A strong northerly blow was forecast and we were looking for an anchorage with a bit more shelter than the moorings at Lahaina. The small harbour of Manele Bay on the south coast of Lanai looked just the ticket. It only took a couple of hours to cross the Au’au Channel and we soon spotted the sea-stacks that mark the entrance to the bay. We dropped anchor outside the harbour wall keeping a healthy distance from the reef on the eastern side.
Lanai island lies on the leeward of Maui and does not get much rain, consequently it is arid and sparsely populated. The island has an interesting history of private ownership; it was initially set-up as a Mormon colony then in the 1870’s it was purchased by a Mr. Walter Gibson for ranching. They also tried growing sugar cane but it soon failed and the island was sold to James Dole – of “Dole pineapple” fame in the 1920’s. He developed it in to the largest pineapple plantation in the world, hence the nick-name the Pineapple Isle.
The town is laid out like a workers camp – echoes of Brunei! – with one of everything: a school, a general store, a police station, a clinic etc. With the shady Cook pines (also part of the plan) and neat rows of houses, it has a utopic, other-worldly feel to it. It has numerous churches of all denominations which are testament to the various sects of missionaries and migrants that have come to live in Lanai.
After changing hands a couple more times the island was recently purchased by Larry Ellison, of Oracle fame. He has re-opened the cinema and the swimming pool in the town and is in the process of lavishly refurbishing the two hotels on the island, both of which are operated by the Four Seasons. The hotel at Manele Bay had just re-opened when we were there and I couldn’t help but admire the green carpets of the eighteen hole golf course, in contrast to the parched brown hillside. That must take a lot of water! Apparently a desalination plant is planned which, if they finally get it running, will benefit both the hotel and the town.
Manele Bay is a really great anchorage. The harbour is quiet and picturesque, it gets mildly disturbed every few hours by the arrival of the Maui-Lanai ferry but the visitors dissipate quickly. There is a beautiful white sand beach in a bay about five minutes’ walk away with an interesting reef and good snorkelling. One evening we had a BBQ onshore by the harbourmaster’s office, it was very peaceful scene, it reminded us a bit of Nuku Hiva. The only downside is that the bay is frequently used by tourist boats and gets quite crowded each morning. There is not much space between the channel, the reef and the harbour wall and I think our presence in the anchorage made it even tighter!
Once the winds eased we moved around to the west coast of the island to an anchorage called Nanahoa, to the north of a row of sea-stacks. It was a dramatic spot; dry, brown hills cut by gulches with thorny acacia trees showing a sliver of green, a blow hole at the base of the cliffs occasionally erupted spraying a plume of water into the air. The next day we walked up one of the gulches. The coastline appeared deserted so it felt a little eerie when we stumbled across a hunters’ camp which seemed to have been recently used. Further up the gulch we found their quarry – a couple of goats scampering ahead of us.
After a week on Lanai we returned to Maui and the Spiced Rum Challenge! The challenge was to buy a bottle of Hana Bay rum and infuse it with spices/flavours of your choice to try to make it taste better! Bottles were submitted by Iolani and ourselves, in fact we split ours so we could play with two different flavours. Lady Carolina joined in for the tasting last night. We combined it with a Pot Luck to soak up all the rum and make sure we could get back to our boats safely. It turns out that the cardamom and vanilla rum tasted pretty good and my chilli rum had everyone guessing for a while. Neil combined chocolate, orange and vanilla, unfortunately something went wrong with the last step but all agreed that the chocolate flavour (from cocoa nibs) was awesome!
We have just arrived in Honolulu, our first big city since Wellington in June last year! We have some boat jobs to do and are looking forward to catching up with Libby and Fat Cat, friends we met in French Polynesia.
Very excited!
Suzy