Lahaina Luna

Lahaina Luna 

"Rum on the rocks, splash of soda" I said to the bartender three nights ago as I climbed atop the bar stool. Thirty-eight years before I sat on the same stool. In 1975 Jeff McConnell, Russ Roy and I had sailed the 'Intuition' from Kona to Lahaina, Maui. We glided into the first empty slip we came to, tied up and walked over to The Pioneer Inn bar some fifty feet away. Sitting at the bar of the legendary whaling bar with grins on our faces from just having crossed the Alenuihaha Channel  from Hawaii, we touched glasses and toasted our accomplishment. That patch  of ocean between Maui and Hawaii is know to be one of the most treacherous stretches of sea water on the planet and I and my two sailing brothers had just done the 100 mile sojourn on a 26' Excalibur Sloop, I was 19 years old and invincible.

This night in 2012 I found myself on the same stool at the Pioneer Inn but feeling considerably less invincible. Truth be told, these days I find I feel quite vincible, but that seems to happen as you get into the third half of your life. I had flown myself over Saturday to do a photo job shooting couples and a group photo for a software company at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. I had done a similar job on Maui three months before and had paid $225.00 for one night in a hotel before flying back the next morning. This time I decided I'd rent a minivan, bring a sleeping bag and make it my own little mobile-home instead of spending money on a room. Call me cheap, but I got two kids in private school, a daughter in college and a twenty-five year old house that constantly demands I spend money on it to keep it from falling down. A night on the hard floor of a mini van is a small sacrifice I figured.

The photo shoot went well. Prepping for a large group shot with little time to spare can become a sweaty affair of me searching for a live power outlet on an open lawn, setting up lights and a a 12' ladder, marking where the group will stand with duct tape, climbing up and down the ladder adjusting the lights for the proper balance and staring through the cameras viewfinder until you are either sure you have the shot right or are just out of any other ideas. Don't ask how I got a 12 foot ladder from Hawaii to Maui on a single engine plane with a seven foot cabin length, the FAA would be displeased with the answer. You of course know the official FAA motto: "We're not happy until you're not happy". That done I race up a hundred stairs to get to the Hawaiian Garden Lanai to begin shooting couples photos as the software companies top employees began to arrive at the reception.

Shooting a group shot of 80 or so people requires that one be part cowboy herding the people into their places, one part conductor standing on a ladder directing everyone to move this way and that to make sure each persons face will be in the final photo as well as a bit of a court jester who must keep the group happy and laughing until it's time to press the shutter. Oh, and there is the being a photographer part of it all, knowing how to light and frame the final photo. For once you have shot the final photo and declare as I always do: "Class dismissed!",  you had better have a good image in your camera since these eighty people will not be coming back to Hawaii from around the USA to do a reshoot should I gack the shot. This one worked out OK:

They wanted a group shot that not only got everyone in it with their eyes open and looking at the camera but showed that they were in Hawaii as well. I think I got it for them. 

I did the time required to break everything down, haul it to the Lincoln minivan, said my goodbyes to my clients and headed south along Maui's western coast. Lahaina is a legendary old stopover for whaling ships in the 1800's. The ships would drop anchor in the calm leeward protected waters off the town of Lahaina and the crews would row ashore to commence doing what wayward seaman have and always will do: drink, sing, fight and whore and then drink some more. I had done so in Lahaina when I was a teenager sailing into this port with Jeff "Mac Sac" McConnell and Captain Russ "Kink" Roy and this night I pulled up a stool at that very same place I had so many years before.

 I ordered a fish sandwich from the bartender and sat reminiscing on all the friends I had known and sailed with in Hawaii. I thought back to racing with the trades along the north shore of Molokai, the cliffs rising a thousand vertical feet from the sea on our lee; to the raging twenty-five foot faces of mid-winter ocean north swells crashing down on us blown by twenty-five not trades in the Alenuihaha. There were calm nights anchored in Manele Bay, Lanai or tied stern to at the Kaunakakai Pier drinking rum and cokes in the cockpit of the 'Intuition'. A trip on the 'Moana Pua', a fifty foot catamaran, comes to mind- I see Rocky Barnett standing at the bow holding on to the forestay's as we blasted along in the channel at an incredible speed such that the hull was vibrating and a deep humming sound was emanating all around us. We were sailing back to Hawaii across the deep royal blue ocean faster than I have ever before experienced on a sailing vessel.

My fish sandwich arrived and after dressing it up with the proper condiments I enjoyed a most satisfying bite. "How's the fish?", a query came from a tattooed man beside me. Before I could swallow and then answer he told me that he had caught that fish this afternoon on the sloop 'Scotch Mist' and had just dropped it off to the kitchen about twenty minutes ago..."Can't get much fresher that that he said"and I had to agree. I bought him a beer, thanked him for catching my dinner and we spent a grand couple of hours together drinking rum and sharing sailing, surfing and other stories from our pasts.

Saying aloha to my new found friend I began to make my way down Front Street Lahaina. I had to fly myself home in the morning and as such could not afford to overindulge in the drink and fun that is Lahaina. I decided to wander about down the famous street, dropping into the art galleries and foo foo shops along the seaside street and see what they had to offer in way of entertainment. It was only eight PM and I was nowhere near ready to crawl into my rented minivan and go to sleep.

I met a Big Island expat named Ian in the Lick Gallery while looking at some of the most incredible art photography I have ever seen. He had left the island of Hawaii when the gallery he ran at Mauna Lani shut down because of the crappy economy.  He now runs the gallery in Lahaina. I enjoyed our talk story session, shakka'd and shook hands and headed on.

I wandered back towards the harbor and found myself beneath the the sprawling Banyan Tree planted in the Courthouse square in 1853. The tree is massive covering two thirds of an acre and rises 50 feet high.

A beautiful full moon was heading towards the western sea as I made my way back to my Lincoln-minimobilehome. I grabbed a couple of photos of the Lahaina Luna before calling it a night.

Clear, calm, bright blue skies throughout the islands greeted me as I got ready to take off from Kahalui Airport to fly myself home. Everything still seemed to be screwed on tight on my plane so I got a clearance, climbed in fired her up and lifted off for Hawaii.

Approaching mid-channel, the same treacherous stretch of sea we three had sailed over 37 years before, I saw in the distance there was a wall of clouds rising a couple thousand feet above my flight path. I didn't really want to waste the time and fuel needed to climb over the cloud bank but was getting ready to add power when I spotted a narrow V shaped valley slicing the wall nearly in two straight ahead of me. There was a reflected gleam coming from somewhere far in the distance shining through the cleft.

I flew through the valley and found myself looking ahead into the rising sun at the Big Island of Hawaii. Its three mountains rising high above the sea to the vogless clear Hawaiian skies. I spotted the runway at Keahole Airport from forty miles out and set myself up for a thirty five mile long final approach and landed without incident ending a very satisfying trip to Maui!

Aloha...Brian