Tidbits And Trivia

Europeans brought sugar cane production to Maui in the early 1800’s but due to economic reasons, plantations have been closing in recent years. Hawaii’s Commercial & Sugar was the last company to produce sugar in the islands. Sadly, it too closed in December of 2016. Diversified agriculture will take its place.

Maui pineapple industry started in 1890 and that too has been phased out over the years. The mainland receives pineapple from South America at a lower cost.

From the beach across from our resort you can see the island of Lana’i just 8.8 miles away and the island of Moloka’i a mere 8 miles away. On a clear day you can also see the island of Hawaii ( the big island ) 32 miles away.

Ka’anapali is the first master planned resort in the United States. The first hotel opened in 1960.

Lahaina was the original capital of Hawaii. It was moved to Honolulu in 1845. A major fire in 1919 destroyed most of Front Street. The fire was started when Bubonic Plague was discovered amongst the Chinese section of town and it quickly got out of hand.

There is only one tunnel on Maui. It was deemed to be too environmentally destructive to blast the mountainside away so the construction of Rte 30 went through instead.



These are some of the fun facts we’ve learned this week. Today we visited the aquarium I mentioned and then took a sunset dinner cruise on the Quicksilver out of Maaleaa Harbor. The sunset was a flop, the meal was only so so, the crew was great and we saw whales.

After the cruise, we headed home to pack. Our time on Maui is up and we head to Hilo tomorrow to stay at the Kilauea Military Camp inside Volcanoes National Park.