Newspaper Article

A Historic Hub Where the Sun Sets on Maui

Malabar Hornblower, who has recently published a cookbook called ''Do-Ahead Dining'' (Globe Pequot Press), lives in, Boston., MALABAR HORNBLOWER

1987

Overview

LEAD: A wag, perusing a map of the Pacific, once ruefully remarked that the Hawaiian islands were the ''furthest near islands'' he could find. Queried why, then, he was journeying 2,100 miles from his home base in San Francisco to visit, he replied that he had been enticed there by Mark Twain who described Hawaii as ''the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean. A wag, perusing a map of the Pacific, once ruefully remarked that the Hawaiian islands were the ''furthest near islands'' he could find. Queried why, then, he was journeying 2,100 miles from his home base in San Francisco to visit, he replied that he had been enticed there by Mark Twain who described Hawaii as ''the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.'' A visit to Lahaina is also a journey to Maui's western coast. The city itself is not large: three to four streets run parallel to the sea for approximately one mile. Packed indiscriminately in turn-of-the-century buildings or facsimiles thereof are restaurants and bars of all descriptions, satisfying all ethnic tastes, as well as shops selling everything from suntan lotion to coral jewelry, gaudy muumuus, aloha shirts, inscribed T-shirts (''Here today, gone to Maui''), macadamia nuts, snorkeling gear and, at the other end of the spectrum, such items as authentic scrimshaw, a relic from whaling days.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: HORNBLOWER, MALABAR / TRAVEL AND VACATIONS / Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)