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5. Researching Maui Nui

Hawaii 2021

Day 5

We went to see the concierge to book the Molokini Crater snorkeling tour and zip lining. We were lucky as there was only one slot left for the snorkeling tour for the three of us. Wednesday morning at 7:00 at the harbor, so we’d have to get up very early. However, jet lag is your circadian rhythm following you slowly across time zones like a ghost and I felt my circadian ghost was still traveling somewhere between the San Diego and Hawaii time zones so that shouldn’t be too hard.

Marie also wanted to zip line with Kate and we booked that for the next day. My plan was to take pictures somewhere while they were doing that: perhaps on the plantation where the zip lining would take place or somewhere else nearby, I hadn’t decided yet.

We headed back to our room to start a lazy day not doing very much, again. We all took out our books we were reading. For me it was still Full Throttle by Joe Hill. I started on the story Faun, which includes - as the title implies without giving away spoilers - a faun. Okay, maybe more than one. I loved it. 

Now it was time to do some research.

I looked up where we may be heading with our Teralini snorkeling tour on Thursday. It didn’t really say on their website, just “an excellent snorkeling spot”. I looked at some photos posted on their website and one of their drone photos of the spot looked familiar; I thought I recognized the shape of the bay somewhat. Taking into account the distance from where the boat leaves, I compared their drone photo with the satellite view of Honolua Bay on Google Maps and I was 99.9% sure they were the same.

While I was on Google Maps I zoomed out quite a bit and noticed that Maui, Kaho’olawe, Lanai and Moloka’i are pretty close to each other compared to the other islands. Perhaps they were one big island once? I went to Google and typed in “Were Maui, Lanai and Molokai one island”. Guess what? Yes they were. It was called Maui Nui, meaning Big Maui.

My initial thought about Maui Nui turning into several islands was that as Maui Nui was created by the hot spot while the pacific plate moves north west, the island sinks over time and the highest peaks of Maui Nui remained above the ocean - therefore becoming Maui, Kaho’olawe, Lanai and Moloka’i. There are lots of underwater mountains and atolls stretching 1500 miles northwest (much further than Kauai) of which some that are now underwater at some point have been above ocean level. However, there is another effect. One of the websites mentioned that ocean levels have varied with ice ages with much lower sea levels during those ages. Even “only” 20,000 years ago Maui, Kaho’olawe, Lanai and Moloka’i were joined together. Cool stuff. 

Read about the next day here

Read about the day before here