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tallest mountains, and why Maui—as the next island in the chain—is the second largest
island with the second tallest mountain. Kaua'i is the oldest in the main Hawaiian chain
at four million years old, and of the 132 islands which make up the state of Hawai'i, tiny
Midway and Kure atolls form the northwestern reach.
THE FORBIDDEN ISLAND
It's understandable that, after a five-hour plane ride where the view out the window
is only of water, many visitors to Maui are geographically disoriented. It is more
than just having their internal compass spun; having other islands looming on the
horizon only makes it more geographically confusing. If you are in South Maui and
you face the water, the island in the distance and to your right is Lana'i. Most island
visitors know this much. Where many people stumble, however, is trying to determ-
ine what that other island is that sits silently to the left.
That mysterious island, as it turns out, has a fascinating history laced with crime,
death, destruction, and rebirth. This is Kaho'olawe (Ka-HO-OH-LAW-vay), a place
where there are no residents and no hotels, but more than a fair share of stories. It's
a dry island reliant on rain from clouds extending out from Haleakala. Kaho'olawe
was only sporadically settled during ancient times. During the mid-1800s, after the
missionaries convinced Queen Ka'ahumanu to abolish capital punishment, the bar-
ren island was used as a penal colony. Life on the island was difficult and miserable.
Many prisoners died of starvation. In 1841, a band of banished criminals swam from
Kaho'olawe to Makena on the island of Maui, raided a settlement, loaded some ca-
noes with food, and then paddled victoriously back to the emaciated prisoners. With
food now in hand, the marooned prisoners focused solving their second problem:
the lack of women. A team paddled across the channel to the island of Lana'i and
returned with a boatful of volunteers from the women-only penal colony established
there. Suddenly, all on Kaho'olawe was right again.
Once the penal colony was closed, there were a number of failed attempts
at ranching on the island. After the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor in 1941,
Kaho'olawe was placed under martial law. Over the next 50 years, the forbidden is-
land served as a practice bombing range for the military. Longtime locals remember
the island glowing orange in the evening due to the explosions.
Legions of native Hawaiian activists protested the bombing of a major Hawaiian
island. The protests intensified in 1976 when a group of activists headed to
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