Krusin’ Round Kona
So my mother says to me, “Come join us in Kona for two weeks.”
In my head I say “Are you nuts? Two weeks vacation time with my parents!?!”
Out loud I say, “Sure.”
Ok so maybe going on vacation with your parents isn’t number one on your list of things to do. Me, I’d much rather be riding across the Sahara on a new KTM Adventure 950 or wandering around the rain forests of Belize looking for rare Mayan ruins or maybe diving on the Great Barrier Reef but then a little voice in the back of my head speaks up. “Craig” it says, “Your parents aren’t going to be around forever.” Having had a good friend lose his father to heart disease just last month it’s never been so clear to me that we are mortal beings with limited life spans. So I sucked it up, made plane reservations and flew to the Big Island to spend two weeks with the folks.
Of course just because I’m hangin’ with Mom and Dad doesn’t mean I don’t know how to find adventure, quite the opposite in fact. Having been to the Big Island just three years ago I already knew some of the things I wanted to do. Sure there’s the regular kinda stuff like snorkeling and swimming but there is also the big time adventure stuff like hiking volcanoes and diving with sea critters. Not to mention things I hadn’t thought of but discovered while there.
It’s funny but each of the little adventures that I had was prompted by daily occurrences. Something would catch my eye or spur my imagination such that I would find myself doing something incredible in just a matter of days. For instance, take my flight over. I was sitting there on the plane, soaking up yet another good book while listening to tunes on my Ipod when I looked out the window and spied Mauna Kea just off the wing tip…
Snowing in Paradise?
My first morning in Kailua-Kona started pretty early. I was still operating on California time, which is two time zones East, and thus I was accustomed to waking up before the sun. Today was no different so I found myself lying in bed at 5am wondering what to do with myself. Remembering all that snow up top of Mauna Kea I decided it was time for a little drive. Thirty minutes later I found myself motoring past the still sleeping snowbirds of Kailua as I worked my way up to Highway 190 and my way North and East to the saddle road. (The saddle road bisects the island heading up between the two giants, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea)
Around 8:15am I arrived at the Visitor’s Center located at the 10,000-foot level of the mountain. Unfortunately the park ranger had just closed the road to the top of the mountain because of the extreme weather and ice on the pavement. So I spent the next hour or so gazing at various books, computer programs and information on the mountain and on the observatories located up top. The programs available at the center are pretty interesting and they do offer nightly star gazing at the center using a half dozen of their small telescopes.
I was about ready to give up and drive back down the mountain when the ranger came by and gave me the thumbs up! Whoo hoo! I dropped the trusty little Jeep into Low Four and started up the road. The climb up from the Visitor’s Center is pretty rough. The first couple miles are volcanic dirt and sand, which becomes pavement as you near the telescopes. It’s steep and not for the faint of heart. At the top there is a ring road that takes you to each of the various telescopes. Today the wind was gusting up to 20 miles per hour and the outside air temperature was floating around 20 degrees F. Yeah, nice and balmy!
I did enjoy wandering around the top of the mountain despite the conditions. It was quite different from my last visit and the weather was rather refreshing. I rarely visit the snow when I’m at home so to actually be able to drive a short distance to play in it was fun. Seeing the Keck telescopes was also a big treat. Back in 1980 when I was a freshman at UCSC I had a chance to see the blueprints for the then as yet un-built telescopes. To see them now was to see a dream become reality. I still remember how excited my grad student friend Bill Keel was when he was showing me those blueprints. Considering the impact that the twin Keck’s have had on astronomy I can now understand his feelings.
So after spending the morning wandering around the top of the mountain I decided to head back down to sea level for a bit of snorkeling and water fun. On my way down I looked across the saddle toward Mauna Loa. Hmm, another good adventure waiting to happen!
Swimming With Dolphins
Kinda like Dancing With Wolves but in the water. One of my favorite places to snorkel in Hawaii is in the City of Refuge, Pu`uhonua O Honaunau. This National Park is filled with interesting history and really cool artifacts. But even better is the variety of wildlife to be found out in the bay. My parents and I wandered on over to the rocky shoreline and setup camp. Off came the shoes and on went the fins. Mask and snorkel in hand I made my way over to sit-down rock, a handy little step in the rocks that makes an easy entry point into the water. While preparing my gear I noticed a group of snorkelers off in the deep-water section of the bay. I also noticed several fins in the area. Hmm, looks like Spinner Dolphins!
Once in the water I zoomed on over to where the action was and found myself in the midst of a half dozen snorkelers. They would watch the surface for the dolphins and when they surfaced the divers would swim hard to catch up to them. What I soon noticed is that this method seemed to get the swimmers nowhere. So I simply relaxed and watched some more. What I found was that the dolphins liked to go deep and just mill around near the bottom for a while before rising up to the surface to breath. After a bit I decided to join them. I grabbed a big breath of air and dove straight down about 30 feet. I then turned up and did a nice slow dolphin kick to the surface. Boy was I surprised when I found myself in the midst of a dozen or more dolphins. It worked!
The dolphins weren’t interested in the noisy and aggressive folks. But they were interested in someone doing something different. I would periodically swim down deep and then dolphin kick off on a tangent or parallel course to theirs. They would in turn come up next to me or cut across in front of me as I rose to the surface. I must have done this on and off for nearly and hour. It was amazing to see these guys up close and personal. I wished I had the energy to stay there all day. Unfortunately I didn’t. So I soon broke off from the group and wandered back over to the coral outcroppings to relax.
While floating along over the coral admiring the various tropical fish I was greeted by another local favorite, the sea turtle. The last time I was on the big island I notice quite a few turtles around. This time there were even more. I adopted my same pattern of inspection by swimming parallel to the turtles. In time I found them to be quite curious and I even had one little guy tag around with me for nearly 5 minutes. I would wander around one rock and he would follow. I would hover a bit and he would circle around me to see what I was looking at. It was really pretty cool! They are also very cool to watch while in the water because they really do look like they’re flying.
I finally dragged my waterlogged body out of the water after nearly two hours of snorkeling. It was really my first good foray into the liquid medium since contracting a sinus infection and developing an ear infection. The results were better than expected so I decided to make some more aggressive plans with my time off.
Sleeping With Pele
A day later I took a road trip around the island with my parents. We hit the high spots like South Point (the southern most point in the United States), black sand beach (yes, it really is black), the volcano park (which normally has an active lava flow except for this time), Hilo (the wet side of the island), and then the North coast (Parker Ranch, the largest cattle ranch in the US as well as some pretty incredible scenery at Waimea and Waipo Valley). While at the Volcano Park I had a little chat with the park rangers about backcountry permits and spending the night on Mauna Loa. It was a very informative chat and energized me to return in two days to pick up my permit.
With permit in hand I jumped into my rental Jeep and made tracks up to the South side trailhead for Mauna Loa. Three years ago I managed to do a nice day hike on this trail. After doing so I managed to find some informative web sites on going even further up to the summit and spending the night on the mountain at the two cabins near the summit. Not being in great shape thanks to a series of virus attacks and a serious lack of exercise I chose to attempt an overnight hike up to Red Hill Cabin or in Hawaiian, Pu'u 'Ula'ula, which is located at the 10,000 foot level on the mountain.
I parked at the trailhead and then proceeded to take a nap. It was barely 9am and raining out. I chose to conserve a little energy and wait for the rain to slack off. An hour later I was rewarded with a touch of sunshine and no more rain. I shouldered my handy backpack and hit the trail. I was surprised to find that the 6600-foot elevation was not affecting me at all. I managed to set a nice pace along the trail and soon found myself rising above the tree line. The clouds were starting to break up and thus the temperature began to climb. I soon had to stop and shed some layers in order not to overheat. Luckily I was packing light so this was no problem.
I learned from the last hike that lava is pretty damn tough! I had on a nice sturdy pair of hiking shoes although I would have liked a good pair of boots. Ankle protection is really a good idea up here. There are two particular types of lava on the island. The first is called A’A and is basically large chunks of broken rock, kind of like batter spatter. The second type is Pahoehoe and is fairly smooth and occasionally has a ropy texture to it. The first can be hell on the feet while the second a little more forgiving. I ran across both types in varying degrees of difficulty as I made my way up past the 7000, 8000, and 9000-foot markers. I also ran across several lava tubes which though interesting are rather dangerous and thus are good to steer clear of unless you are confident in their strength (the concern is that the top can collapse and trap you under tons of rock).
I finally reached Red Hill Cabin around 4pm. Checking my GPS I found that I had rose nearly 3500 feet in elevation over 7 and a half miles while traveling at a typical speed of 1.9 mph (while moving) or an average speed of 1.4 mph if you include my stopping time. The weather was starting to get bad again but most of it was at a lower altitude. I took some time to wander around the cabin and check out the surrounding area. The view over to Mauna Kea was great! Checking the logbook inside I noted that there was only one other person on the mountain and he had left this cabin earlier in the day to head for the summit. That meant the cabin was all mine for the night. Very cool!
I finally succumbed to fatigue and hunger and made my way inside to make my camp for the night. The cabin is outfitted with 8 bunks each with a foam pad and a wool blanket. I had my synthetic down sleeping bag along with a nice set of capeline underwear. I knew the nighttime temps would be down in the teens so I was more than prepared. I also knew that though tired I wouldn’t want to drop off right away so I whipped out my book and Ipod for a little light reading while listening to Tom Middleton’s The Sound of the Cosmos.
Around midnight I woke up with a start. A second or two later I was shaken and not stirred. Pele was just letting me know that despite the apparent lack of activity on the mountain she was still mixing it up deep inside. I figure it was roughly a 10 second shaker. Being the native Californian I’m used to that sort of thing. Kinda worked the kinks out of my sore leg muscles. Where do you put the quarters in?
In the morning I made an early start of it and hit the trail by 7am. The sun was trying to peak past the clouds while the ground attempted to shake off the layer of frost that had settled in the night. I made good time heading down the mountain and was spurred on by the impending rain clouds. Despite my best efforts I got my shower right around the 8000-foot level. It continued to rain all the way down to 7000 feet. As I finished up the last leg of the trip the sun conquered the clouds and allowed me to dry out as I approached the trailhead. All in all I had a great time on the mountain and really enjoyed my time alone in the wilderness. I think I need to do more!
Sea Monsters in the Night
Having recently gotten my PADI open water certification I was dying to go diving. But having just recovered (if that!) from an ear infection I was being extra cautious. Still, there were a number of really interesting flyers out advertising night dives with the manta rays. I dropped in to a few shops but most were not hosting the dives due to lack of people signing up. I was a little bummed to say the least. Then I had dinner with Kay.
Kay is/was a member of BASK (Bay Area Sea Kayakers) and a former resident of my town, Alameda. We had chatted a bit prior to my coming to the big island and she made me promise to look her up when I got there. So I did, we made plans and then met for dinner at her place. It was there where I lamented the fact that I couldn’t seem to hook up with an outfit to go dive with the mantas. She turned to me and said, “Talk to Rich. He’s a dive master and will be here for dinner tonight.” Sure enough, Rich was a dive master and did happen to work for Big Island Divers and yes they did have a boat scheduled to go out the next night. “Here, call this number.” He said. So I did!
So that’s how I ended up sitting in a little boat off the coast of Kona just after sunset listening to the dive master instruct me on the plan of the night and wondering if I would have any problems stepping off the boat into the inky black water. In no time at all I was down at the bottom in 35 feet of water shining my flashlight on the coral and enjoying the sensation of floating in space. Soon the eight of us swam over to the central gathering site where two other dive boats had already disgorged their compliment of divers. At the bottom we did as we were instructed and gathered into a tight circle, all of us holding our flashlights pointed toward the surface. We watched as fish swam into the plankton soup feasting on the tiny little critters as we waited for the show to begin.
The only way I can describe it is that I was in the middle of a surreal ballet where the dancers were shaped like stealth bombers and yet had the grace and style of the most talented of the Bolshoi ballet. Rather than me describe it just go here and pull up the video of the mantas. I have my own copy recorded from that night by Jim of dolphindreams.com.
Without a doubt that night was the most incredible events that I have ever attended. Having the huge rays dive down over, around and on a couple occasions into me was amazing. I could have sat there for hours if I hadn’t been limited by the tank of air on my back. They say that diving with the mantas is one of the top 10 dives in the world. I can’t imagine what the other 9 entail. Amazing!
As all good vacations must come to an end so did mine. I really enjoyed my series of little adventures and by the end of my time on the island I was good and relaxed. Too bad I had to go back home and then head back to work and ruin all that good relaxation. Ah well, just means it’s time to go plan another trip! Where to next??
Craig