Kalami Nui (Lanai)

[Kyle]It blew like crazy all night at McGregor point out of the northeast. That was good. We had a pretty long way to go to get to our next anchorage on the west side of Lana’i. I unzipped the sail cover and the wind just died as if someone had flipped a switch; 20 knots, three knots, nothing in between. Ugh.

We left the anchorage with everything double reefed just in case it came back as quickly. It didn’t. It was ahead of us, so we set the sails up to go upwind on the most favorable tack.

The wind started doing it again. It curved us away from our course to Lana’i. We tacked, and then it would curve us the other direction or possibly just start again from some random direction. By the time there were only three hours of daylight left, we threw in the towel and motored the rest of the way.

Cliffs on the south-west tip of Lanai

Lana’i has some interesting coastline, but it didn’t get really dramatic until we passed Point Palaoa at its southern extreme. Suddenly, the gentle slope of the mountain coming down to the sea stopped as if it were a cake and somebody had cut off the end. Around the corner on the western shore was a massive cliff showing a cross section of the island’s geology. It its base every now and then was a little cone of rubble where the edges had crumbled into the sea.

We proceeded up the coast until the cliffs had decreased to 30m or so (100’), found our indentation at Kalama Nui, and headed in with the last of the light. We located a suitable patch of black sand amid the rocks and coral heads and dropped anchor. What a place! We were surrounded on three sides by jagged cliffs, one of which had a tunnel we could see right through. Waves crashed into the rocks and then cascaded down in little waterfalls. On the fourth side was an unobstructed view of the sunset, for which we had just made it.