Bye bye Big Island

Aloha - I'm going to summarize our last 4 days on Big Island in one entry. We went to visit Grandma Yoshimura at Aunty Donna's house Saturday morning. My mom happened to be visiting from Maui that weekend, yeay! Grandma is 83 and sharp as a tack. She works out at the gym 3 times a week! dude... We enjoyed hearing her talk story in her precious Japanese-Pidgin English and then she taught us how to play Hanafuda.

Liane and I drove south around the island to meet up with our friends Rowan and Shannon in the tiny town of Volcano. The vog (volcanic smog) on the Kona side was the worst I've ever seen it but as soon as we reached South Point the weather was gorgeous. Big news: the current lava flow which sprung up from a fissure to the east of Pu'u O'o vent back in July '07 finally reached the ocean last Thursday. A blessing was made and an access road to view the lava was opened to the public on Saturday. We tried to go that evening but the road was closed due to an overwhelming amount of visitors.

Every Sunday morning Volcano Village hosts a bustling farmer's market which has the best produce I've seen in the state! Very pleased to see this kind of healthy/eco/artist community exists here - I wanna live there! Took a tour of the beautiful house Rowan and Shannon are building then we did a hike in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Kilauea Iki Trail hugs the rainforested rim of the crater where we could hear the red and black Apapane honey creeper's bird song-chirp and wing whir. The trail then drops down, traversing the flat wide-open lava rock crater floor punctured with sulfur steam vents.

That night the four of us decided to try to see the active lava flow again despite rumors and signs that it had suddenly "stopped flowing". Millions of other people had the same idea and the parking area was still full. After driving an hour, we had to walk 2 miles past all the parked cars, finally reaching the trail. Spent another half an hour hiking over undulating lava rock in the dark with flashlights. It was a pilgrimage of Pele, the Hawaiian Fire Goddess. The flow had indeed slowed down but was still sending small streams of molten rock into the ocean and there were large hot glowing cracks along on the trail. We could see several patches of firey orange higher up the slope. The sky was clear with a setting crescent moon and STARS galore, and we could hear the waves crashing on the nearby cliff. F*ing Awesome.

Monday morning we were treated with a helicopter ride OVER the lava flow! My dad's partner won a gift certificate and gave it to us - Thanks Linda! Although it was very brief we got incredible views of Hilo's numerous waterfalls, the steaming Pu'u O'o vent, the lava-damaged roads and houses, and the lava pouring into the ocean. WOW! Unforgettable for sure.

Can you see the red lava?

Drove back to Kona side via Saddle Road between 13,000+ ft snow-sprinkled Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Sad to leave clear skies to enter the vog and rain. Checked into historic Manago Hotel in Capt. Cook.

We spent our last days hanging out and snorkeling at Honaunau, one of my favorite places in the world to be. I love the energy down there, so calm but exciting. It's a popular snorkel and dive spot with super easy access giving it its "Two Step" nickname. We saw several eels swimming freely and a small octopus! Octopi are so rad - we watched this one put on a psychedelic light and texture show on its skin and whip its tentacle out at fish. Saw a turtle get cleaned by fish on the reef floor. You could tell it was a regular cleaning station as the coral was all broken and flattened there, and the turtle was literally backed in to a garage-like coral opening!
We soaked up the last of our Hawaiian sun and surf and flew out Wednesday. Back to 50-degree Portland. Wahhhh! But it's good to be home.

dad and I watching sunset at 69 beach

like father like daughter!

Puako

They say you could dive at Puako every day for the rest of your life and still not see it all, and I believe 'em! This incredible reef with canyons and caves has a depth varying between 20 - 90 feet and extends about 150 feet from shore then drops off into the abyss. We scoped out an easy entry spot over the rocky shoreline (accessed by telephone pole #115 off Puako Beach Rd. for future reference) which was also cluttered with turtles.

female bird wrasse

Cauliflower and lobe coral dominate creating a high-rise city for schools of black and yellow tangs, masked raccoon and threadfin butterfly fishes, lau wiliwili nukunuku oi oi (rare long nose butterfly fish found only on Kona Coast), blue-green pointy nosed male bird wrasses always speeding by, tiny fluorescent rainbow cleaner wrasses, pinktail and lei triggerfishes (cousins of humuhumu nukunuku apua'a), orange-eyed goldring surgeonfishes, enormous shy peacock groupers and graceful sailfin tangs, razor sharp looking orange-spined tang, bloated striped-belly puffers and miniature Hawaiian whitespotted tobies, creamsicle colored arc-eye hawkfishes and freckle-faced blackside hawkfish perched on the coral cliffs.

yellow tang

Liane has a knack for spotting eels and was lucky enough to see one swimming freely across the bottom. I did get to see a different eel, a large whitemouth moray opening and closing its jaws.

We swam to the edge of the reef, to the deep blue abyss, which is pretty freaky. There's something about being surrounded by lots of deep water far from shore that makes you look around to see if there are any sharks. eek. But we went out there because we could HEAR whales singing. I'm serious. There was a low groaning moan interspersed with a higher pitched voice. Wow. This area is now in my top 3 snorkel spots. The other two are Honaunau (City of Refuge) on Big Island, and Honolua Bay on Maui.

goodbye Molokai, hello Big Island

(sorry I'm behind on the blog... catching up to what's current as quick as i can)

Woke up early again to witness our last sunrise on Molokai. The sky was so clear we could actually see the Big Island far off in the distance between Maui and Kaho'olawe. Wow. Spent our last few hours at Dixie Maru beach swimming and shell hunting. The plane to Kona was another tiny 9-passenger cessna, but there were only 4 of us passengers! I could look over the pilot's shoulder to see all his controls and out the front window to watch him land the plane. Way cool!

Staying with dad and Linda for a few nights in dry windy Waikoloa. Yesterday we took a tour of my dad's workplace, the super fancy $1,000/room Four Seasons Resort. He is in the maintenance department but is also the resident artist and gets to paint murals and seasonal displays. Interesting to see the resort side of Hawaii and what people can spend their money on.
From there we took the beach path south to Kukio Bay which was crowded with sea turtles. Yipeee! Snorkeling was great - it's 10 times better on Big Island than Molokai. Just a lot more variety in fish and terrain. We saw a huge cowrie about the size of a Nerf football.

Kalaupapa

Kalaupapa is the site of the leper colony started in 1866 by order of King Kamehameha V. Father Damien arrived in 1873 and ministered to the patients until he contracted the disease himself and died in 1889.

The Kalaupapa Peninsula is on the north side of Molokai, 3 sides surrounded by ocean, the 4th by a 1,600-foot cliff. You can only get there by boat, plane, hiking, or riding a mule. We chose to hike in and out, 3 miles and 26 switchbacks of steps steps steps. Originally I planned for us to hike down and fly out, but it was the one thing I didn't get to book in time, and the flight we needed was sold out. Soooo, we kind of had no choice but to hike out.
Hit the trail by 7:30am. It was so humid we were sweating buckets. I think even if we were just standing still we'd sweat that much. Awesome views of the peninsula below and ridiculously melodic birdsong on the way down. We met 15 other hikers at the bottom and waited for about 15 mule riders. Visitors to Kalaupapa must be invited by the patients or be part of the official Damien Tour which is run by residents of Kalaupapa.

The bus tour started at 10:00am and ended at 1:00pm. Visited Father Damien's grave and church and learned the basics of the history and hardships of the patients. Lots of it very sad and moving. Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) is now curable and the patients are no longer exiled there, they are free to come and go as they please though most choose to live the rest of their lives there, including relatives. Only 27 patients still living there, youngest is 66, oldest 87.

Our lunch break was taken at the other side of the peninsula in Kalawao, the original leper settlement. From there we could see the hump of tiny Mokapu Island and pointy Huelo Island with WHALES frolicking about in front of them. One slapped its tail 29 times, and several of them slapped their fins in the water. Everyone delighted when an adult and a baby whale leapt out at the same time splashing down hard. That north east side of Molokai has the tallest sea cliffs in the world, rising over 3,000 feet.

Before we hit the trail back up, Liane took a brief skinny dip at the perfect beach at the foot of the cliffs. Then it was a sweaty and heart-thumping up, up, up, up. Hiking out was a great experience, I'm glad we did it actually. Well, sort of... my quads are still sore 3 days later, I can barely waddle around.

underwater cam

Still need to master using this camera. It's pretty tough to shoot anything with all the surging back and forth and up and down in murky water and darting fish. But here's a few from our first 2 sessions on Molokai. Hoping we'll get better shots on Big Island.

Rockmover Wrasse

Honu!

Blue Boxfish (or Trunkfish)

my new favorite fish

After a leisurely coffee/sunrise morning we drove east scoping out a new snorkel spot. Tried a place between 18 and 19 mile marker... Lots of dead coral and very few fish but we did see a white-yellow-orange splotchy snowflake moray eel and a dragon wrasse which is a juvenile rockmover wrasse. This fish was sooooo fun to watch! First of all it's exotically beautiful - - sort of reddish-brown with white spots, a starry eye pattern, and leafy fin extentions to resemble seaweed. It swims as if it were a drifting piece of seaweed swirling loosely with the surge, sometimes stopping to rest on the bottom flopping side to side.

Went back to 20 mile beach which was crowded with locals for the weekend. This time out we saw 2 live cowrie shells about the size of a quarter, and a brown speckled Undulated moray eel weaving through a small rock formation.
Drove to the west side to a small unmapped beach some local called Make Horse (dead horse). Had it all to ourselves for a quick swim at dusk and an awesome sunset with a pod of whales swimming by after sundown. Wow.

phallic rock

Mom and I sitting on Phallic Rock, Molokai - July 1979 (I was 2 1/2)

In 1979 my dad flew to Molokai several times to work construction on the high school there. He took mom and I on one of those trips. I grew up looking at this picture of us sitting on some rock not knowing WHICH rock it was until I started planning this current trip to Molokai. After visiting it today, it is indeed the same rock, and what a rock it is! Ancient Hawaiians made offerings to it to increase fertility.

more pics

Prepping for snorkeling session at 20 Mile Beach

Shell hunting at Dixie Maru Beach