The last few weeks were action packed, particularly last week, which was fall break (thanks Hawaii schools!). This may be a bit of a long post so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!
Since our last post, we've gotten to do so many cool and exciting things! First, I'd like to share the progress of our little condo vegetable garden. We missed gardening so much and wanted to continue the Fauna tradition, even living in a much smaller space, with no yard. Here's our little garden, soon after we started it (early Sept) and now (Oct 16), all grown from seeds we brought with us from FL :)
In the last post, I shared the excitement of getting our drivers licenses. Recently, the van became kama'aina too, with a brand spankin new rainbow license plate (front and back).
A fun example of everyday cool happenings in Kona occurred recently as we headed down to the seawall to watch another beautiful sunset. We saw a small crowd gathered near the wall and discovered a surprise. A local fisherman was there with his fish scraps feeding moray eels. As we watched, the morays came up out of the water and slithered through the rocks to fetch the fish pieces. Weird and so cool! Here's a video (apologies for the odd color!).
September 24th was the
Breadfruit Festival. Also known as 'ulu' here on the islands,
breadfruit is so amazing and delicious. We fell in love with it in Jamaica and are super excited that it's grown here too! We got to try several variations, including poi, chips, steamed, fire roasted and baked. Yum!
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| One of the locals at the ulu festival, pounding ulu poi. Served as a bite sized ball dipped in coconut milk - yum! |
Fall break was a splendid reprieve from my daily grind at the school. I love my job but things had reached a fever pitch as far as meetings and paperwork and I was in need of a recharge. 10 days off (including weekends) will do that!
The first few days off were spent snorkeling, snorkeling, and snorkeling! Our favorite spot is known as the "2 step" at
Place of Refuge. The two step is aptly named after the lava rock that forms an almost perfect two level, easy entry into the water. The fish and coral are abundant, the water is clear, and it feels like you are swimming in a saltwater aquarium. On Saturday, this was our snorkeling choice and it did not disappoint. Although the water was mostly clear, there were spots where the cool freshwater seeping from the lava rocks would mix with the ocean water, creating an effect similar to putting on someone's prescription glasses. Luckily the effect was temporary and only in some spots, but a bit unnerving at times. At one point, I had just swam through one of these spots when I looked down and, about 12 feet in front of and below me, I could clearly see a shark! Every fiber in my being was thinking "Get the hell out of the water!!!!". Once the initial panic left, I realized it was a white tipped reef shark and, although about as long as I am tall, it was probably not the least interested in me. I quickly swam over to get Jeremiah's attention, only to return to the spot, to find no sign of shark anywhere. Of course, J thought I was either halucinating or lying. I was redeemed, however, when a local guy confirmed that a few reef sharks call the area home. As I don't yet have an underwater camera (just ordered one!), I'll have to settle for posting someone else's photo of a reef shark, for now.
Our next snorkeling foray took us to our other favorite spot, Kahalu'u beach. Though much more shallow, it was also teeming with fish. During the hour or so that we snorkeled, we spotted more than 15
humuhumunukunukuapua'as alone. Also known as the reef triggerfish (but that's not nearly as much fun to say or type), these guys are amazing, beautiful little fish. They can be slightly aggressive fish, as we found out when one darted at us repeatedly and even nipped at Jeremiah's fins a few times! Considering his/her relatively small size that's one badass fish! Of course we saw many other fish, of all shapes, sizes, and colors during our swim. Here is what the humu looks like (again not my picture).
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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
Monday was marked with the arrival of our first couch surfer!! Denise was traveling from Switzerland with only a backpack, spending 3 months visiting the Hawaiian islands via hitchhiking, camping, and couch surfing. Did I mention she's my hero? Constantly smiling, up for any adventure, and loving life - what a lovely person!
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Denise with the coconut we found on the side of the road and opened with a kitchen knife!!
We thoroughly enjoyed playing tour guides and hosts for our new guest. We shared some drinks and several lovely meals, including a fresh fruit plate from the local market. |
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| mango, papaya, lilikoi (passion fruit), guava, pineapple, apple bananas, dragon fruit and rombutan |
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| sushi night! |
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| A mai tai from Humpy's |
We took Denise around the downtown area, which had been transformed in preparation for Ironman. As an aside, we were a little unsure what to expect with such a big event coming to our small town. Over the weekend we started to see changes. The town began to morph into something resembling a NASCAR event. Banners, inflatables, new stores, free samples, booths and decorations were all over town. The big difference between Ironman and Nascar was that, rather than advertising Budweiser, Home Depot, and Penzoil, the advertisements here were for power bars, gatorade, speed bikes, running shoes, etc. You get the picture. We wandered downtown with Denise on Tuesday evening and witnessed a traditional Hawaiian blessing, complete with hula dancing, chanting, and fire spinning. The odd thing was that it was a blessing for a brand new speed bike just released by one of the bike companies. Weird.
On Tuesday we took Denise to our favorite snorkeling spot at 2 step/Place of Refuge. On the way we stopped for a tour and some samples at the
Greenwell Coffee Farm. We saw the fruit growing and how it was processed up to roasting. Cool stuff.
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| Coffee "cherries" growing on the tree |
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| Coffee beans, or "parchment" drying in the sun |
Before leaving, we sampled a few of Greenwell's coffee varieties, of which the chocolate macadamia nut was my favorite. Duh!
Wired on some free caffeine, we headed on down to our snorkeling spot. As the surf was up, it was a little less clear than usual but we still had a great time. We even spotted a small moray eel swimming and then hiding in some coral. We think it was probably an undulated moray, similar to this one.
After our snorkel, we stopped over at the
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau national park, to see some of the history of the big island.
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| The Hale O Keawe, which housed the bones of chiefs, to infuse the sacred area with their mana (power). |
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| The ancient Hawaiian game of konane, similar to checkers |
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| The kapu ki'i (carved wooden images that guard the royal grounds) |
On Wednesday we said adieu to our guest, Denise, with the invitation to come back over the weekend to enjoy the Ironman festivities up close and personal (we live about 1/2 mile from the start/finish line). We then packed up our car and headed to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. On the way, we drove the scenic south coast and stopped at one of the more notable black sand beaches, Punalu'u.
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| Beautiful Big Island south coast |
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| Punalu'u black sand beach |
Punalu'u is a beautiful beach that's famous for the numerous green sea turtles who call it's waters home. They often bask in the shallow waters near the shore and sometimes even crawl up on the warm black sand for a snooze. We were lucky enough to find some of them napping while we were there. We kept our distance, as is required by law, but enjoyed seeing these lovely creatures up close.
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| Not the most comfortable place to rest, but he looked like he was enjoying himself... |
From there we headed on to
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to set up camp.
Once our tent was set up, the sun had started to set, so we headed over to the Jagger Museum, set on the rim of the Kilauea caldera. A cool museum, with tons of information and displays regarding the volcanic activity, its star attraction is the view of the Halema`uma`u crater, home of the current eruption that began in 2008.
We stood at the overlook at watched below as the smoke and steam issued out of the red hot, glowing crater. With the moon and stars overhead, it was a surreal sight. To think that essentially that is the red hot glow of the center of the earth - amazing! I know why the Hawaiians honored the goddess Pele with all her fury and might. (as the iphone takes crappy night photos, this photo doesn't do Kilauea justice)
We returned to our camp to have dinner and settle in for the night. With a temperature in the 50s and a strong breeze blowing, it was a sleeping bag kind of night.
The next morning we packed up and headed out to explore the park and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, a large portion of crater rim drive, which circles the park, was closed due to high levels of dangerous sulphur dioxide. We explored what we could, including a lava tube, and then headed on to the coast.
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| lava tubes are caves that form when flowing lava forms a hard outer crust over a still-flowing lava stream (this one stopped flowing a while ago, thank goodness) |
Due to the tremendous volcanic activity at Kilauea, many areas near the coast have been wiped away by lava, including nearly 9 miles of highway. It was in this area that the current lava was flowing so we were not able to get anywhere close enough to see Pele in her most active state. Instead we checked out
Kalapana, a town that was almost completely wiped out by the eruption in 1990. Until that time, it was home to the most famous black sand beach in the world at
Kaimu. Lava has since buried the beach, with only a few palm trees (planted by residents) left as a reminder.
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| Pahoehoe lava up close |
We continued up the coast of the Puna area, stopping at several cool spots along the way - Ahalanui warm springs and Kapoho tide pools. Due to lack of a waterproof camera, I will once again post photos from other folks online.
We finished our east coast adventures with dinner in Pahoa at Luquin's mexican restaurant. The Lilikoi margaritas made our day complete. After a walk around town we headed back home to Kona to sleep in our own bed. Luckily Friday was pretty restful, as we needed it to prepare for a weekend filled with watersports and Ironman festivities. So many festivities that it deserves it's own blog entry. So stay tuned...
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