Lahaina Amenities
| Service | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| moorage | $10/night for 40′ boat. | mooring balls available. Occasionally there will be room in the 99-slip marina – call the harbormaster. This is a VERY crowded and busy marina. |
| showers | none | hose at end of dock |
| water | faucet at lavatory building | |
| fuel | at dock next to marina office | Must buy chits in town – talk to harbor master. |
| pump-out | at fuel dock | was broken when we were there |
| ice, groceries | in town | |
| internet | in town | |
| rental car | in town | |
| bus | on tuesdays | See Maui schedule here |
Description
Lahaina in southwest Maui is a busy tourist town. Very cute with historic buildings, lots of restaurants, bars, and tourist stores right at the city dock. The marina itself is quite the scene – you can charter various catamarans, small submarines, and para-sail rides – all being hawked there on the city dock. There are also dozens of surfers wandering about. We found the harbor master to be a bit brusque, and the town was a bit too busy for us, but I’m sure it could be a lot of fun with the right group.
Generally you would anchor or get a mooring ball in Lahaina, but because we needed to pump out and there was a slip available for the night we decided to take it. We were surprised to find the entry to the marina nestled between two surfing areas – in fact surfers swimming with their boards crossed us in front of us several times as we motored (slowly!!) towards the marina. It turned out that we had been assigned the very first slip to the right as we entered the marina – good because the u-shaped marina was very narrow and filled with an alarming number and variety of boats (and submarines etc). We ducked in and tied to the dock, hoping no one would clip us as they tried to maneuver into the marina. That night we were a little dismayed when all the bright lights stayed on until well after midnight. Then the next morning the harbor master yelled at us for tying to the dock. “Don’t tie to the dock! It’s not structural!” In some confusion we asked what we were supposed to do as we had been given a slip. He pointed into the water a few feet aft of our stern – well into the water way it appeared to me – and said that there was a mooring line “just 12 or 15 feet down”. Jon dived down to look, but never found a line in the murky turbulence of the marina entry. It was time for us to go anyway so we scooted over to the fuel dock to try to pump our tanks. No luck – no suction. No one seemed too concerned when we mentioned it but just mumbled a comment “I think it worked just a few days ago”. Well that was that, time to move on to Molokai.
