Culture and Camaraderie in the Kona Neighborhood

When you get to know your surroundings in the west coast area of the island of Hawaii, you begin to get the subtle or not so subtle distinctions that separate Honaunau from Kealekekua, Captain Cook from Kainaliu, and so on. We are just on the surface of beginning to get a feel of the area like that, but our extended stay here allows us the luxury of getting to know the area and the people more than a one or two week vacation would. In the past week, we have concentrated more on activities that involved us with local people more than the sightseeing we did the first two weeks.

Last night was a highlight, with a visit to the Aloha Theater in Kainaliu. We saw the author of "Christmas With Mark Twain", Jerry Tracy, play the lead role in a nicely performed rendition. Jerry Tracy was born in Carrollton, Missouri. They encouraged us to take a photo of the stage set prior to the beginning of the show. Here it is:

Christmas with Mark Twain by Jerry Tracy.  

Kainaliu is also the location of our favorite music store, Kiernan's. At the theater, whom should we see, but AnneMarie L., who had us over to her home on Friday evening to join in a kanikapila (jam session) with several of her friends! We met her husband, Antoine, this time, who had not joined in the music-making on Friday.

Mari met AnneMarie at the kanikapila we attended Thursday morning. It turns out AnneMarie also plays mandolin, and has a special-made mando-uke! It looks like an uke, but has a mandolin fretboard, and is strung with single (not double, like the mandolin) strings, and is tuned like a mandolin. Anyway, Mari asked her if there were any mandolin groups on the island, and that's when she invited us to join her the next night at her house for a weekly jam session.

At AnneMarie's we met a couple from Noblesville, Indiana, who have lived here for a year now. We met another couple who sailed to Hawaii years ago and have been here ever since. The husband has a farm back in Illinois. The wife sings with  the local choral group, which has 90 members! We are going to hear their Christmas concert in Kailua-Kona today.

We have met a few of the neighbors in the past couple of days - ever since we decided to make our daily walk down the hill to the bottom, and back up again. This walk is 1 mile each way, with an approximately 900-foot change in elevation. Today we did it in an hour, plus 10 minutes meeting and talking to one of the neighbors.

It's all uphill from.....well, from anywhere you happen to be on the main road!

Some of the houses in the Kona Paradise neighborhood, near Honaunau on the Island of Hawaii. You can't see the one on Boki Road where we are staying because the hill steps back from about Fern or Ea Street, two to three blocks down the hill from Boki. I think the highest houses you can see in this photo are on Datura (remember, the alphabetical street names begin at the top with Ama, and go down to "M" at the bottom where the ocean is).

Yesterday, after doing this walk, we decided to drive to the bottom and do some snorkeling. It was fantastic! Our big goal for tomorrow morning is to walk down the hill with our gear, snorkel around for awhile - maybe swim along the coast, then rest for awhile on the beach before walking back up the hill. Sounds ambitious to me, so w'll see how it goes!

 

Surrounded By Turkeys!

This morning I (Mari) decided to do some bird watching from our deck. It is the perfect place in several ways: we are at or above the canopy/power line level where the birds spend most of their time, I can rest my camera on the deck railing and zoom in on the birds, and they are attracted to the fruit and flowers in the nearby trees.


Well, some of the birds don't spend any time on the power lines or in the canopy, but rather in the shrubbery! The past few days we have been seeing these birds that look strangely like turkeys, walking around the neighborhood. This morning, since I was bird-watching, I had my camera available for photos. That's when I noticed turkeys walking up the next-door-neighbors driveway, along the sidewalk, and around his yard! I would say there were four of five of them, all females, I think. A little while later, I happened to look down, and there was a group of them directly below me, in the shrubbery below, and then walking down our sidewalk. Then, I decided to go pick up the two passion fruits on the back deck that had fallen from the vine, and I heard the distinct crunching sound of someone walking around in the shrubbery there. And, guess what? Turkeys!

According to the pocket bird guide, domestic turkeys were the first birds introduced to Hawaii after European contact.

The other birds I saw this morning include Japanese white eye (introduced by Hui Manu, a bird club whose sole purpose was to introduce birds to the Hawaiian islands. Some ornithologists claim it is responsible for the decline of native birds); male and female Northern Cardinals (introduced in the 1930s);

The yellow-billed Cardinal (from South America).

I also saw Myna birds and the ubiquitous mourning doves, a couple of white birds flying down by the water, and some birds on wires that were too far away to identify.

Yesterday I put out the leftover fruit parts from various fruits which I had "juiced" to see if it would attract birds (or just fruit-flies!) At first, it was only the fruit flies, but when I got ready to throw them out, Ron told me he had seen birds out there in the morning. So, I put the fruit back on the deck. The next morning every last bit was gone. When I went to fetch the cardboard box I had been using, a house finch flew up onto the deck where the box had been. Not wanting to disappoint, I placed a few more pieces out there on the box: some grapes cut in half, an orange cut into sections, and pieces of avocado.

The first ones attracted were the fruit flies again, but once the sun was over the mountain, the geckos started showing up. The seemed to prefer the orange juice.

A little later in the morning, we decided to walk down the hill towards Pebble Beach and see how far we could go in a half hour. Since we are on the second road from the top, it would be a nearly 2 mile roundtrip on a very steep road if we went all the way down. (The cross streets in many Hawaii neighborhoods are in alphabetical order, with the "A" road being nearest the highway, followed by a B road, etcetera. Our road, Boki, is the B road. Ama is the A road. The lowest road on the hill is Mapuna Road.) Well, we went to Honu Moe Road before deciding to turn back - on the way up we realized there are TWO H roads in our neighborhood! Huh? We didn't go all the way down, but we did walk up to Ama before coming back home. This was a 1-hour round-trip walk. But not enough to get our 10,000 steps in for the day, so we will probably head out again in a little while.

Our neighborhood is called Kona Paradise. Here you can see it from the bottom of the hill.

Our neighbors have been industrious this morning. The next door neighbor was "mowing" his grass with a string trimmer.

A little while later, some other neighbors decided to run a concrete mixer for awhile while listening to some local "Jah-waiian" music. This is a combination reggae/Hawaiian style music that is one of the favorites around here. 

When it's noisy in the neighborhood, you can't close the windows and turn on the air-conditioner, because most house don't have either of those luxuries. We do have some glass windows, but others only close with wooden louvres. Whereas there is screening to keep insects at bay, there is no glass. This is "natural air conditioning", I suppose. When the ceiling fans are on, it works pretty well.

The louvres cover a screened window - no glass there at all. The ceiling fans move the air pretty well. There are three ceiling fans in the living room-dining room area.

2 Kanikapilas

We learned today that in Hawaii, a musical jam session is called a kanikapila. We attended two, one of which we've been planning to attend ever since we learned about it almost a week ago. The second one we happened upon by chance, or luck.

First thing this morning, we went to the assigned place, which we were told about when we visited Brian last week in his music store, Kiernan's Music in Kailaniu. It was a little restaurant near Kailua-Kona called Akule. This is on Ali'i Street, where many resorts in Kailua-Kona are located. It is at the end of the road, like so many places we seem to visit around here. We found a friendly group of about 30 folks. Here is a photo...we especially enjoyed seeing one of the men (Andy?) perform a hula to the second-to-the last song we sang. Most everyone had all their music on their iPads.

We learned about some other kanikapilas that occur in different places near and far, each with its own time during the week.

After we left, we decided to check out the location of a kanikapila we wish to attend next Monday. It is in a Park called Koloko-Honokohau National Park, not too far from the airport north of Kailua-Kona.

It was a bit difficult to find at first, mainly because road work is being conducted right where you need to turn in, and is easy to miss. So, after making a U-turn or two, we finally drove into the correct place with a visitor center, and lo and behold, a group of people were sitting there playing ukuleles and singing. Turns out it was the holiday party for a regular Thursday-noon group who won't be meeting the next couple of weeks. So, we not only got to play an entirely different set of songs - this time mostly Hawaiian songs, we also got to purchase the Mele Hawaiian songbook everyone around here seems to refer to, and we got to meet some more really nice folks.

Rance Pinao was leading this group, and he will be leading the one on Monday, too. One neat thing Ron and I are both looking forward to is the lesson we will get from Rance on Monday.

We were given a big plate of food at the latter kanikapila that some of the park employees had made and insisted that we take with us. It was all local food, like ham, Japanese rice, breaded, deep-fried fish, and some interesting desserts.

Afterwards, we took a short walk in the park to learn a bit more about local history and culture. We might take a hike on the Mamalahoa Trail Monday before the kanikapila.

Ron tries out the Mamalahoa trail. Definitely requires sunscreen and a hat!

We were invited to a small-group kanikapila tomorrow at someone's house - someone we met this morning. It is fun to be able to share music with people, and it is a great way to meet new folks.

Slowing Down......

I think perhaps Monday was a turning point for us. We may be done running around trying to take it all in as fast as we can. We woke up yesterday feeling like we had been beat up. We took it easy until mid-afternoon, then went up to the Ethno-Botanical Garden, for the 3rd time.

There is so much to learn there, but it doesn't shout at you. One has too walk slowly, read slowly, and look around, slowly. The garden is planted in regions, ranging from coastal to upland woodland. Down in the coastal region I read something that just stuck with me. There is a plant there that was used to stun the fish in the constructed fish ponds. Yes, there were huge fish ponds maintained to supply easy access for meat. When it came time to harvest some fish, the Auhuhu plant was picked, pounded into a sort of mash or meal and thrown into the pond. In a short time the fish started swimming around without purpose or direction, and could be easily gathered up. The big ones that were wanted were taken, and the rest left alone. In about 2 hours the poison wore off and the fish went on about their business of growing larger. This practice is, or was, used in a number of cultures. Here's a very brief article about that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_toxins

Auhuhu Plant

Further uphill in the gardens is the Koa tree, who's wood is currently highly valued for Hawaiian Ukeleles. Long ago, it was valued for canoes the Hawaiians would build, sometimes to lengths of 100 feet. The master canoe builder would come along and take part in a ceremony to select the proper tree to be used for the canoe. Part of this involved watching the actions of the 'elepaio bird around the tree.

If the bird landed on the tree but did not peck at it, then this was a good tree. If the bird pecked on the tree, this meant there were insects inside. Not a desirable quality for canoe wood.

Koa wood currently sells for hundreds of dollars per board foot. A board foot is 1 square foot of wood 1 inch thick. It is estimated that a log large enough to build a 100-foot long canoe out of Koa would cost $500,000 at current prices!

Then, today, we simply took a hike at Manuka Park again. I (Mari) learned that my CD was going to be featured on a local (Macomb) radio program, so we came home in time to listen to that on the Internet.

We were able to look around and find several types of free fruit in the area: regular guava, strawberry guava, and passion fruit, mainly. Plus some oranges from a tree in the yard where we are staying. We will make some juice from these, and maybe try a tropical fruit glaze for chicken.

The afternoon beckoned us down to the ocean, so we drove down the hill and hiked to the secret beach. Someone else called it that, but it isn't a complete secret, because each time we've gone, there are already a couple of people there. In order to not harsh their mellow, we went a little further to the rocky shore and listened and watched as the waves crashed. A person can take a lot of that without getting bored! Especially when the sun is beginning to set.

                             

                             Crashing Waves

Sunset

Journey to the Top: Both of Them

Top Number 1: If you look at the map of the Big Island, you just might see a rough outline of Hawaii's famous Green Sea Turtles. The northernmost part is shaped like a turtle's head, and the flippers can be seen near Hilo and Pahoa on the east side, and on the Kona (west) Coast --- with a little imagination. The "head" area is known as Kohala, and the oldest volcano on the island, Kohala Mountain, is located there.

We drove past Hawi (Pronounced hah -VEE) yesterday for lunch and a hike down the Pololu Valley to the rocky northern shore. According to only us and our imagination, we spent the afternoon at the Turtle's Head.

Hawi is a town that suffered big-time as the Sugar Cane industry pulled out. (If you have the time and interest, the story of Sugar Cane in Hawaii is well worth learning about. Its a sad and sordid story.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_plantations_in_Hawaii

Our stop for lunch was delightful, at the King's View Cafe in Kapa 'au. Mari had a delicious pulled pork sandwich, and I ordered this pizza:

It had a white sauce with a kick. It may have been the juice from the Artichoke hearts. On top of that was dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, pesto and chicken. Really Yummy! The staff would not reveal the sauce recipe. Darn.

The King referred to in the name of the restaurant, is King Kamehameha, who was responsible for conquering all the people on the Hawaiian Islands and uniting them into one kingdom. There is a nice statue of him looking towards the ocean from across the street of this restaurant. This location is very near his birthplace.

To learn more about him, you can just google his name, or check here:
http://www.gohawaii.com/en/big-island/regions-neighborhoods/north-kohala/kamehameha-statue-kapaau/

King Kamehameha I in Kohala

After that it was on to our hike for the day, which literally started at the end of Highway 270.

View from top of the hike down Pololu Valley Trail at the end of the highway on Kohala's north shore.

It was a short, moderate hike down to a pretty black sand beach and the steady blast of the Trade Winds. We found the wind and waves to be mesmerizing. It was lightly raining while we ate lunch, and for a bit as we drove to the end of the road. As luck would have it, by the time we reached the bottom of the trail, this complete rainbow appeared over the ocean!

There were lots of black crabs hanging out on the rocks.

After an hour of soaking in the sound, sight and feel of the wind and waves, we hiked up and drove on to our other top for the day, Mauna Kea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea

Deemed the best place in world for land-based observatories, some native Hawaiians have protested proposed expansions, due to the historical sacred significance of Mauna Kea.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/13/hawaii-telescope-protests-tmt-
mauna-kea_n_7044164.html

As for our visit, the clouds and crowds made it less than ideal. We left early.

View from our deck. No sunset photo yet. Haven't seen the whales yet, but we hear they are around.

Even though the clouds prevented us from seeing the Milky Way, Mari looked at the stars through her binoculars and was amazed at the numerous stars that were visible - the sky seemed to be thick with stars. She also saw at least one shooting star, this being the tail end of the Geminid Meteor showers.

But - it turned out that the first rainbow we saw since we have been in Hawaii, was only the first of FOUR for the day! Here is the final one, seen at the Observatory Visitor Center near the top of Mauna Kea as it started breaking up:

                                       

Here is a painted rock seen on the trail to Pololu Valley:

Gawkers, Slow Walkers and Pot Tokers

The day is only half over and already we have had several nice doings. We started out with a walk on the Manuka State Park Nature Trail. We checked the Trail Guide box as we did the 1st time we hiked this trail. Still empty. We did though, encounter two couples and each of them had trail maps in their hands from previous trips out here. (The Hawaiians really do take recycling seriously). One of the fellows we spoke to identified himself as an entomologist. He knew the latin name of one fruit Mari asked him about, the Thimbleberry. Also known as the West Indian Raspberry:

http://wildlifeofhawaii.com/flowers/892/rubus-rosifolius-west-indian-raspberry/

Mari also asked him about the small, red, apples we see along the trail. "Oh, he said, the Strawberry Guava."

That's a tasty fruit. I've had dozens on them already.

The first time we did this trail we were the Gawkers. Today, we were out for exercise. I felt guilty passing up the gawkers and slow walkers, but we had a different purpose today: Exercise.   We did cross paths with Girly and Pierre. We met them our 1st time out. Pierre lives in the area. Girly is a pound mutt. Nice dog. Pierre's ok too. So, we did stop and chat a bit, until we heard Girly getting in a fight with the dog the Pot Tokers had with them. We met them at the big hole in the ground at the top of the trail. Interrupted their mellow perhaps. Still, we had a nice chat about the dolphins and then we headed on our way. Now I think Girly really did Marsh their Mellow.

Now down to the end of the trail where we stopped to talk with a young couple picnicking on the grass. They both just got their 2nd degrees from the Univ. of Hawaii, (Counseling and Sociology), have just moved over to Kona from Hilo, and are hoping to buy a house soon. We met their two young sons at another picnic table as we walked to our car. Nice boys.

Everyone is so friendly here...

This afternoon we took a brief tour of the National Park here called the Place of Refuge. Its a real-life version of a game we used to play as kids where if you made it to the base then you were safe:

Imagine you had just broken the sacred laws, the kapu, and the only punishment was death.  Your only chance of survival is to elude your pursuers and reach the Pu'uhonua, a place of refuge.  The Pu'uhonua protected the kapu breaker, defeated warriors, as well as civilians during the time of battle.  No harm could come to those who reached the boundaries of the place of refuge.

Place of Refuge

After that, more snorkeling at the beach just outside the park boundaries. We saw the Spinner Dolphins! We haven't seen them up close yet or gotten any video of them, but that's our dream. They rest in these calm bays all day after a night of feeding. Here's someone else's video of them:

Dolphins in Kealakekua Bay


"Spinner dolphins are carnivores. They eat fish and squid. At night, spinner dolphins travel to deeper water to eat. In the morning they move back to shallow water to rest."


That's all for today.

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