Mike in the Wild

I made the decision a long time ago that when I visited Maui during whale season, I would stay in South Maui.  So during my five-night visit last month, I chose a rental condo in South Kihei where from beaches like Kamaole One, right across the street, I could witness the spectacle of humpback whales breaching in the distance.   Another reason informing my decision was that I wanted to give Northwest Maui and Lahaina some space while they deal with the aftermath of last summer's tragic fire.  While the resorts and beaches outside of the city proper were unaffected and are open for business, it was hard for me to imagine driving through the devastated landscape to have a day of fun in the surf.  The much more practical excuse for sticking to South Maui was that the winter season brings frequent swells to the northern shores of the Hawaiian Islands: great news for surfers but bad for snorkelers.  In fact, the Snorkel Store's morning report was frequently advising against swimming

Two visits to Maui and one to Oahu within eight months is a lot for even me, a person enamored with the Aloha State.  But I had never been to Maui during whale season, when thousands of humpback whales migrate to the surrounding waters for a winter of calving and mating.  While I was disappointed to discover that I had missed the peak of the season by a week, I was nonetheless thrilled to not only see dozens of the giant creatures but to even hear them.  Like when I visited the Big Island three years ago around the same time of year, the whales were easily visible from the shore.  The clouds of mist from their blows were usually the first sign they were present, often followed by their back and knobby dorsal fin cresting out of the water.  If the whales dived, their tail fins sometimes emerged high out of the water.   One evening at sunset on Charley Young Beach in Kihei, I watched a pair of whales far in the distance toward the community of Maalaea have a sort of smack-off as they spl