Hawaii Day Three

(Switching to prose for efficiency's sake; I haven't had anywhere near as much free time to write as I thought I would! There's also been the amusing saga of trying to find a working internet connection on the Kona Coast. All in all call it a "noble experiment." Back to straight diary.)

------------

For Day Three we were our own guides, and didn't fare nearly as well. We took our rental car and drove off to explore South Kona, in search of (1) a sandy beach, and (2) Kealakekua Bay, supposedly a great snorkeling destination. We didn't find either. The main road angled at once up the mountainside and settled in a thousand feet above the water; individual roads trickled beachward without posted signs of any kind. We submitted to the whims of the travel gods, though, and wound up having an entertaining day.

First, it was enlightening just driving in Hawaii. The main road through Kona gets very narrow and winding, and the region has a rural poverty within a kind of scratch jungle. The ubiquitous black lava rocks front the road, which is then overhung with rioting fronds, vines, walking root systems -- an impenetrable tangle. Several little coffee farms thrust handwritten signs out of hidden dirt driveways, inviting us in for tastings (Kona Coffee is the wine of this region). On our right the occasional break in the greenery offered aerial footage of the island coast far below, a dust-brown shovel meeting the misty blue.

Contrary to its image, Hawaiian weather is not all sun. A perpetual cloudlid smothers the mountaintop, thick and grey and blurred smooth by "vog," the toxic gas released from the volcano; the mornings are sunny on the coast, but by midday the vogbank creeps overhead, and rain was commencing as we drove on. The vog has a certain smell that, coming and going, accompanied us throughout our stay in Kona.

We did finally find a turnoff marked Kealakekua Bay, but partway down we veered off to follow another sign for the "painted church," an attraction we'd heard about. This proved primtive and somewhat sad, and we never did get back on the road to Kealakekua. Instead, we gave a lift to a native Hawaiian whose car had broken down in the church parkinglot; he directed us on a different road to the highway, where he got out to hitch, and pointed us on a route to our bay that proved all wrong. For a while we were following a single-lane unpainted road straight through the blasted lava field near the coast; after luring us for miles it turned back uphill; we backtracked; and finally by slipping through a tiny Public Access driveway near a State Park we came out at the coast. We thought this was Kealakekua Bay, but we discovered later that it was Honaunau. Still, we parked, offloaded towels and beach bag, and I went snorkeling.

This wasn't a "beach" per se; there was no sand, just a leopard-print of black ledges and tidepools out to the fretting surf; still, it was a popular hangout, with people swimming, sunning on the rocks, and generally hanging out. As it was raining, it wasn't a great day for sunbathing, and with the surf on the sharp rocks it wasn't the best location for me to practice snorkeling for the first time. Still, Sara gamely sat down and filled her sketchbook with speed-sketches of beach people, and I plunged in and made a go of it. I seemed to get the gist pretty quickly, and saw some pretty tropical fish, and climbed successfully out on the rocks to discover that I'd grown several bleeding scrapes on my legs and an unknown spine in my heel. Three young girls were practicing their ukeleles as I walked back to Sara through the tidepools, and I felt initiated into Hawaii.

From there we continued back toward Kailua, our town, in search of a sand beach, and we still didn't find it, but we wound up for lunch at a luxury resort whose restaurant terrace overlooked a vast kept tidepool. The tidepool boasted a wealth of undersea activity, clearly visible from our table at the rail above: five sea turtles lounged in a pile on a ledge, like a bunch of stone salad bowls thrown together, with fins; there were more tropical fish, and a flounder.

And that was the extent of our adventuring for the day. The way we saw it, we'd be staying on a sand beach on Kauai, so we figured the Big Island was trying to show us what it had to offer. We appreciated it.


--Matt