David and Enid's Travels

Kilauea Caldera and Halem’uma’u Crater

We drove the approximately 100 miles from Kona to the national park today, arriving just before lunch.  After eating our lunch on the lip of the Kiluea Crater, we walked around on a short trail by the steam vents, looking at the tropical rain forest plants.  Some of the vents were very hot.

There was a fairly large cloud of steam and gases coming from the crater.  We stopped at the Jaggar museum and then drove along the Chain of Craters road to the end where the lava flowed over the highway in 2003.  You could see a large plume of steam in the distance where the lava is flowing into the ocean.

Eruption in distance, 2003 Lava flow

After walking across the old lava for a while we returned to Kona, eating supper at the one and only restaurant we found along the highway at the Shaka Restaurant, whose claim to fame is that it is the southernmost bar in the US.  The food was reasonably priced and quite decent.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle

Today we snorkeled at Ho’okena beach, the second time there for Enid and David, the first for Mavis and Grant.  We hoped to be able to swim with the dolphins again, but unfortunately they were nowhere about today.  We did however get to swim with a couple of very tame Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles.

It was very warm today, over 30C, and it took a long time to cool off tonight.  After supper we walked to the ocean and watched the sun set as a cruise ship departed the bay.  It was much cooler there with the trade wind breeze off the ocean.

Sunset and departing cruise ship

Writing on black lava with white stones

We ended up at Hapuna Beach by accident.  We were heading for the beach at mile 69, which we thought was Wailea Bay, to snorkel.  Along the way we stopped to look at all the white stones which people have used to spell names and messages against the dark black lava.

Turns out that the mile 69 beach is one we hadn’t visited before, and is actually the beach at Hapuna Beach State Park.  It has the reputation as one of the nicest beaches on the Big Island, and it certainly is a beautiful beach for surf — but not for snorkeling.

Hapuna beach surf

We had carried our snorkel gear to the beach, but only Grant and I used our face masks since we both were wearing contacts.  As it turned out, that was probably a wise idea.  We went down to play in the surf (unfortunately we’d not brought the boogie board, as we didn’t think we were going to a beach where we could use it).  The surf was breaking hard.  I did a complete 360 in one wave.  My mask started to come off, but I put my hand over it and held it on.  Grant was not so lucky on a later wave as it knocked his mask right off, and he lost it.  Another wave flipped his shirt right over his head.

For most of the day we sat in the shade and red.  It was pretty hot, but we had a very nice large fig tree that we could sit under and stay cool.

Racoon Butterflyfish

Mavis and Grant arrived last night.  We went down and looked at the ocean this morning,  and then went shopping to get them some snorkels and fins (and some groceries).  I also bought a new pair of snorkel booties.  After lunch we went back to Kahalu’u Beach Park to snorkel.  It was busier than it was on our first day here, and we couldn’t get a parking spot in the lot.  However we got one on the road not far away.

We spent quite a bit of time in the water.  Mavis and Enid only snorkeled once, but Grant and I went twice.  My new booties are good and seem to fit better into my fins.  It is pretty warm in the condo tonight, especially in the second bedroom where Mavis and Grant are.  We have a small fan blowing into their room to try and get some air flowing.

Ho’okena Beach

Another day, a different beach, and more snorkeling.  On the way to the ocean this morning we stopped in at a market which was just setting up and bought a pineapple and some tomatoes.  The seller didn’t have a scale, but told us that the tomatoes were $3 a pound.  We chose two medium sized tomatoes, and she said they would be a pound.  I picked them up and said they couldn’t be more than half a pound, so she agreed to a price of $6.50 ($5 for the pineapple).  I gave here $7, but she had no change, and neither did I, so the price came down to $6.  We ate some of the pineapple tonight and it was delicions.

The highlight of today’s snorkel was swimming with dolphins (click to watch video).  We had no idea that we should expect to find them at this beach, so when we arrived decided just to go snorkeling towards some obvious rocky areas where we expected to find reef.  There is a good sandy spot which was quite easy  to walk in, though there was a bit of surf, and we started swimming out from shore.  We could see a number of people snorkeling quite a ways from shore, so headed towards them.

Spinner Dolphins

As we did so we saw a few fish, the usual Yellow Tang and Orange Band Surgeonfish.  It was obvious that the bottom was very sandy, though the water was really clear.  As we swam farther and farther out, it simply got deeper and all traces of coral reef were gone.  The bottom was probably 10 to 20 metres below us, and clearly visible through that depth as the water was so clear.  I had just about decided to turn around and go back since I didn’t expect to see any fish at this depth when I suddenly spotted a few dolphins.  I called to Enid and she said she could see them to our left.  We swam that way and suddenly a pod of five or six spinner dolphins swam right underneath us.  We followed them as they swam slowly and surfaced right in front of us.

We’ve kayaked with dolphins before, but never been so close as we were to these as we swam right with them.  After they had left the area we swam in towards shore and found a very nice coral reef which we swam around for almost an hour.  As we sat on shore we saw the dolphins return, including jumping out of the water and spinning, the activity that gives them their name.

After lunch we went back out to snorkel.  The tide was now in, so the rocks very close to shore were covered, and we saw a lot of fish.  By three a large cloud had rolled in and so we had a shower (hot water from the pipe which we’d followed all the two miles down from the highway as it wound along the twisty road — a sign warned to be careful as the water was solar heated in this pipe), then headed back to Kona.

Coral

We left Kona at about 9:30 and by the time we got to Honaunau Bay there was only one parking spot left in the small pay lot that is run by a church.  Then we didn’t have the correct change ($3) required.  I spoke to the man in charge after we’d parked, asking if I could get change, and he told me that someone else would have to unlock the box, and that we should just go and enjoy our day.  So we did that, though we did find the operator with the key later in the day and he changed a $20 bill for us.

The beach is not really a beach at all, but rather a lot of quite flat black lava rocks.  Right at the ocean there is are two steps of naturally occurring rock down to a wide bench just below the water line.  It isn’t at all slippery, and the algae on the rock makes it soft, so it is a very easy entry.  There were many, many yellow tang feeding right at the edge where you get into the water, and a lot of people there snorkeling as well.

School of Yellow Tang

The coral at this site is very good.  It is the second best we’ve seen in Hawaii, only just ranking below Captain Cook.  However this site is very easy to get to.  The coral is just deep enough that no one can stand on it, but shallow enough to be very visible.  There were many varieties of fish here and the water is not too rough, so it is a great snorkeling spot.

Yellow Tang

Our time isn’t well adjusted yet so we were up at 6 am.  We ate the bagel and muffin we had left from our plane flight yesterday, then walked from our condo to the ocean, about a 100 m walk.  Unfortunately the barbeque which is listed isn’t what we’d hoped for.  It’s a real charcoal briquette barbecue, rather than gas, so not too practical for regular cooking.  We’ll have to do a lot more cooking in the condo than we wanted to.

We next went to the grocery store to stock up on a few staple supplies and food for a few days.  The prices are high, quite a bit more than we would pay at home, but then they don’t really grow a lot of the food here so it has to be shipped in.

After lunch we went to Kahaluu Beach Park to snorkel.  Last year when we were there it was always hard to find a parking spot.  That wasn’t so today as there were quite a few vacant spots, the difference in being here a month later outside of the busiest season.

Peacock Flounder

As we walked in to the water we saw a sea turtle.  There were many fish, including a couple that I haven’t seen here before — a moray eel and a peacock flounder.

It was warm today, almost 30 C, but it has cooled off this evening.  It was especially nice after supper as we walked to the ocean, sat in the cool breeze and watched the sun set.

We finished packing, then made our lunch for the plane (not too smart), and got a taxi to the airport shortly after 1:30.  When we got to the airport we realized that we were going to go through US customs immediately before clearing security.  We were pretty sure we wouldn’t get our food through customs and so we sat down and ate most of it.  Since we’d had our main noon meal just an hour earlier, it was kind of stuffing ourselves.  We couldn’t finish one apple so had to throw it away.  So much for our plans!

We had a very smooth and uneventful flight to Kona, arriving about 8:30 local time after a six hour flight.