Chad and I are asked ALL THE TIME why on earth did we move from Maui to the mainland….
I was going through some old photos this morning and I came across this shot. This is probably the biggest reason why we so sadly decided to move away from Maui. Cane smoke. All of the white clouds you see is actually smoke – sometimes it’s white, sometimes it’s brown. This is the view from our lanai and during burn season it would be like this every other day for weeks. You can smell it even if your windows and doors are closed tight. Later on the “black snow” is all over the ground outside. Right now, they no longer burn on the west side of Maui, just central Maui all over the place in different fields. We have lived on the west side and the south side and it’s funny because the people on the west side forget how much burning does take place – unless their Costco trip happens to occur during a burn. 😉
I’ll never forget the morning I was driving to work at Kapalua Marketing – just north past the Kealia Pond refuge are cane fields flanking the road. Literally I was driving with HUGE orange flames just a few feet away on either side of my car – I both held my breath to try to not inhale the thick choking smoke and was in awe of the fiery and smokey scene.
Sadly, the burning not only is smelly – but is dangerous. They burn the irrigation pipes and everything – environmental asthma is an epidemic and many people of all ages, including something like 40% of school children are on inhalers. Until they stop burning – sadly I don’t think we’ll move back, is not worth the risk to our kids’ health. They have been closing down many of the sugar cane mills in Hawaii, so I’m certain that this will one day end. I don’t want to see sugar production end in Hawaii at all !! They should just adopt machine methods of processing and threshing the cane like other countries are already doing now….
