Aerial Pictures of the Hawaiian Island of Molokai

Aerial Molokai Narrative

Whenever I fly between the Hawaiian Islands I like to book flights on Mokulele Airlines because of the small single prop airplanes that they fly:

These planes may be slower to travel around the islands, but they do give passengers great aerial views of the islands compared to the larger airliners that fly higher and do not provide as good window seating as Mokulele Airlines.  One of the islands that I have some pretty good pictures of is Molokai:

Molokai is one of the least visited islands in Hawaii with few tourists traveling there despite being the closest island to the main tourism center of Oahu.  Molokai is an unusually shaped island as its west side is relatively flat while its east side rises up to a maximum elevation of 4,961 feet:

Molokai has two very close neighboring islands.  The first neighboring island is Lanai pictured below:

Its other very close neighbor is the island Maui.  In the below picture Lanai can be seen at the bottom of the image.  On the upper right of the picture the summit of the 10,023 foot Haleakala volcano on Maui can be seen:

The east side of Molokai was once a perfectly formed shield volcano called Kamakou.  It is believed the volcano went extinct 1.5 million years ago:

This next picture of Molokai is seen while flying over the west side of Maui.  The classic shape of the shield volcano that formed eastern Molokai is easily visible from the air.  However, the center of the volcano is high eroded from the rain clouds that gather there daily cutting out its craggy peaks:

This next picture is taken as the airplane flies over the southeastern coastline of Molokai with the rippling ocean waves visible down below:

This next picture shows the southeastern shore of Molokai backdropped by the neighboring island of Lanai in the distance:

As the plane flew over the cloud capped peaks of eastern Molokai, I spotted a very large waterfall down below:

Here is a closer look at the waterfall:

Here is a picture of another amazing waterfall I spotted out of my window:

Eastern Molokai looks like quite a scenic place.  Something very interesting about Molokai is that the extreme erosion that sculpted the eastern part of the island has caused it to become the location of the world’s highest sea cliffs:

The Kalaupapa Sea Cliffs rise to an incredible height of 3,315 feet straight from the ocean.  As the plane began to approach western Molokai the terrain became less extreme, but thick forests and many valleys could still be seen down below:

Over western Molokai the terrain leveled out and many farms and ranches could be seen below:

I even spotted the Molokai Airport down below:

Maybe the most amazing thing I saw as I flew over Molokai is that despite being exceptionally beautiful there are very few people living on the island:

As the plane approached the western shoreline on its way to Oahu I could see only a few buildings lining the beautiful beaches below:

In fact according to Wikipedia, Molokai only has a population of 7,345 people compared to the nearly one million people that live on Oahu.

Conclusion

I have not had the chance to travel to Molokai yet, but after flying over it I definitely have it on my short list to one day travel to and explore.  The rugged and remote east side of the island looked extraordinary beautiful from the air, so I can only imagine how spectacular it must be from the ground.