THAR SHE BLOWS!

No, I don't mean a whale! Though I could have . . . it is that time of year and all.

But this isn't about the largest mammals.

This is about a "blow hole".

What is a blow hole you ask?

Well, its a big tube in the rock that the waves crash up through looking like steam blowing out a smoke stack, finishing with a big splash and sweet little rainbow.

It's so amazing.

I remember when my older brothers went to Maui to pick pineapples during the summers in their high school years. I remember a story about the blow hole. As the story goes, a boy got too close to it and got sucked down and out to sea. Somehow, very miraculously he survived.

Whether this story is true or not is not known. I believed it when I was a kid.

For Valentine's weekend we stayed out in Kahana. It is between Ka`anapali and Napili. It was the only thing available! Anyhoo, since we were on that side of the island, we decided to check out this blow hole we'd heard about. According to the "Maui Revealed" book you drive until mile marker 38 and park there. Then hike passed the lighthouse marker (not really a lighthouse, more of a light on a pole, but I don't know what it's really called), and keep going until you find it. It's not that long of a hike really - maybe a mile . . . round trip.

So we find mile marker 38, park the car and set out. There's really no trail marked. You just see people coming and going and figure, that's what they're there for and go that direction. We had to dodge the dirt bikes that were running around . . .

Of course we had our best hiking shoes on . . . slippahs!

Emphasis on SLIP . . . at times.

Once along the shore, the view was incredible.

See for yourself!

Looking down in reality was a little unnerving . . . the drop was a long, long way down to crashing waves on ROCKS!


To get perspective on how far the drop is, look at the cliff wall behind me.

SHAKA!

This is the path going along the VERY EDGE of that cliff! YIKES!

Breathtaking!

Hike passed what looks like the surface of the moon . . .

WAIT . . . is that it?

Nope.

Funny thing though - this is a blow hole, just not the one we're looking for.

This little one scared me. It made this rumble sound that startled me!

a puka (hole)

WHOA!

THAR SHE BLOWS!!

It's difficult to capture the BIG splashes with the camera.

There's no way of knowing whether it will be big or small.

Sometimes, the splash will be as high as the spray seen in this photo below.

The hike we took to get here was maybe a quarter to half mile. When we got there, we noticed that a lot of people were coming straight down from a different place that seemed like a shorter hike. So Scott says, "Should we hike back this way or go back the way we came?"

I reply, "Well, if we go back the way we came, we're certain we go back to where we parked the car. We don't know where this shorter route will take us."

We decided to take the shorter hike out . . .

Needless to say - we didn't end up where our car was.

We ended up having to walk along the road for quite a ways before we got back to where we had parked. All the while Scott's grumbling because it's hot, we're sweaty, we look like TOURISTS! Oh the horror!

I say, "Just admit that I was right! If we had gone back the way we came, we wouldn't be doing this right now."

He says, "You didn't say you wanted to go back that way, you were just making a statement."

Whatever!

We finally made it back to our car, tired, hot and thirsty! Not to mention, our gas light came on on the way out there . . . it was at least 10 miles back to the nearst gas station!

Don't worry - we made it back without running out of petro.

Later that night . . .

We decided to watch a friend of our's at the Luau he works for. He let us in for free!

(not to eat though - bummer)

He works at the Royal Lahaina Luau as the drummer.

Don't you love the entrance?

It's like walking into a native jungle where you don't know if you ARE the meal or not!

At the very end of the video you can get a glimpse of our friend, Kimo.