First of all, what are we even doing here? Anna’s dad had been sitting on a timeshare for years, and he finally concluded that he was never going to use it. So he offered it to us, and we thought, great, Hawaii. Anna’s been before, but I haven’t been anywhere remotely tropical, much less here. So we decided to use up the last of Anna’s frequent flier miles from her former life working for international NGOs, and here we are.
We flew out of Boston because there weren’t any mileage flights available from NYC. Besides, it was a chance to see my cousin Jen and meet her new baby. We spent a jolly night, and the next morning Jen took us to Logan. We landed in Kona after our twelve hours of plane and airport time. Kona doesn’t have jetways; we walked down stairs to the tarmac. It’s been a while since I did that, it made me feel like one of the Beatles. Kona’s airport is open-air, with a roof but no walls. It was nice waiting for our luggage at the baggage claim in a gentle tropical breeze.
We’re staying in a condo in the midst of the most tourist-packed, overdeveloped strip of the Kona coast. Nevertheless, we woke up to an incredible variety of birdsong. Just looking out the window, we saw mynah birds, saffron finches and red-crested cardinals. It was kind of a buzzkill to read how all of these birds were introduced to Hawaii and have severely crowded out the native species. Still, they’re pretty.
The first order of business today was to go into town to rent some gear from Snorkel Bob’s. The web site is well worth a visit if you’re a fan of idiosyncratic copyrighting — Bob is fond of referring to himself in the third person. Eccentric though his business persona may be, Bob is admirably committed to ocean conservation and has some pretty tart criticism for aquarium enthusiasts. Have to say that I agree with him.
We planned to start our Hawaii experience proper with Puuhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park. The drive was rich with Hawaii-ness — we passed two ukelele stored in a hundred yards. On our way there we took a wrong turn and wound up at the Kona farmers’ market. I was abstractly aware that Hawaii has hippies, but this farmers market makes the Park Slope Food Co-op look like a Trader Joe’s in suburban Connecticut. Think anglo dreads, tribal tattoos, dogs in pickup trucks. A guy selling enormous breadfruit was excitedly talking about going on tour with David Nelson, a member of Jerry Garcia’s extended orbit. While we shopped, we were serenaded by a hippie farmer’s vague approximation of “Mother Nature’s Son” by the Beatles, played on a National steel guitar in open D tuning. A woman selling exotic vegetables of various kinds was also selling CDs by one Father Bubba. Of the ten songs, nine were titled after Bible verses, and the tenth was called “Jerry’s Gone.”
So, Puuhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park. It’s out on the end of a big flat lava plain. Plants like this kind of terrain, I assume because lava rock is so porous, so the vegetation is lush and dense. There are coffee and macadamia plantations and people’s fancy beach houses are surrounded by all kinds of exotic tropical foliage in bright colors. The coastline around the park is all black lava rock in fantastic fractal shapes. It’s like taking a walk around the Mandelbrot set. In places the rock is attractively set off by white coral sand.
The park has some historic Hawaiian temples, but the main attraction for me was the wildlife. I’ve never been anywhere with this kind of marine biological density. Just poking around the beach and tide pools, we saw crabs, sandpipers, a rainbow of fish and two sea turtles.
So then, snorkeling. It’s pretty magical. One second, we’re fumbling with the masks and flippers at the water’s edge among a bunch of other Americans in swimsuits like on any other beach. Then all of a sudden it’s like being dropped in the giant coral reef display at an aquarium. In the first ten minutes out there were coral, sea urchins, Moorish Idols, yellow tang and parrotfish. The high point was chasing a three-foot needlefish around its slow-paced routine.
Snorkeling is also terrifying. Just breathing with my face in the water took some convincing of myself, that’s a pretty deep reflex that needs to be overcome. I didn’t quite get used to hearing my own breathing resonating so loudly in my head. Also, getting tossed around by the surf so close to so many jagged rocks was unnerving. We swam all of a hundred fifty feet, but it was enough action for an afternoon. People who scuba dive: you are crazy. Humans have no business underwater. Still, I’m looking forward to doing some more admiring from the surface level.
I hit this blog searching for images of saffron finches. When I read “the most tourist-packed, overdeveloped strip of the Kona coast,” I nearly snorted my Kona microbrew. You make it sound like Virginia Beach. Even in the context of Hawaii, the Kona coast is hardly overdeveloped. Your descriptions of the market and hippies are likewise hyperbolic and tinged with a mixture of liberal guilt, cultural self-consciousness and racial insecurity I’ve found to be peculiarly endemic to a certain variety of East Coast cubicle-dweller. Locals here have an expression to describe you: “fresh off the boat”.
Just calling it like I see it.
Which proves once again the truth of the observation that while everyone has a right to an opinion, not everyone’s opinion is right.
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I hadn’t thought of the connection the coastline paradox. That’s funny. RIP Mandelbrot, I think about his work all the time.
not sure if you were knowingly referencing this, but some of mandelbrot’s earliest work in regards to fractals concerned itself with the ‘coastline paradox’: since coastlines are essentially fractal in nature, the question of how long a coastline is has no real answer, it all depends upon your level of measurement.
also, mandelbrot just passed away a few weeks ago, on october 14th.
It hadn’t occurred to me that you’re scuba diving below the level of the surf. Okay, maybe it’s not so crazy.
I feel the same way you do about the first moment of putting my face in the water.
And the same way you do about being tossed around by the surf while snorkeling. And I always end up choking on saltwater.
But diving is completely different – you just breathe, you just float, there’s no waves, and you’re surrounded by the ocean. It’s all the good parts of snorkeling with none of the annoyances.