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 Kapalua
Villas :: You can go home again
(Article
exclusive to Maui.US) - "Just aim towards Molokai,"
he told me. "Toward the left edge of the island. Aim
that way and your putt will go down fine."
I had no
idea what he was talking about -- I was ten years old
and just learning how to play golf.
I had no
clue about the concept of a putt "breaking", and I couldn't
conceive of how aiming towards a completely different
island than the one I was on could possibly have anything
to do with this stupid game my dad was making me learn.
But I trusted
him, tapped the ball, and watched it curve to the left
and drop into the cup.
I had a thousand
memories like that built up of Kapalua, memories of
a magical place on the west end of Maui where my family
would spend our vacation time every year.
Our first year there was the
first year the old Kapalua Bay Hotel was open, thirty
years ago now, and even then the place had a certain
magic about it: gentle trade winds, impossibly blue
waters, and people who made you feel like family.
I'd watched humpback whales
breaching in the channel between Maui and Molokai, and
I'd learned how to body-surf in the bay.
Now here I was, decades later,
coming back to a place that belonged to memory. I was
excited and terrified at the same time - I'd been invited
by a friend to stay with him at the Kapalua Villas and
jumped at the chance (who wouldn't?), but wondered if
what was in store for me could in any way compare to
those golden memories of my boyhood.
Things change a lot over the
years, after all… My fears faded away the moment I stepped
off the plane and felt the air.
No place on earth has a smell,
a feeling in the air quite like Maui, and it brought
all of those wonderful memories rushing back.
Quite a lot has changed at Kapalua
since I was a kid. The old Kapalua Bay Hotel is gone,
and the area is more built-up with vacation villas and
condos.
But as I was to discover, there
are just some places you can't take the magic out of.
We'd stayed in the Villas only
once when I was a kid; my parents just weren't into
that kind of thing, and always preferred the hotel.
I have no idea why - they seriously
don't know what they missed.
My friend was staying in one
of the Ocean Front Villas, exquisitely furnished and
perfectly maintained, with a view that just can't be
described by platitudes like "breathtaking".
It was April, and the temperature
was ideal, and the humpbacks were there in the channel
as if they'd never left.
We played a lot of golf, and
I finally remembered to aim towards Molokai and finally
carried my drive over the bay on hole #5.
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