How do people give directions on the islands?
To supplement the usual north, east, etc. directions, people often will include in their directions “mauka” (toward the mountains) and “makai” (toward the sea). This is most common on Oahu, Kauai, Lanai, and the Big Island (it doesn’t work as well in central Maui, where there are mountains both east and west, and the ocean both north and south, of the island’s main population center). Also used are the nautical terms “windward” and “leeward,” for “east” and “west” (at Hawaii’s latitude, the trade winds normally blow in from the east — so that side of each island gets much more rain than the “leeward” side, as the mountains wring moisture from the winds). On Oahu, where the city of Honolulu is on a roughly northwest-southeast axis, people will also use as directions “ewa” (pronounced “eva”) for destinations toward or beyond the community of Ewa west of Pearl Harbor, and “diamondhead” or “kokohead” to point toward the southeastern end of Honolulu. These conventions notwithstanding, high
