The Sun Sets on Our Hawaiian Adventure

We finished our vacation with a sunset sail on a catamaran sailing from Anaehoomalu Bay. We had a perfect sunset, just enough clouds to make it interesting, but a clear horizon line for the sun to sink through.

The boat, the Sea Smoke, was formerly a speed-sailing catamaran owned by James Arness of the TV show Gunsmoke. It has been reconfigured for whale-watching, snorkel cruises, and sunset cruises. It had a crew of four, Shane at the helm and three others hoisting sales, handing out drinks, popping champagne corks and generally acting the gracious hosts.

Heading out, we had great views of Mauna Kea, including a segment of rainbow. As we got further out, we could see Maui in the distance, surrounded by clouds.

We ate, drank, chatted and enjoyed the ocean air. Shane took my picture at the helm, and we had a family picture taken at the rail.

And then the sun hit the horizon and, 180 seconds later, it was gone. The crew had popped champagne; we toasted the sky and headed back to shore.

We were watching carefully for the green flash. I didn't see it, but Christina thinks she did, just as the last of the sun went down.

Visit to a Volcano

We got up early one morning and made the long drive around the Big Island to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

We drove around the north end of the Big Island, but cut up and across the shoulder of Mauna Kea and through the small town of Waimea before heading south along the east coast to Hilo.

It was a fascinating drive -- about 100 miles around half of a large island and covering several different sorts of landscape.

The northern part of the Kona coast is arid and mostly lava that has been colonized by grasses. As you head upland, however, there's more and more moisture until you reach Waimea, which was fog bound and looked to be damp ranch country. The drive along the coast to Hilo was full-on tropical with jungle-clad, steep hills falling away onto a blue ocean.

Hilo is an older-looking town. We only brushed past it, along the waterfront, before starting up the slopes of Mauna Loa to reach the Park and the vast caldera of Kilauea.

We did not really have enough time to properly explore the park. I had planned to drive the Crater Rim drive around the Caldera but about half was closed due to sulphur-laden gases venting out of the Halema'uma'u crater that dominates the western part of the caldera. That's the great big hole with gases coming out in the photo above. It was impossible for me to capture the whole of the Caldera, it is really quite large.

We drove to the farthest-along overlook still open and then came back by way of the steaming bluffs, where cracks and crevasses leak steam from the great heat below. From there we hiked a trail part-way down into the caldera through a broken landscape that looks llike it was formed when a part of the caldera wall slumped-in. This trail became progressively more tropical as it descended, past plants we'd never seen, through rocks and past cliffs, until it rose again to a completely different sort of arid plain.

We also took some time to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube before having a light lunch at the Volcano House, an inn that sits on the edge of caldera wall.

We took the southern route back to Waikoloa, completing a circling of the Big Island. This is a slightly longer drive, but took even longer still as it slowed drastically to wind around along the south Kona coast. This route also features a long descent from Kilauea through a completely empty landscape of lava fields. I knew we were in an empty place as, one by one, the radio stations faded away and there were none.

So we made a circle around the island, which I'll admit I'd been thinking about. It was a long drive, though.

At the Beach With Honu

There's a sand beach at Waikoloa on the Big Island. It fronts Anaehoomalu Bay and includes an open stretch of sand, portions shaded by palms, and a series of sandy coves separated by small volcanic rock peninsulas; some filled to the waterline by complex trees.

We spent a quiet afternoon swimming and sunning. At one point, we took a walk away from the populated part of the beach and came upon a group of green sea turtles -- Honu in Hawaiian -- sunning themselves on a shelf of volcanic pebbles hidden behind a lava peninsula.

We didn't want to disturb them, so we kept back a respectful distance and just snapped a few pictures.

There were also several turtles hanging around in the lagoon at the Hilton where we stayed. Several times, we took kayaks out and visited them. There's nothing better than drifting quietly while watching one of these lovely animals flying around beneath you.

Fourteenth Golf Game of 2009

Well, of course I played golf while we were in Hawaii.

I played the beach course at Waikoloa one morning with an older gent and his son-in-law. They were from California. The starter matched me with them. It was that or play with a trio of Japanese tourists and I don't think they had any English.

It's a challenging course. The holes are surrounded by mounds and hillocks of lava. There are lava traps in place of sand traps. If you're not hitting over water, you are hitting over fields of broken volcanic rock. I was wondering what happens if you hit one into that lava.

I had a pretty good round, all things -- rented clubs, playing in sneakers, etc. -- considered. I finished with a 109. My play was up and down. I had a par on the sixth, for example, but followed that with a triple bogey on the a par-5 seventh.

The seventh was also where I learned what happens when you hit it into the lava field. I had had a good drive and second shot and had just a 9-iron shot left to the green. Instead of hitting it clean and getting on in regulation, I hit it low and slicing into the lava on the right. It bounced almost back to where I was standing but on the other side of the fairway. I was lucky to make an eight.

On the other hand, the scenery is great. On some holes you are looking at a mountain. On others, you overlook the Pacific Ocean. The sun is bright, the foliage is rich and green, and the trade winds blow steadily and keep you a bit cool.

I liked it.

What 's Under All That Water?

We took one afternoon of our time in Hawaii for an afternoon snorkeling trip to Kealakekua Bay at the southern end of the Kona coast. We went on the Fair Wind II which sails out of Keauhou Bay. This is a lovely little port with a boat ramp, small beach and docks from which local kids were playing and diving.

The cruise from Keauhou to Kealakekua takes about an hour, sailing along a rocky coast that features a shelf of old lava that was pummelled by waves. We were looking for dolphins but were visited by a giant manta ray instead.

The girls had picked up a cheap underwater camera and tried to capture some pictures of fish. The water was just a bit too murky for that camera but we did get some underwater action shots of ourselves. This picture of Christina is the best. There's also an unfortunate one of me swimming below the girls.

We had a great time. The people with Fair Winds were wonderful hosts. Their boat is well equipped for diving and has water slides and a high platform. Both Christina and I tried the platform. Water turns out to be pretty hard when you approach it from way up high.

Kealakekua Bay is a broad open place towered-over by a high lava cliff that has been crumbling into the water from time to time leaving boulder islands here and there. On the north is a flat area where Captain Cook was killed by the Hawaiians in 1779. There is now a monument on the shore near where we snorkeled.

This was such a cool trip that I argued, unsuccessfully, that we turn around and go back again later in the week. It also reminds me that future vacation plans should probably also include snorkeling opportunities.

And Then We Went to the Big Island

The thing that surprised me when we arrived at Kona International airport on the Big Island, was the vastly different landscape.

The coast there is arid, lacking the rich foliage of places like Honolulu. And the coast includes wide swaths of dark brown and black, broken and crumbling lava.

It looked to me, as we drove north from the airport, like the lava had flowed sometime in the last 10 to 20 years. I learned, though, that the lava we drove through -- imagine a two-lane ribbon through broken black rocks -- flowed down the mountain and into the sea in the middle of the 19th century. It was in 1850 or some time around then.

But we stayed in a created oasis amid all that lava. Someone had ground up acres of the ineral-rich rock, added topsoil, and created a lovely green spot at Waikoloa. We were in the huge Hilton portion of Waikoloa, which includes at least two other hotels, two shopping malls, two golf courses, condos and villas.

Later in the week, we drove around the Big Island and found other landscapes, volcanoes, tropical forest, and mountains.

We had an active time. We swam, we saw sea turtles, we snorkeled, we hiked, we ate well and I got to play some golf. But those are future blog posts...

A Thought on Orientation

One thing that I noticed during our trip to Hawaii was that the ocean was always in the wrong place.

I've lived all of my life in states that border the Atlantic Ocean; Maryland, Maine and Delaware. For almost half of my life, I have lived with just a few miles of the ocean coast here in Delaware.

I have a strong internal compass; I almost always can orient myself to the cardinal directions regardless of time of day or whether I am indoors or out.

The ocean belongs to my east. The sun is meant to come up over the water.

In Honolulu, the ocean is to the south. On the Kona Coast of the Big Island, the ocean is to the west. The sun sets into the water.

It was just slightly disorienting -- in a good way. It's good sometimes to be somewhere where your internal compass goes just slightly askew.

"Let's Go Surfin' Now, Everybody's Learnin' How..."

Colleen and Christina took a surfing lesson while we were at Waikiki. We signed them up with the Hans Hedemann Surf School, which takes medium sized groups out and offers a pretty good student to teacher ratio.

Things started on the surf shop, where the students were fitted out with board shirts and shoes and long boards. They got some basic instruction there and had a chance for a dry run before carrying their boards down to the beach and setting out.

The instructors had them all shoved off into the waves and many of the up and surfing, at least a little, almost immediately. Colleen and Christina both got up and had some success. And they kept heading back out for more until the class was called back to shore.

I'm not sure who in the family has picked these two in the family Christmas draw, but I'll just say that both Colleen and Christina really enjoyed their lesson and showed signs of becoming surfer girls.

At Pearl Harbor

We didn't want to be in Honolulu and not visit Pearl Harbor. So we joined a small bus full of tourists that left very early one morning. The goal was to get there first thing; the USS Arizona Memorial features long lines and waits.

While we waited our turn, the girls had their picture taken with a Pearl Harbor survivor. A number of these gentlemen volunteer at the memorial and are eager to sign autographs, pose for pictures and share their stories. That morning, the man signing autographs was Alfred Benjamin Kame'eiamoku Rodrigues, a Pearl Harbor survivor. he was born and raised in Hawaii and in the Navy at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.

There's a museum, a museum shop, and an introductory film before the boat takes you out to the site of the Arizona Memorial. The Memorial itself is small and intense and moving. There's not much to say except that it touches you.

Afterwards, we toured the USS Missouri, now anchored next to the Memorial as a Museum. This is a fascinating ship to visit. She served in both World War II and the first Gulf War and includes examples of naval warfare technology and living from several generations.

I was in picture-taking heaven. There were red phones, alarms, compasses, and lots of other cool things.

Pearl Harbor is well worth a visit. It is an important part of our history and fascinating to a history buff. But get there early.

Hawaiians Are Proud of Native Son Barack Obama

We had two tourist activities while in Honolulu that involved tour buses and tour leaders. In both cases, the ride through the city included a drive-by tour of "places from the President's early life." We were driven past the hospital where he was born, the apartment he lived in with his mother, the apartment he lived in with his grandparents, and the high school he attended.

One tour guide, an older gentleman and a vet, started his Obama-iliad this way (I paraphrase):

I did not vote for Barack Obama, but now that he is the President he has my support 110 percent. I understand there are some people on the mainland who think he was not born in the United States -- I think they are called "Birthies" or something? But here is the hospital where he was born. I was born here too!

And then we continued to circle around his various apartments and schools.

I also heard similar sentiments from a cabbie and from the older contractor I sat next to on our flight out of Kona.