David and Enid's Travels

David snorkeling and diving

Enid snorkeling

Yesterday we snorkeled north of Kona at Waialea Bay (which is where we plan to go back to tomorrow before we fly out at night).  It was very windy, but the wind was mostly from the east, so in the morning it was quite calm off shore.

I love my new mask.  It doesn’t leak a bit and makes snorkeling so much more pleasant.  Enid tried it some as well, and so we stopped at the dive shop on the way home and bought her one too.

Today we drove to Kealakekua Bay at Napoopoo (across from the Captain Cook monument).  We thought we would snorkel here, but it was rough with large swells, and the water was churned up and muddy.  Instead we drove to Honaunau Bay along the road that cuts across a mostly desolate old lava flow where they pasture cattle.  It was very busy, and we got the next to last parking spot.  There was a large group here, seemed to be a class of students, that were diving.  As well there were a number of tour boats with snorkelers in the morning.

White tipped reef shark

We swam for a couple of hours in the morning, saw many, many beautiful fish, a turtle which Enid swam very close to, and two white tipped reef sharks.  After lunch we went out again looking for dolphins, but didn’t find any, so we swam back along the shore reef.  Enid decided to stop, but I stayed out and took a lot more pictures.  I was thinking of coming back in when suddenly someone touched me and I turned around to find that it was Enid.

Spinner dolphins

“There are dolphins over there,” she said and pointed about 100 metres farther out in the water.  She’d been watching them from shore, noticed that I hadn’t seen them, so came out to let me know.  We joined the others that were there watching, and got some very nice views of a large pod, perhaps about twenty Hawaiian spinner dolphins.

It is our last night in Hawaii, as we fly out late tomorrow night overnight to Vancouver, and should be in Saskatoon by mid-afternoon if we make all our connections.

Goldring surgeonfish and Pebbled Butterflyfish

Since it looked clear to the south we headed for Honaunau Bay this morning.  We were about half way there when it started raining, but as we dropped down in elevation towards the ocean the rain stopped.  We were in the water snorkeling shortly after 9:30, and were surprised at the number of people there.  As well as many cars parked in the limited space available, there were at least three boats full of snorkelers.

The boats didn’t stay very long, and we spent a long time in the water.  We covered a great deal of the reef on the left side, going out as far as the end of the reef where the water breaks.  The water was very clear this morning, some of the best we’ve had, and it was not at all rough, so it was a nice day to be in the water.

School of Yellow Tang

We saw many fish, including a couple of new varieties that we haven’t seen before.  The yellow tang seems to be everywhere, but there are some large schools of them here.  Though most of the fish are now familiar to us, it is always fun to spot a new variety.  Some of them may just be color variations of fish we already know, but since we don’t really know, they all look like different kinds of fish to us.

Male trunkfish

We’ve snorkeled at a lot of areas here on the Big Island.  Two days ago we went on the very rough road to Kekaha-Kai State Park.  After two miles of road over broken lava — which is much better now than when we started on it last year and turned back — you come to a nice snorkeling beach.  In the morning it was quite calm, but it got rough in the afternoon, and since the entry and exit to the water is shallow and over slippery stones, it wasn’t easy.  Enid cut her knee in the afternoon while coming in.

Puako petroglyphs

Yesterday we stayed at the condo, swam in the pool, and read, so today was time for another adventure.  We drove to the Mauna Lani resort area and went in to the Puako Petroglyphs.  There are some on display right near the trailhead at the parking area.  After a walk of a little over a kilometre there are easily visible several hundred petroglyphs.  Almost all of them are carvings of human figures — stick men.

Holoholokai Beach

We came back from the petroglyphs and went to the rocky beach area.  It was fairly calm, so we went snorkeling about 200 metres north from the picnic tables where it was not too difficult to get in.  The water was very clear, and there were a lot of fish over the excellent coral.  For some reason my waterproof camera case leaked today and flooded.  The camera itself is fine since it is also waterproof, but I got almost no pictures today.

In the afternoon I went snorkeling again, but it was very rough.  I had quite a bit of difficulty getting in through the breaking surf, but once past the rocks it was ok.  However, the camera lens fogged up.  I guess it wasn’t quite dry from the morning, so I got no pictures.  That is unfortunate as I saw a new fish which I haven’t seen before.  It was some type  of red rockfish, but I can’t identify it in my references without a picture.

Hibiscus, Friends of Fitness garden

Sometimes you discover interesting things by accident.  Today was one of those experiences.

We drove to the old Kona Airport this morning to see the orchid and craft show which we’d seen advertised.  They had some beautiful orchids there, so that was worthwhile, but the show wasn’t very big so we only were there for about half an hour.

We decided to drive down the old runway to see what there is in the park, and stopped where we could see a large number of flowering plants.  It turns out that it is a fitness trail called the “Friends of Fitness” trail, which is set in a very nice garden with many, many flowering plants.  We took many pictures.  The trail is about a kilometre long loop, and it wasn’t very busy, just a few people walking and pushing baby strollers.  Other than these people, and two gardeners, we had the run of the garden to ourselves.  We haven’t seen anything in any of the tour information about this very nice garden area.

After we’d walked all around it we continued on to the beach.  There is a lot of sand on the shore, but in the water it is black lava, so we didn’t see many people in the water, though there were a few on the beach and in the picnic areas.  It was sunny earlier in the morning,  but by noon it was pretty cloudy.  We came back to the condo, ate lunch, read, and then went for a swim in the pool.  Shortly after we did that is started to sprinkle rain, so we came back inside.  It didn’t rain much, but it is still mostly overcast tonight.

Pu’ukohola Heiau

Enid and I have been snorkeling almost daily.  We’ve been at Waialea, and a couple of days at Waikoloa.  The beach at Waikolo is very nice, and the snorkeling, if you go straight out from shore about two or three hundred yards is nice.  However close in to shore it is very cloudy and almost impossible to see much.

Today, tired of snorkeling, we decided to do some sight-seeing, so we drove north to the end of the Big Island along the Kohala Coast.  We stopped at Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site which is where King Kamehameha I constructed a temple atop a hill.  It was instrumental in his ascendency to become the king of all the Hawaiian islands by 1810.

Koai’e Cove, Maui in distance

Next we drove to the Lapakahi State Historical Park which is the ruins of what was once a large settlement, occupied from about 600 years ago to the beginning of the 1900’s.  We found this rather more interesting than the National Park, since there were the outline ruins of many buildings which once were here.  It is a beautiful bay, very calm, and in the distance you can see Maui across about 30 miles of ocean.  I can well understand why people would have occupied this site for so long.  Apparently it was probably abandoned when the well ran dry.

Next we drove in to Mahukona Beach Park.  This is the site of an old harbor and concrete dock from the time when it was a sugar refinery.  Now the refinery is closed, but you can snorkel here, and there were several people out in the bay.  We decided it wasn`t the ideal site for lunch, though it would have been ok, so drove on to Kapa`a Beach Park.  This was much nicer as there was a picnic table in the shade, so we ate lunch here, then afterwards went snorkeling for about half an hour.  It was a somewhat difficult entry off the rocks, but the water was very clear and there were quite a few fish.  There even was a shower with hot water to wash off.  I wore my new diving cap today, which works well and will really keep the sun off my bald spot, which has gotten nicely burned.

Pololu Valley

After this we drove the rest of the way to the end of the road at Pololo Beach.  We didn`t walk all the way to the ocean, as it is a steep trail, but we did go about half way down to where there is a good viewpoint.  In the short distance from where we ate lunch at Kapa`a to Hiwa, which can`t be over ten miles, the country changes from arid desert to tropical rainforest as you move from the west to the east shore of the island.

On the way back we stopped to take pictures of the King Kamehameha I statue in Kapa`au and also in Hiwa where we had a really delicious macadamia nut ice cream cone at the `Tropical Dreams` ice cream shop.  I had chocolate and Enid had vanilla — I have to admit I think hers was the better choice, though they were both very nice.

Enid, Mavis and Grant snorkeling

There was a very heavy rain storm overnight and it was overcast for most of today.  It wasn’t raining when we left for Honaunau Bay, but started soon afterwards.  But the rain had stopped by the time we arrived at the ocean, and it wouldn’t have mattered for snorkeling anyway, but it was a lot nicer to eat lunch by the ocean with no rain.

The water was quite turbid today, more so than when we were here last week.  It has been windy for the last few days, and probably last night’s rain contributed to the cloudy water.  However it was still much clearer than we had in Costa Rica.

The highlight of today’s snorkel was a white tipped reef shark which we watched for quite a while as it slowly swam over the reef.

After snorkeling was completed we went to the Place of Refuge (Pu`uhonua O Hōnaunau)National historical Park which is just across the bay from the snorkeling site.

Waipio overlook

Yesterday we stayed around Kona, paid some necessary bills at the end of the month, and spent a bit of time down at the pool.  In general it was just a day for rest.

Today we travelled across to the windward side of the island to Hilo.  It was quite windy there, but fortunately only rained a little bit right around noon.  For the rest of the day it was sunny while we were north of Hilo, and then cloudy but not raining for the rest of the day.

Our first stop was at Waimea where we thought we were going to the Parker Ranch museum.  We really couldn’t find it, and one clerk in a store said the old museum was closed, but there was something about a half mile away.  We didn’t bother looking anymore, but just continued on.

We drove to the end of the road at Waipio.  There is a very nice viewpoint out to the north and it was sunny and bright.  The dark blue of the water and sky contrasted nicely with the white surf and clouds, and the many shades of green on the cliff walls.

Anthurium in Hawaiian Troical Botanical Gardens

Next we went to Akaka falls where we quickly ate lunch since it was raining, then walked around the trail.  Fortunately the rain stopped, so it was a good walk through all the tropical plants.  After the falls we drove to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens.  We spent the bulk of the afternoon in this garden which has some spectacular tropical plants and flowers from all over the world.

After the garden we drove in to Hilo to the Banyan Tree drive and the Liliuokalani Gardens, which are a Japanese garden on the waterfront.  After a short walk around there we headed back to Waimea where we ate supper, and then on to Kona.  It started to rain just as we stopped for supper, and continued almost all the way back to Kona.  It was dry when we arrived here, but is now just raining lightly,