1/16-1/21/2018 (the 2019 trip blog follows this one, scroll halfway down)

It has been roughly seven years since we took our last vacation. That one was to Hawaii also but on Maui, courtesy of M's parents. It was a fun trip so this time we decided to visit the Big Island. We found and booked a B&B online - Ka’awa Loa Plantation. There was no single room that was available for the whole stay, so we arranged to move between several. 4 in all, for 5 nights. Worked out fine. It being a short trip we packed a lot into it. Arriving a couple hours early due to being able to hop an earlier connecting flight in Honolulu, we picked up the rentacar and headed north to where I saw some cool waves from the plane.

Good way to start a vacation, especially condsidering we left 40F weather at home, having recently endures ice storms. I really like the contrast of black lava rocks, white coral sands and vegetation.

Also first encounter with 'wildlife' - in this case invasive. Feral cats. Still pretty cool to see. The setting is somehow movie-like.

Checking into the B&B and sitting on the deck after sundown, some indigenous wildlife - lizards. Cleverly adapted to hunt from LED strips that attact bugs.

For first day activities we decided to rent a boat. Yes, an entire boat all to ourselves, for 6 hours. Full freedom to do whatever which is much better than an organized trip. They provide snorkeling gear and GPS coordinates of mooring points where we can tie up. More on that later. The boat is really cool, a center console with a 115hp motor. It cruises.

The swells are up today and finding a calm spot to tie up is a challenge.

Finding and using the tie-up points proves even more of a challenge. A bit of history - in the late 80's the local diving companies were looking for ways to preserve coral agains dragging anchors of dive boats, while still providing access. The solution, endorsed by the state of Hawaii, was a set of submerged buoys, tied to anchoring structures at the bottom. The bouys are between 5-15 feet underwater depending on tide, and the bottom is 30-60 feet down in most of the spots. Jerry Garcia stepped up to pay for them at the time. Finding one is the first step. We failed totally the first time we tried, giving up to go on to Captain Cook Bay to snorkel individually (can't tie up or anchor there, so one person has to stay in the boat).

Heading back up we worked on and refined a method that eventually put us right on top of a buoy. M tried diving to it, and even got the line threaded through, but ran out of air and had to surface. Since the swell was pretty serious here we decided to head north. After a while we located another moorage point in better protected waters, and after several tries I finally tied us to it.

The tide was up by now and even with me fully vertical and flippers underwater the tie-off point was still some 4-5 feet away. I gave up a few times, growing progressively more frustrated, while M worked to keep the boat on the spot in the wind and waves. Then on the final attempt, the buoy still out of reach and me out of breath, I decided to just go the extra effort and get it done. Which I did. You can see the buoy and the lines in the picture below.

We got a couple hours of awesome snorkeling all by ourselves. Quite the experience. On the way back to the harbor we watched a submarine being towed in. Something to do the next time.

Afterwards, a nice sunset and I even spotted the legendary 'green flash'. The sun does turn green in the last 2-3 seconds it's visible. M missed it while looking at a whale.

The second full day we took in the view from the B&B porch, then headed south, to the southern-most point in all of the US.

A stop along the way at a black sand beach with an abandoned resort. There are actually quite a few abandoned things on the island, from buildings to cars. On arrival we parked, then M pointed out a coconut on the ground. I looked up and saw more on the tree. Then remembered that we didn't get CDW insuance on the car. Time to re-park.

The former resort itself is a bit surreal. Complete with a coned-off turtle on the beach.

From there, a treck to the green sand beach, reportedly one of only 4 in the world. The last 4 miles of road are supposedly 'rutted' so we decide to hike. I do make the mistake of not tightening my shoe laces until a couple miles in, and combined with not wearing socks it's something I will pay for later. Road doesn't look so bad at first.

Then yeah, I guess 'rutted' is a good description.

At the end of the hike, a reward. The beach is pretty amazing.

Standing at the top and looking at the climb down we thought of maybe just heading back now. But then it's a similar thing with diving for the tie-off buoy - we're here, might as well make the final push. Well worth it. Extremely refreshing to take a swim, and a t-shirt soaked in sea water was a great help on the hour-long hike back to the car.

Finishing the day on a white-sand beach just north of the airport, we cover three colors of sand in one day: black, green and white. The beach is among barren lava flow.

A monk seal joins us for this one, as well as some whales off in the distance. First time I saw one breach fully out of the water, coming down with a huge splash. Another sunset, no green flash this time.

Day three started with the breakfast being interrupted by a ballistic missile warning with everyone's cellphones going off. It took a while to sort it out but our basic reaction was - well, there is nothing we can do, nowhere we can hide, so if it's real we might as well go out on a high note, pour more coffee and enjoy the view. More likely though it's an error or a hack of some kind.

After confirming we're not getting nuked today we head north. It takes about 4 hours to drive all the way around the island, so you're never more than 2 hours away from anywhere. A stop at an ancient valley, then a site of a former sugar processing plant. Both were devastated by a tsunami in 1946.

Then we drove through Hilo with a brief stop. On to Volcanoes National park after that.

The volcanic activity is rather low now with only a couple small surface flows remaining from two months ago. Next time we come we'll try to time it better with what the volcano is doing because seeing flowing lava in the flesh is very much on my bucket list. Today this would involve an uncertain 9+ mile hike which due to earlier mentioned shoe condition I'm not up to. So instead we walk through the lava tube, drive down to the sea stopping at a few overlooks, then catch the glow of the lava from the crater after sundown. Still pretty amazing.

The final day was just kicking back and doing a whole lot of nothing. Perfect way to wind up a rare vacation experience. We've really enjoyed the Big Island, I have to say more so than Maui, and we'll be back. Quite a few things on the list still.

1/1-1/9/2019

A return to the Big Island a year later to do more exploring. It's in many ways an extension of the previous trip, so the blog continues here rather than its own page. Some items on the list were to take a heli ride, to swim with dolphins and Manta rays, and drive down into Waipio valley. The latter requires a Jeep, so we rented one.

First few days we stayed in the same B&B in Kona, then moved on to Hilo and vicinity. While still in Kona, found a place to rent kayaks near Cook Bay. Heading out to the ocean into the swells was a bit challenging, and we were treated to a family of humpback whales surfacing within 100 feet of us.

Didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately. The experience was both very cool and unnerving at the same time. It's about a half hour paddle to the bay where we got to snorkel. Some spinner dolphins were in the area and we got to swim with them. Watching them come up from the dark depths was quite amazing - will need to get an underwater capable camera next time.

The evening Manta ray swim was next. Somewhat different than what I expected. We booked a trip on one of the boats that do these 'trips', thinking it would be a ways out in the ocean. Instead, it's just a 2-minute ride to the entrance of the harbor where the lights are set up to attract the plankton, which in turn attracts the rays.

After learning the history of this it makes sense - the whole thing started when a nearby hotel began shining a spotlight into the ocean at night. The plankton came, then the rays. Then it became a regular tourist thing. We grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant towards the end of the trip to see it from the outside.

But basically the 'swimming' experience consists of a bunch of people hanging on to floats, masks and snorkels on, with feet supported by pool 'noodles'. The arrangement resembles a weird human centipede (literally, since 50 humans equal 100 legs). The rays come up from below and swim by, just inches away. They are really cool to see despite the whole thing being very staged.

Then on to Hilo, and a heli ride over the new lava fields.

The eruption that started 6 months ago is now over. Would have been awesome to see but we couldn't make the trip then. Seeing flowing lava is still on the bucket list, so I'll just have to find another active volcano to visit.

Another interesting spot was the botanical gardens - unsurprisingly, tropical plants do well here.

The road down into Waipio valley is challenging, it's easy to see why only 4WD vehicles with low gear are allowed. Yes, it is of course technically possible to drive a regular car down but they don't want tourists getting stuck and blocking the road. The valley itself is a cool place. It was wiped out by a tsunami in 1946 and is now populated by a mix of native residents and squatters, from what I read.

Next airbnb is a set of cabins and has geothermal-fed soaking tubs. There is steam coming out of the ground in many places.

New temporary roads have already been cut into the cooled-off lava flows. It's impressive to see nature's power. We saw the extent of it from the air earlier, it's a different perspective from the ground.

Final night stay at a big resort in Kona, just to see what that's like. All I can say about that is that I'm glad we didn't waste the entire trip this way :) It looks ok in pictures but the reality is eh. At least compared to what else is available nearby.

After this second trip to the Big Island we're ready to check out the others next. Underwater camera would be cool for some of the snorkeling.