head back to Napili Beach – this time it was the destination, not just a stop along the way. We emptied the closet at the condo, loading up the car with the boogie boards, beach mats, cooler, and snorkel gear as we wanted to be prepared for anything. We were really looking forward to trying out the boogie boarding, however the waves did not cooperate for us. They were almost non-existent this time, and the water was quite calm. But since we had brought our snorkel gear… I was happy to take the opportunity to check out the marine life.

We did not get very far out at all, when I noticed my brother waving me over. He had spotted a snowflake eel swimming along. I tried a few photos, but they didnt turn out the best. So I figured I would try a video, although I thought it was a little longer than this…

We saw a few more eels throughout the reef as well, which was kind of surprising since we didnt see even one at any of the other places we snorkelled.

The water was not the clearest, especially closer to shore. But I was impressed with the amount and variety of fish we saw here:

My brother and I are both good swimmers, so we ended up quite a ways out from the shore. But we did notice the current pulling us out to sea pretty good, in the direction of Lanai, so we decided it would be best to turn around and head back closer to shore. I would definitely reccomend checking out the ocean conditions before heading out. There are a lot of good websites out there with this type of information. I liked this website for checking the ocean conditions. Although it doesn’t seem to have Napili Beach listed specifically.

View looking back towards the beach:

Here is the view from Napili Beach looking towards the island of Molokai:

Overall we had a great time, and really enjoyed this beach. I do like the central location of Kihei, and really like our room at the Maui Banyan, but if I was going to stay anywhere else this would likely be the place. Such an amazing beach, and so close to Honolua (another of my favorite spots – blog post to come shortly). This part of West Maui is a bit out of the way from the other things on the island that we enjoy though, such as Haleakala, Hana, and Wailea. But there is so much to see and do near Napili that you could definitley make an amazing vacation within this area as well.

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Northwest Maui Coast

We decided to take a drive up the Northwest Maui Coast to check out some of the sights we had read about in the Maui Revealed guidebook. The book recommends traveling in a clockwise direction around the island, so we started out towards Lahaina. Of course we had to stop at the Whale Lookout on the way to Lahaina. The whales were too far out though, so we only saw water being spouted, no tails or jumping.

We stopped in for an early lunch at the Seahouse Restaurant at the Napili Kai Resort on Napili Beach. The food was very good and the view (below) was awesome. We were told that you can also see whales from here sometimes, so we kept an eye out for them, but didn’t see anything.

On our next trip to Maui we will certainly go back to the Seahouse, and even to Napili Beach in general. It looked like a great place for a swim, but we wanted to continue driving as we had planned.

Honolua bay is a great spot just past Napili. There is a good lookout above the bay. We first  stopped there during our trip in 2008. We had a hard time finding a parking spot it was so busy. Once we hit the water we found out why… it was very good snorkeling. However in 2009 the beach was not busy at all. A private property sign had been put up at the access trail to the bay, and the entire area was very quiet. The lookout was still a good place to stop though. The surfers seemed to have found a way down the cliffs to the other side of the bay, but it did not seem like a place for us.

I am guessing when the next edition of the guidebook comes out Honolua Bay will be noted as a place to avoid due to whoever lives there now, as has happened at a number of great places mentioned in the book. Many of the locals have not been happy with the guidebook revealing all of their secrets, and have become somewhat unfriendly. The Northwest Coast seemed to be one of those places, so we mainly stuck to the road and didn’t wander too far from the car. Although the forest at Honolua Bay was a very interesting place to look around, but it did not have the same feel in 2009 as it did in 2008. But it made for some great photos. You can tell they get a lot of rain here…

The scenery is very good throughout the drive along the entire coastline, with many small pullouts for at least a few cars to stop to enjoy the view.

The beach in the photo below is Punalau Beach. We spotted it during our trip in 2008, but couldn’t find it again in 2009. Apparently there is a four wheel drive trail down to the beach, but it crosses private property so is not recommended. The locals up on this side of the island did not seem to be too friendly though either, so they probably don’t really want tourists down there anyhow. I don’t think I would swim this far from civilization either, as the ocean did not look very calm. It’s probably better that we just looked at it from above.

If you are not an adventurous type, make sure to turn around at about the 42 mile marker. The road changes greatly once you get past there… It gets very, very narrow along the way. In the Maui Revealed guidebook it mentions that there are a few “very narrow one lane sections” – and they certainly meant it!

However we still were not prepared for roads like this…

There are some pullouts along the way in case you meet any traffic. But most of the time there is a cliff on one side, and a drop-off on the other, so the pullouts were often not there when you needed them.

Shauna actually got out at one point to direct traffic; although in that case it was a complete drop-off on the left side, not grass like in the photo above. I had to get as close to the cliff on the right as possible with our car, and the other car got as close to the drop-off as he could. He actually had part of his wheel over the edge of the road as we passed, with a very steep drop-off into the ocean below. It was a stressful situation for all of us.

We were very lucky we didn’t see the school bus or the dump truck at that spot. Luckily when we met each of those vehicles I was able to get out of the way – because they barely slowed down. And let me tell you, it is not a good experience to meet a dump-truck as you are about to come around a blind corner. We sat still for a moment just in case there was a second one coming along as well, but there was only the one.

Another thing you might want to consider before traveling this far is your contract with the car rental company. Most of them have areas designated where you are not supposed to travel in their cars. So if something happens in one of these areas, the bill might be all yours, but I am not entirely sure. We forgot to check until later, but this was definitely one of the areas they don’t want you to go.

I have also written a post on car rental tips here. One of the things I mention in the post is that we made sure to get our own insurance coverage for our 2009 trip through the RoadStar package at ICBC before we got to Maui. It definitely helped save a lot of money on the additional insurances they try to sell you. We hoped that our insurance would have covered it had something gone wrong on this drive, but cannot say for sure. Like I said above, probably best to turn around at the 42 mile marker. The coastline on the Hana highway was quite similar, but much more of a relaxing drive.

The photo below was taken during our inter-island flight from Maui to Oahu in 2008. You can see the winding road along the coastline. We didn’t realize that this was the ‘highway’ we had traveled until after we got home from our 2009 trip.  You can also click on the photo to look at a larger sized file on Flickr.

This is downtown Kahakuloa, not far from the Banana Bread stand. The banana bread was very good, but we were undecided if it was worth the stress of the drive.

If it was a one way road I would certainly recommend it as a site to travel for everyone. But with all the blind corners, drop-off cliffs, and large oncoming traffic, I would only recommend it to those who are confident in their driving, and are looking for a true adventure. There certainly is a reason rental car companies do not want their cars driving up here…

We could tell we were getting closer to the end of the drive when we could spot Kahului in the distance. And what a welcome site it was…

Overall it was a great day. We thought there would be a lot more places we could stop to take photos and look around. But past the 42 mile marker the road was just too skinny. So most of our photos were taken through the car window as we drove along slowly.

We would certainly go exploring along this coastline again, but next time we will likely turn around when the road starts to get smaller.

Here is the link to a video that I shot during our drive:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookie_banana/4667748449/

I don’t think it would help very much to travel in a counter-clockwise direction around the island either. There might be less chance of meeting a bus or a dump truck, but the amount of tourist traffic would increase dramatically. Seems like a no win situation either way.

A few days after this adventure we drove the Hana Highway. After all we had heard about it we were expecting the worst. But after driving around the Northwest Coastline the Hana Highway did not seem that bad at all – just busier and with many more places to stop and explore. But that is another story for another post…

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