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Maui, with its rain forests and high volcanic range, boasts some 1,300 of the higher plants that exist only in the Hawaiian Islands. Indigenous birds include the black-necked stilt, the claw-footed nene, the short-eared owl and the blue-faced booby, and there are such unique fauna as the monk seal, the hoary bat and the predacious caterpillar. (There are no snakes on the islands.) Maui's waters teem with more than 700 species of fish, perhaps 20% of which are to be found only in Hawaii. The island's most faithful visitor is the humpback whale, the sportive, 40-ton leviathan that returns each whiter to the Lahaina roadstead to play and calve —and enthrall the onlooker.
If the island were barren, if it had no majestic koa trees or coconut palms or fern forests, no hibiscus, begonia, bougainvillaea, poinsettia, u'ulei, mamane or hinahina blossoms, it would be worth visiting for Haleakala alone. It is among the world's largest dormant volcanoes—it has not erupted since 1790—and its brooding presence dominates Maui. The crater of 10,000-ft.-high Haleakala (pronounced Hah-lee-ah-kah-lah) is seven miles long, two miles across and half a mile deep. While it has almost no vegetation save for patches of glistening silversword, the crater is dotted with rose-tipped cinder cones, evidence of minor eruptions over the centuries. It resembles nothing so much as a lunar landscape, and indeed was used as an off-off-planet tryout by the astronauts who made the first moon landing. The center of a 28,000-acre national park, Haleakala can be traversed by shanks' mare or mule train, a three-day mountain high.
The islands are as delightful to the philologist as they are to the bird watcher or plant stalker. All Hawaiian place names have meanings, poetic or factual. Maui's Waianapanapa, site of a 120-acre, stream-laced state park, is "glistening water." There are lao (valley of dawning inspiration), Kapilau (sprinkle of rain on leaves), Lanilili (rippling surface) and Waiakoa (waters used by warrior). Kaanapali is "rolling cliffs." It is comforting when boating off Wailea to know that the "waters [are] governed by Lea," goddess of canoe making. Lahaina is "land of prophecies."
Maui is neither easy nor cheap to get to, reports TIME Correspondent William Blaylock. Its Kahului Airport has been deliberately kept small so that it cannot handle direct flights from the mainland; jet passengers must disembark at Honolulu and transfer by cab ($3) or WikiWiki bus to the Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines terminal for the 20-min. onward flight to the Valley Isle, and may then have to rent a car to reach their destinations. Explains Elmer F. Cravalho, 53, the diminutive (5 ft. 5 in.), tough-minded descendant of Portuguese immigrants who has been Maui's mayor for the past eleven years: "We want the people who come to Maui to make a conscious choice that this is where they want to be. We don't want the people who go for the rock-bottom cheapest tour package. Maui is only for people who are willing to make the effort to get here."