West Maui

It poured rain all last night but had pretty much cleared up by this morning. I got going around nine and made my way over to highway 30, which heads over to West Maui.

It was an easy ten or so miles across the valley to Ma'alaea with a fierce trade wind at my back which I was grateful for but made for a hot ride. There were great views of the ocean and Haleakala I spent several hours exploring the Maui aquarium at Ma'alaea. It was quite nice with sea turtles and a deep tank with sharks and rays. They even had cute little puffer fish, the source of TTX, the sodium channel blocker, that supposedly is what was used to make zombies.

I signed up to go whale watching tomorrow from Lahaina for a couple of hours. I saw lots of humpbacks from a lookout today, spouting and breaching- pretty cool! You can't see the whales in this picture, but you can see Haleakala, a nice shield volcano across the bay.


Riding this section of West Maui reminds me of the scablands in Eastern Washington. It's really hot, the sun is blazing, there are basalt outcrops all over, and there is only scrubby vegetation.

I'm currently camped in a campground a few miles south of Lahaina. The ocean is about 20 feet away and it's cooled down to about 70 degrees. Life is good!




-- Post From My iPhone