Kapalua Bay Maui Ceramic Art Tile
— the shape of two arms around the water.
Not only on a wall.
“The crescent at the northwest corner of Maui, between two lava points that close the bay against the open Pacific. Kapalua means arms embracing the sea, and the water inside the curve goes a long flat aquamarine the rest of the coast doesn't quite have. Green sea turtles come in to graze the reef most mornings. Stephen Leatherman, the Florida geographer who ranks American beaches, called it the country's best in 1991. The path down from Lower Honoapiilani Road is short and shaded.
Kapalua Bay Maui Ceramic Art Tile, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Kapalua Bay holds the northwest corner of Maui, a crescent of pale sand framed by two low lava headlands that close most of the open Pacific swell out. The bay sits in the resort district above Lahaina, reached by a short paved walk down from Lower Honoapiilani Road. The surrounding land is part of the historic Honolua Ranch, developed in the 1970s by Maui Land & Pineapple Company into the Kapalua resort. Honolua Bay, a marine life conservation district known for its winter big-wave breaks and summer snorkeling, sits about a mile to the north. Across the channel, the islands of Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi rise on the horizon at sunset.
The shape of the bay is the thing. Two basalt points reach out from the shore and bend toward each other, leaving a narrow mouth that swallows most of the swell before it reaches the sand. The Hawaiian word kapalua translates as "arms embracing the sea," and the geography matches the name. Inside the curve the water clarifies to a soft aquamarine over a sand-and-coral bottom, with green sea turtles, parrotfish, and the occasional whitetip reef shark working the reef on the south side. The protected mouth means snorkelers usually have flat water from dawn through mid-morning, before the trade winds rise. Winter brings the one exception, when north swells occasionally curl in.
Hawaii law guarantees public access to every beach in the state, and Kapalua Bay is no exception despite its position among private resorts. The marked public-access path leaves Lower Honoapiilani Road just south of the Montage Kapalua Bay resort, descends about a hundred yards under ironwoods, and opens onto the sand near a small public restroom and outdoor shower. Parking is limited to two small public lots that fill by mid-morning through the summer. The bay shows best from May through September, when the trade winds and the swell stay south. Winter occasionally brings north swells that close the mouth and roughen the water otherwise held still.