Day 10: Kona to Maui

I’m writing from beautiful Maui today -- our first day here – but let me start at the beginning in Kona:

We wake up a bit earlier than expected due to some text messages from the east coast … I guess that all just comes with the territory of traveling through different time zones haha. Luckily I am the queen of snoozing and minutes later I’m blissfully asleep again until the alarm goes off for real at 7am.

After repacking our stuff and yet another ABC Store-bought breakfast we pay one last visit to Kahalu’u Beach Park, by now my favorite snorkeling spot on Kona. Yesterday some people reported seeing an octopus, but despite all my best efforts it continues to elude me. Bummer!

I’m fortunate enough to spot two different types of eels though. First a zebra moray; the raccoon butterfly fish should be safe, it feeds mostly on crabs.

Next up a much smaller, yet glitzier snowflake moray

The current is much stronger today and it's brought in all kinds of ehhh ... what is this??

Also yet another kind of butterfly fish; the saddleback butterfly fish

Next two species that can look quite similar; box fishes and puffer fishes. We'll start with the unmistakable stripebelly puffer

Then the ambon toby

Followed by a spotted boxfish. They may not look very similar in their pictures, but when you see them darting by it's easy to mistake one for the other.

This saddle wrasse was well represented in all the areas I snorkeled but I had a hard time getting a good picture of it. Just look at those gorgeous fins!

Square-spot goatfish, with their trademark goat beard. They may look plain, but they're quite interesting. The black spot on their side that gives them their name can dissappear completely while they're resting ... weird huh.

Last but not least I spot another of my grouper friends. Can't resist taking another picture.

Time just flies by while I’m in the water and by the time we get on the road to drive to Two Step we realize we’ve already spent too much time at Kahalu’u. Takes a while to find a parking spot again, but a short while later I’m back in the water at Kahalu’u.

We pre-packed most of our luggage in the morning so we just take a quick shower and check out with minutes to spare. Last picture of the open courtyard in the center of our building.

I will miss these little guys resting on the parking lot fence

Big Island has one more National Park site – Kaloko-Honokohau -- and it just happens to be on the way to the airport, or rather we saw it yesterday and planned for it accordingly. Of course, when it comes down to it there’s very little time left for the park, but we are able to just squeeze in a short walk from the marina to the fishpond (it's shorter to park at the marina and walk from there than from the visitor center).

Two turtles are relaxing on the beach. For some reason their shells look white – maybe it’s dried salt water residue?

Another place of worship with recent offerings

One more for good measure:

Btw, isn't this the best road to the airport?

We resume our drive to the airport and find ourselves in the longest rental car return line ever (the car behind us is half in the street), but they quickly move some of the cars forward so we can at least get onto the lot. Phew, I was a bit worried there.
Check in is a breeze, literally because Kona too, is an open air airport and the tradewinds are blowing. After security we sit down at the little eatery where I finally get to try Loco Moco, a local dish consisting of egg over rice with some kind of meat (in my case, hamburger) and brown gravy. Sounds positively disgusting, but actually quite tasty.

Our plane has arrived!

This is the shortest flight I’ve ever been on, just 30 minutes, and we never even reach cruising altitude. Nice views of Big Island and Maui on the way, but I’m so tired my eyes don’t want to stay open and I try to nap – unsuccessfully.

View of Molokini near the tip of the wing. It has some of the best visibility in all of the islands and I can't wait until I get to snorkel there myself later this week.

Alamo has spoiled us for Hawaiian rental car service; we’re using Hertz today and it’s just not the same. First we have to wait a while for the shuttle so when it does show up everyone gets crammed in there and some people even get left behind. Then it’s a mad rush to the counter once we get dropped off and even though we are one of the first ones off the bus it’s still quite a while before we get a car. No choice this time either, we’re assigned slot 11 (gray Nissan Ultima) and that’s that. Not what we'd have picked for ourselves, but there's lots of leg room and enough trunk space to store all our luggage AND a cover so I really can't complain.

We’re staying with a local couple here and our lovely hostess Gloria gives us a quick tour of where we’ll be staying, plus some great info about the area. At her suggestion we drive to one of the Kam beaches to watch the sunset.

We're barely awake at this point so we stop by Tripadvisor #1 rated 808 Bistro for dinner. Oops, there's not a lot of options on the menu and a lot of “fancy food” ... tricky predicament for a picky eater like me, but even I can find a salad I like (the 808 salad with pine seeds, dried crans and papaya seed dressing) and we end up having a fabulous meal.

Somehow we wind up at an ABC store again to pick up some water and then we’re all set.

Mileage for today:

Manta Ray snorkel

... continued from Day 9.

There's not a lot of traffic so luckily there’s time to stop by the hotel and change clothes before we leave for the dive shop. When we get to the shop I get fitted into a wetsuit and then we head for the marina.

The boat doesn’t leave until 5pm and I'm a little bit hungry so we stop by Bite Me restaurant where we split an order for fish and shrimp taco’s with huge side salad. Hmmm so yummy!

I take a picture of the nice big boat I’m about to go on only to find out I’m going on the second smaller boat, uh oh. Well here's the big boat anyway.

Although I've done quite well recently I’m still a little bit worried about getting sea sick. Not sure if eating a meal right before getting on board was the smartest thing to do ... good thing I took some bonine! 

Sandy drives off for a quiet night at the hotel pool -- she tells me later that the view of the luau from there is pretty good -- leaving me by myself, but I quickly befriend a fellow first-time manta ray snorkeler called Suzie.

We'll be the only two snorkelers on a boat with 4 scuba divers, plus Jonathan, April & Mike, our 3 crew members for tonight ... yep, definitely the smaller boat, but I'm starting to think that might turn out to be a good thing. Such a fun group of people!

Conversation is flowing easily as we speed across the open waters. Quite bouncy at times and we're throwing up a lot of spray at times, but so far no seasickness.

Tonight's dive site, Garden Eel Cove by day ... "Manta Ray Heaven" by night. It's also referred to as the airport site at times.

Some of the other boats are already at anchor, but the most flamboyant of the bunch motors in shortly after we get there ... it's a little raft with live bag pipe musicians. Why? Who knows.

We're all turned towards the open ocean when we suddenly are rewarded with a magnificent sight; a large whale breaching out of the water! Wow, this really makes me want to go on whale watching cruise! Just in case it comes up again I start up my camera again, but by then the whale has disappeared back into the depths.

Jonathan does a nice, informal presentation on manta rays while we're watching the sun set. Then it's time for some last minute scuba instructions (I'm really hoping the stuff I picked up will come in handy some day ... definitely something to add to my ever growing bucket list) and a brief snorkeling review.

After a quick visit to the “bathroom” (aka ladder at the back at the boat ... talk about awkward!) it’s time to gear up and get into our wetsuits. Check out my cool neoprene socks! They've really come in handy walking over sharp rocks, plus they keep my feet nice and warm.

Some of the other boats are already letting people in the water, but we wait until it's completely dark out and then some ... no sense in getting cold and wet before the manta's show up. When we hear excited shrieks coming from the snorkelers in the distance we know the mantas have arrived. Time to get in the water!

The scuba divers step off the board first, leaving Suzie and I to bring up the tail. Flipper, the dive master from the larger boat is supposed to come pick us up, but Mike says I can swim over to them myself if I want to. Just when I'm about to jump in he spots Flipper swimming towards the boat so we decide to wait for pick-up.

A short while later I push off into the deep, dark ocean … and boy is it dark! We all have LED lights dangling from our snorkels and the boats are lit, but you can't see what's below the surface at all. My flippers are bright yellow and I can't even catch a glimpse of them! Flipper is laughing already -- I think he is the jolliest person I've ever met.

After a bit of encouragement my fellow snorkeler joins us in the water and together we snorkel over towards the group. It doesn't take long before I can see lights in the distance ... phew, kind of a relief to see there's no sharks to be seen.

Flipper guides us over to one of the rafts. Bright dive lights are mounted on the underside of the raft, while divers are holding up bright lights of their own near the bottom; this creates a channel of light that attracts plankton and what do manta rays eat?

The mantas are identified by the black spots on their white bellies as well as other physical characteristics that set them apart from the others.

Suddenly there’s two unexpected guests shooting through the channel of light: dolphins! Picture is very poor quality, but you can just make them out on the left (white blur on the right is a manta ray wing).

As you've probably figured out by now it's very hard to take pictures under these conditions. Luckily the camera also has a video option. They're all pretty similar so if you're only going to watch one of them I recommend the second video. (You can watch bigger versions on YouTube).

Full of grace

My favorite video

Lots of fish

Lefty blocking out all the light

Couple more in case you're as fascinated as I was. See the little cleaner fish?

Back on the boat we strip out of our cold wetsuits and nibble on banana macadamia nut chocolate chip bread to celebrate the advanced open water certification of one of the scuba divers. Yay! There’s also hot coco which is perfect right now.

April gives us an impromptu astronomy lesson as we turn back towards the marina. The sky out here is so clear and we see Venus and Jupiter along with many, many constellations. What an end to an amazing day!

PS. Still no sea sickness on the way back.

Day 9: Kohola coast

Today is our last full day in Hawaii, so we really want to make the most of it. Breakfast from ABC store again, then we head north along the coast.

It’s a pretty drive, through desert like lava fields with the deep blue ocean to our lefts … with weird little puffs occasionally; it’s whales! We pull over and watch the show for a while. Amazing how many whales there are. No breach unfortunately, but we got to see some tails. Looks like a mom (spouting)and her calf (tail) were playing together in the picture below.

It's a beautiful spot to watch the whales from and with the way the wind blows we can even hear the spouting even though they're quite a ways from shore.

People are using white rocks to leave messages along the highway, among my favorites; the shaka ("hang loose") sign as well as this marriage proposal. Wonder if anything came of it?

It’s slow going because the speed limit keeps changing and we almost contemplate turning around after seeing the whales, but we push on and soon we’re rewarded with our first fabulous view of Pololu Valley.

There’s just a tiny parking lot at the end of the road, but we’re lucky and a car full of huffing and puffing, beet red girls pulls out just as we’re pulling in so we get to take their spot right near the trail head.


Sign to show there's a point of interest.

It’s very steep and a bit slippery going down the trail with all the loose rocks and after a while it really starts to work on your legs. We have a ways to go down to the coast so we keep switchbacking down the steep slope over stabilizing logs and loose boulders, until finally we make it to the bottom. There’s some rope swings that I play with for a while.

This is more of a gray sand beach than a true black sand beach, but it’s very fine sand, not course like the other black sand beach we went to. Not good swimming water, but we both get in just to wet ourselves before hiking back up.

We snap some pictures of the valley.

Then it’s time to hike back up to the top. The rocks are a lot easier to navigate, but it’s quite the workout and we have to make several stops along the way back up. Still we make it in 25 minutes, not bad.

At the top we find the parking lot filled to capacity and cars all along the road leading up to it. Good thing we got there early! It's hard enough to navigate the path as it is without having to move to the edge to let people pass.

Somehow the drive back is a lot easier, not nearly as many weird speed limit changes, mostly 55mph the whole way.

First stop is one we hadn’t planned, Puukohala Heiau National Historic Park. It’s actually a beautiful park with temples built out of rock without mortar.

 People still leave offerings at these sacred sites.

We also find a small cove with a bunch of black tip reef sharks circling around. For some reason the sharks love to hang out there even though they normally don’t come in shallow water and according to the plaque they usually show up around February, mostly 1-2 at a time, but there’s at least 7 while we’re there. Can you find all of them in this picture?

Wow! Never thought I'd be so close to a real shark in the wild! Note the triangularness of the fins compared to the curved tip of a dolphin's fin.

The little bay they are hanging out in

What a beautiful place! No wonder the ancient Hawaiians chose to build one of their temples here.

After saying goodbye to the sharks we drive to Hapuna Beach, supposedly one of the nicest  beaches on the island. It is quite pretty, with wide white sand, lifeguards and clear water with big crashing waves, but not as great as people make it out to be.

Glossy smooth surface of the wave moments before crashing onto shore in a blur of white water. That's some killer shore break they've got here ... I'm surprised to see so many body and boogie boarding in these conditions.

Funny sign

We rinse some of the black sand off in the water and eat some snacks, but then it’s time to get going because I need to be at the Big Island Divers shops at 4pm to check in. To be continued ...

Mileage for today: