Two More Days of Adventure

FRIDAY

Yesterday, we made our way up the road to the Makuna Park, where you can hike up through the forest, and then loop back down in an hour-and-a-half or two, depending on how much you dawdle. Along the way, there are many fruits and nuts, including ku kui nut, a small, red fruit another hiker called "apples", but are actually strawberry guava, and lots of passion fruit.

This flowering tree was at the front of the park. Haven't figured it out yet.

Fruits on the red-flowered tree

Another hiker told us these were "apples", and they did taste good - we later learned they are strawberry guava. 

Strawberry Guava

A little less than halfway around the loop trail, there is a large lava pit:

We met a nice young man who was selling flowers at the park shelter. He told us his uncle Lawrence could rent us a kayak down at Kealekekua bay. We did that four years ago when we were on Hawaii, but today we wanted to check out Honomolino Bay, which is quite a bit more off the beaten path.

To get to Honomolino Bay, you first have to take the steep road to Miloli'i, turning downslope at the Miloli'i Junction. People in Miloli'i live close to the land, and have historically been a fishing village. People are trying to help them maintain this traditional skill, but economically, they are not doing so well.

At the bottom, we met a nice woman named Noa, who was tending an itinerant library in the Beach Park there. (She is also a documentarian, making films about the culture of the South Pacific and Hawaiian Islands. Unbeknownst to us, just a day or two earlier, we watched a film she put on YouTube about fishing in Miloli'i. You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H61-dNuQFus).

When we asked about taking the path to Honomolino Bay, Noa pointed us in the right direction. She told us when we get to the private land that you have to cross, say hello to Sam, her uncle, and tell him Noa says hi. We did walk through an area with "Keep Out" signs, and big yellow arrows painted on the rocks and trees to guide you in the correct direction. We also passed up a very nice-looking private beach. Sorry I didn't get a photo of that. Here is what the hike looked like:

Hiking back to Honomolino Bay

It took about 15-20 minutes to get to Honomolino, a black sand beach, which - guess what - is very hot on a sunny day(!) It's not that we didn't wear the right shoes, but we wanted to go in and do some snorkeling, which means at some point you have to leave your shoes somewhere and put on the fins. Anyway, once we were in the water, all was well. We saw some neat fish - nothing spectacular, but it was nice to know you could get out just beyond the surf-break and hang out, looking underneath you at the entirely different world that exists there.

SATURDAY

We decided last night that we would get up and out of the house early this morning and head over to Kealekekua Bay, where the Spinner dolphins reside. They have been known to do some jumping and playing around in the morning. They hunt and feed at night, but can still be active early in the day.

So, we didi just that. We took a different road to the Bay, going past the Place of Refuge, which we have yet to stop and visit. We'll write more about that later. It was a beautiful drive, starting out as a respectable 2-lane road with a yellow stripe, and narrowing down to a one-lane paved road. Just when it narrowed down to one lane, there were lava stone walls on either side of the road. Later, there were shear drop-offs, due to erosion, I suppose, right alongside the road. No shoulder whatsoever.

Kealekekua Bay in the morning

Anyway, we got to the Bay and a group of people was already there, almost like a party. One car had its stereo up full blast - or so we thought, until they turned it up even louder - then they turned the bass all the way up, so you could hear the thumping from pretty far away. We don't know if the dolphins didn't like the music, or just decided to retire early, but they were a no-show.

Nevermind, we thought. Let's just slip into the water and see how the snorkeling is. It is a rocky entry, but the surf wasn't too bad. We proceeded to snorkel along the coast, heading towards the Captain Cook Monument, which is a long ways away. Not sure how far, but would feasibly take at at least an hour to snorkel there. We didn't set it as a goal, since it seemed somewhat unrealistic, and we didn't want to wear ourselves out. So, we stayed along the shore, just out from the shore break, and snorkeled for about half an hour before turning back. We saw a lot of fish, some of which we hadn't seen - and Ron saw a Manta Ray. We saw schools of fish we hadn't seen before.

We were happily surprised to know that you don't have to hike downhill for over an hour, or rent a kayak and paddle across the bay, just to have a really nice snorkel in Kealekekua Bay. We actually just drove up, parked, changed clothes in the restrooms, and walked down a very short paved walk to the rocky beach, and went in. No fuss no muss!

You can view a higher resolution video on You Tube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8I_GQrzzxw&feature=em-upload_owner

After snorkeling, we drove up the road to find some breakfast. We found a local cafe-type of place, which turned out to be mediocre, and the coffee was worse (bad coffee in Kona?! Yikes). But the silver lining is that we re-found the music store we found four years ago - Kiernan Music Shop. So happy to find Brian, the owner, and learn about the 'ukulele jam on Thursday mornings down the road a little ways. We also learned a bunch of other good information while chatting with him.

Seen at Kiernan Music Shop

Parasailor seen overhead while on the road today.

Then, it was on to Captain Cook, where we stopped and spent some time at the Amy B. H. Greenwell ethnobotanical garden. Ethnobotany documents the plants people used for food, medicine, dyes, and many other uses. I guess you could say it is "pre-industrial" uses, since so many manufactured goods have replaced traditional products, such as those obtained from plants directly. The Garden also explained which plants were brought to the island by the Polynesians, and which are endemic to the Hawaii Islands.

All in all, it has been a fun, interesting day. And we are glad to be back at our home base, resting up for another day.

Vog rolling into the Kona side in the afternoon.

7:10 PM:  Ron here.  Listening to Prairie Home Companion! We get two NPR stations here, just south of Kailua-Kona. 

Learned today, from the Horticulturalist at the EthnoBotanical Garden  that there are more Hawaiians in California and Las Vegas than there are in Hawaii. Cost of living is too high here for them. Its sad to say, but for them this is now a service economy, as far as I can tell. Grocery store clerks. Post Office clerks. Renting kayaks to tourists. 

Oh, the pigs. Brian, the owner of the music store, had 14 Mango trees cut down on his property. Why? The mangos attract the wild pigs to the yard. They overturn everything, including the nice rock walkways his wife had done. 

Time to kick back. Thanks for listening.

Mahalo,

Ron and Mari