Lahaina, Hawaii.

The scenes of the fires and their aftermath on television and the Internet are heartbreaking. The loss of life is devastating and the loss of a major part of Hawaii’s history is beyond words. Please allow me to reminisce this Travel Tuesday about our visit to Lahaina. The post originally scheduled will be moved to next week.

Lynn and I have only been to the city of Lahaina once, in 2007. On our second cruise ever, we toured Hawaii. The 11-day cruise sold us on cruising. We visited several islands, going ashore during the day and sailing to a new location overnight, and our hotel room came with us. Lahaina was a special stop in that it was the only overnight where the cruise ship didn’t sail to a different port. That’s why I was able to get a sunset photo from land instead of from the ship.

I don’t know the name of the grill and bar we visited shortly after leaving the ship. If you know, please comment. Our goal for the day was to pick up the car we rented for the day and drive the Road to Hana but we had to be back from our drive in time to board the bus to the luau. The rental agent mentioned that the best part of the road to Hana is the first half so we opted to take his advice and turn back at his suggested turn-around point. I’m glad we did as we barely made it back to the bus pickup point on time.

The luau was held at a hotel and was specifically catered for our cruisers. Our only regret is that we didn’t get back in time to take a tender back to the ship and pick up the Hawaiian shirts we’d purchased for the occasion.

It wasn’t long and the luau started. Two handsome natives appeared with a pig hanging from the pole resting on their strong shoulders. I didn’t get any photos of the pig, the plastic skin was too reflective. So I was expecting a real pig. It was then that understood it was just for show. The food was typically Hawaiian and typically hotel-catered.

The after-dinner show was completely entertaining with lots of young men and women singing and dancing, and of course the fire juggling. We had a great time, plastic pig notwithstanding.

The next day we explored the city. From the shore, we could see our ship anchored in the harbor. The two boats near the ship are tenders ferrying cruisers to and from the ship. The Wind was on one of its last sailings, in only a few more weeks, it would be sold to another company. I understand it was destined to be a floating casino/hotel somewhere in Asia.

I don’t know the story of the sailboat but I thought it made an interesting image with what appeared to be a yellow submarine sailing by in the background. All of the photos taken were captured on a Fuji Finepix 3800, my first point-and-shoot digital camera that I’d gotten for family photos. The camera was only 3-megapixel and sported a 6-X optical zoom.

Something I noticed that was relatively new in 2007 was a local Internet cafe. We didn’t have any devices with us that could use the Internet connection so we walked on by.

Artists worked and sold their art as you might expect. We stopped and watched him work for a while before moving on. We ended up bringing home a small hand-painted wood souvenir that still sits on our bookshelf.

One of the most popular spots in the city was the large banyan tree. The images I’ve seen on the news in the last couple of days give me hope that it will grow healthy again, but it is too early to tell. I will always remember standing under its spreading branches.

The history of the tree is well documented. In the 1800s, Lahaina was the capital of the Republic of Hawaii. The tree was an 8-foot sapling when planted by Lahaina’s former mayor William Owen Smith. Smith hailed from Kauai and served as the attorney general of the Republic of Hawaii and his sapling took root in the center of the village in 1873. That puts the tree at 150 years of age. I hope it survives for future generations to stand underneath its huge canopy.

I leave you this week with sadness in my heart for the devastating losses on Maui. My final image is a panoramic view of the coast and the city of Lahaina as viewed from the deck as we sailed on to our next Hawaiian destination. As I looked at the several images I captured during the sail away, I discovered that three of them happened to overlap. When they were taken, I had no clue that someday over a decade later, I’d be creating a panoramic image from them. For a closer look at the gallery of images from this post, you can see them on my Flickr album here.

John Steiner