The island of Lanai is a wonderful treasure to behold...but it takes less than two days to behold it, and that's pushing it.
Lanai has a small airport or two, but is mainly accessed by ferry from Lahaina, Maui. I had the blessed fortune of making this crossing at the best possible time: the hight of whale season. Every winter, humpback whales migrate to Hawaii to birth their calves....and they come in the tens of thousands! The channel between Maui and Lanai becomes whale soup! Crossing the channel, you can see them all around spouting, breaching, jumping and playfully slapping their tails repeatedly on the water's surface. When they know they've gained your attention, they put on quite a show. Our event was being held in a putting green atop a cliff overlooking a cove, and a pod of whales with new calves frolicked just off shore in that bay all day long. We were having trouble keeping our crew focused on the job at hand, as were the musicians, sound and light crew, hotel staff and caterers. It was a marvelous and wonderful thing to behold. Further out in the water I could see one swimming around a whale-watching cruise, jumping high out of the water on each pass. Ooohs and aaahs aplenty could be heard that day.
Lanai only has two ferry landings, and one narrow road each which climbs the mountain to it's summit. As we approached the southwest landing, sheer, flat cliffs rose high out of the ocean, looking as if someone had sliced away part of the mountain with a carving knife. Above them, ridges and valleys of green forest stretched up into the clouds which obscured the peak. A little further past the landing, a large obelisk of rock jutted out of the ocean just off of the shoreline which appeared to be at one time the other end of a natural bridge. Lanai is very proud of this rock, and it is featured in most of the brochures that I saw as a treasured monument.
Our lodging was on the summit of the island in Lanai City. We followed the road winding up the mountainside, noticing a significant temperature drop along the way. There are no auto or truck rentals on the island, so the only modes of transportation are a shuttle bus which runs the island constantly or the kindness of strangers who would loan you a vehicle, and we utilized both. We finally arrived to our hotel, which is highly acclaimed as one of the finest in the world--The Four Seasons Koele Lodge of Lanai. It was a large, two-story plantation home, with extremely enormous pine trees lining the entrance. A front porch stretched the entire face, with plenty of rocking chairs and whicker furniture. It occurred to me that this seemed entirely out of place here...one would expect to find this sort of place in northern Virginia as opposed to Hawaii; plus it was cold, and all I had to wear were shorts.
We began work as soon as we landed on the island, so it was 7:00 pm by the time we arrived at the hotel, and I never got to see it. We were instructed that we had only twenty minutes to shower and return to the shuttle in time for dinner. I missed the shower, and we all missed the shuttle, so the hotel staff drove us into town and dropped us off at the only open restaurant-the Blue Ginger Cafe. This was a tiny hole-in-the-wall with a few tables and counter...a typical mom-and-pop burger joint kinda place. Two doors down was a corner church which doubled as the town movie theater with first-run films on a second-run schedule. The place was packed with local teenagers, and from what I read of the billboard, the movies only run for a couple of nights. Come early.
Being in Lanai City is really like being in a time warp. The entire town shuts down at 8:30 pm. All "restaurants" close at 7:30 pm, except for the Blue Ginger which stays open a generous 30 minutes more. There is almost no industry whatsoever...the entire economy seems built on service work, with the exception of one custom furniture and woodworking company in the middle of Lanai City. There was once a great pineapple industry--Dole Pineapple owned 98% of the island-- but Dole has pulled out of Hawaii, and fields now go untilled. To make matters worse, Dole will not allow the natives to farm the abandoned land. This seemed like the smallest of Depression-era rural small towns. It's hard to fathom that when I look out at this nearby island while swimming in the comfort of Kihei's endless beaches, I am looking at a rock populated by a very few of the wealthiest people in the world, and a whole lot of broken dreams.
We finished dinner at 9:00 pm, and were back to work from 11:00 pm until 3:00 am. We slept, and when I awoke the coffee service had already closed. I was shuttled back to the ferry twenty minutes later. I had seen none of this grand hotel but the room and the hallway from the front porch to the room. But aside from that, I had seen everything there was to see on Lanai during my short little 24-hour visit.
*To be continued, with addendum from a second trip*
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