We woke with the sunrise at about 6:15 AM, secured our tent for the day, and hit the road early. We were parked across the street from Honaunau bay by 7:30 AM. There’s no beach, just a lava bench. It has a perfect bench seat to sit on while donning or removing snorkel gear and then you can jump right in to the deep pool that opens up from the bench. We applied our sunscreen & snorkel gear and jumped in. Nice coral, we spotted a sting ray, clarinet fish, some tangs and trigger fish, convict fish, and lots of sea urchins. At one point, we were swimming along when I heard an unusual clicking sound. It was a noise I had not heard before but kept swimming along until Mat grabbed my leg and pointed to a silvery shadow in the darkness of the open ocean. We watched it swim around for a minute, then we surfaced to see spinner dolphins coming up for air about 50 yards out. We continued to sit still and watch for them. After about 5 minutes, we saw them again, this time they swam in a slow, deep loop around & beneath us. You could see their little babies! After checking us out briefly, they headed back out to sea. It was very cool!
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| Preparing for snorkeling in Honaunau bay |
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| Post-snorkel at Honaunau bay |
We spent about two hours in the water before getting cold. We pulled out using the awesome bench. There seemed to be a cool beach with some historical landmarks on it just south of us so we meandered over to check it out. That's how we stumbled upon Pu’Uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park. And it just happened that a ranger was ready to give a talk when we walked onto the grounds. So we were treated to a ranger talk about the historical significance of Pu’Uhonua O Honaunau, or Place of Refuge. The little bay was one of the Hawaiian royalty’s favorite homes, being customary to move from area to area every few months to spread resource consumption. It’s called City of Refuge because the lava bench on the ocean behind it is one of the few known places where an ancient Hawaiian could escape the penalty of death when they broke a Kapu or law.
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| Pu'Uhonua O Honaunau |
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| Walking down to the historical site |
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| Carved wooden tikis |
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| Manmade wall of lava rock |
After checking out the grounds, we hit the road and headed further north. We stopped in the town of Captain Cook to grab some lunch and groceries. The next stop was Kahalu’u Beach Park for more snorkeling. Being in the early afternoon, the beach & swimming area was packed. We headed out into the reef protected bay. A bit more shallow and overrun by humans than the last place, the bay was filled with smaller fish. I spotted on fish that was small, neon green, and feathery in shape, resembling a piece of seaweed or algae swaying back and forth with the waves. It was pretty cool. After another hour, we got out of the water to warm up and dry out. A number of people were huddled around the edge of a small lava shelf. They were all staring at a couple of green sea turtles eating algae off the rock. It was fun to watch them for a while.
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| Sea turtle at Kahalu'u Beach |
After Kahalu’u, we headed further north into Kona. We stopped at Dick’s sporting goods to grab some stove fuel, then hit up Kona brewing company for dinner. We had delicious pizza and an amazing coconut brown beer before heading south back to camp. We made it back to camp just before dark; the campground had filled up with lots of campers.
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| Kona Brewing Company |
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