Sabbatical 2002-2003

Hawai'i

There should be a word for the delight experienced on returning to Hawai’i. In Hawaiian perhaps hau’oli would do, but it gets overused a bit. Maybe that’s what Keali’i Reichel was getting at with the title track of Kawaipunahele (something like sacred, special place I think). Anyway, it is great to be back.

Kona sunset	Palm trees!

The downside is that I am supposed to be on a sabbatical and it is as easy to be disciplined about writing here as it is to diet.

Today is Sunday, my birthday, so I took the day off and went snorkelling with Marijke in the harbour at Kailua, watched a turtle struggling to feed on the harbour wall, had a cup of coffee and watched humpback whales swim by. It’s warm, it’s sunny and it’s beautiful – just another day in paradise.

Kona Coast	Peter watching sunset

According to Yahoo, I share my 52nd birthday with Rush Limbaugh and Kirstie Alley. Just as well I don’t believe in astrology…

This is our seventh trip to the Hawaiian Islands and we have spent about a year here in total, so it is nice to make new discoveries. On this trip, one of the new places we found was the historical village of Holualoa. It is about 8 kilometers or 5 miles mauka (inland) from Kailua-Kona. If you are interested in the history of Hawai'i over the past hundred years or so, this village on the Kona Heritage Corridor is worth visiting. The Kona Historical Society has put together an attractive brochure and book about the area.

The surf has been a lot higher than usual for the first three weeks we have been here. It is very dramatic and good for surfers (which we're not), but not so good for divers (which we are). The shore entries for dive sites are either difficult or impossible and the visibility is low. It must be very frustrating for those people who came here for a couple of weeks of diving. It makes it exciting going for a drink at Huggos On The Rocks, the oceanside bar. You have to keep one eye on the ocean in case the next wave is high enough to dilute your beer.

I can't remember the exact date, but somewhere about this time we visited Makahiki coffee farm, owned by Jonathan and Nancy Sechrist. We got some of their 100% Kona coffee - it's a delicious gourmet coffee.

16th February - Marijke has joined an evening class to learn about native Hawaiian plants. She likes it a lot and it adds to her enjoyment of being here. Yesterday, the teacher organised a trip to an upcountry wet forest and I got invited along. Before we went in, a Hawaiian student and her non-Hawaiian friend asked to perform a Hawaiian chant, "... to ask permission of the spirit of the forest before we go in." "We'll wait for a reply from the forest before we enter." A brief breeze was taken as a sign of approval from the forest. For me, one of the weird things about this was the way the other students (all non-Hawaiian locals, as far as I can tell), bowed their heads and closed their eyes as though some kind of religious ceremony was taking place. It got me wondering if Hawaiian culture, as it is developing and attracting more interest, is inevitably tied in with animistic beliefs about everything containing a 'spirit' or minor deity. Lots of people here talk about Pele, the traditional goddess of volcanos, as though she were real. Marijke and I disagree about this. She liked the idea behind the chants and sees it as reflecting an equally valid viewpoint to 'western rationalism.' I, on the other hand, see it as credulous superstition. I tried to imagine if something like this would happen in the parts of the South Pacific that I know about. I think probably not. If there were any kind of ceremony, it would be a Christian prayer. My guess is that other pacific islanders would be a bit uncomfortable about this Hawaiian viewpoint - perhaps seeing it as a return to paganism, or something similar. I would be interested to hear other people's views.

8th March - The 8th Annual Kona Brewers Festival. We went with friends (waves to Jan, Priscilla, Tom and Gina) and enjoyed the festival very much. There were many good beers on offer. I like 'hoppy', fairly bitter beers and my favourites were from the Wild Duck Brewery in Oregon and Callico. Sorry, I don't know where they come from. Kudos also to Manuka Farms Cocoa Outlet for their chocolate fountain. This was not a day for dieters.

9th March - The volcano is stunning today. We have visited a few times and it is always impressive, but today was something special. We read about the lava flows over the Chain of Craters Road and wondered if we could get near them because the road was closed for a time recently. We arrived at dusk and watched Humpback Whales surfacing as we walked along the road past the Ranger station. Once we got onto the hardened lava that solidified two weeks ago, there was a line of markers to follow to the current flow. We noticed that, if we stopped, we could feel the heat coming up through our shoes. Then we reached the place where lava from the Pu'u O'o vent was flowing and gathering. It is an incredible sight. If I can get iMovie (video editing software) to behave I'll post a clip of the video I took. You'll have to imagine the sulphurous smell and the wall of heat as you get closer to it though. If you get a chance to go it is worth going, although what you see varies from hour to hour. It is more spectacular at night and you will need good, thick-soled shoes, long trousers and gloves (rangers say that the commonest injuries are cuts and scratches to legs and hands), lots of water and a light if you go late afternoon or evening. The light is really needed - we saw people scrambling around in the dark without them, trying to get close to the lava to get good pictures and slipping on the uneven surface.

Marijke took this picture a meter away from the lava flow

11th March - In today's local newspaper we read about a French visitor to the volcano yesterday who went to the same place we were. He slipped and went into a lava flow and is now in serious condition in hospital. We hope he recovers and also hope that visitors prepare properly for the challenging conditions.

Today we went back and walked the Kilauea Iki trail. It is very impressive, both for the caldera and its clouds of sulphurous steam. The area is also worth visiting for the wildlife. In the most developed parts of the Big Island (where all the visitors go) you will be lucky to find any indigenous plants or animals left, but here they are plentiful. We also visited the Thurston Lava Tube. If you take a light, you can also explore an extension to the tube that is unlit. It has been a great day.

I can now tell you a bit about one of the places in Hawai'i that visitors rarely see - the Kona Community Hospital. Recently I had severe abdominal pains and took the trip to Kealakekua, the village to the south of Kailua-Kona where the hospital is located. I arrived at about 10.00am. About four hours later, after a few tests, I was wheeled into the OR and they removed my appendix. I take a grim satisfaction from surgery staff's description of it as really rotten and that it could have perforated at any time. Several members of the hospital staff enjoyed telling me that people can still die from that.

The staff were very kind. I think they feel sorry for visitors to Hawai'i who fall ill and so treat them particularly well. Anyway, they were very nice to me. I was most impressed by the staff's treating me with obvious respect. With only a few exceptions, I was not used to this from my experience of healthcare in Fiji or the United Kingdom.

The day after the operation, the surgeon came to see how I was doing. After a check up he said that I could go home that evening, so I got back to our apartment at 8.00pm last night. At the time of writing this I am on the lanai (balcony) of the apartment, enjoying the fine weather and being pampered by Marijke. The recovery process seems to be going well and I go back to outpatients in a week to have the staples removed. As far as I know, it will all be paid for by the travel insurance I took out with a UK company called PHA. I found it on the Internet after I discovered that the only insurance available in Fiji did not provide much cover and I knew that any kind of medical treatment in the USA would be expensive. I am glad I did or I would now be selling my possessions to pay for the operation.

I am not supposed to lift anything for a while, but my body is quick to remind me if I overdo things. Also, coughing, sneezing and laughing are not in the least bit funny at the moment, so Jay Leno's 'Headlines' are forbidden viewing for a while (because I laugh, thus getting beer up my nose, which induces a coughing and sneezing fit).

I hope the rest of my time in Hawaii is a little less exciting.

The enforced rest means that I have to do the things normal people do, like sit quietly by the pool. This allowed me to watch the following interaction this morning: a middle aged lady with her ankle strapped up, walked carefully around the pool accompanied by her elderly mother. Mother was carrying cushions and a bag of ice. The lady sat down and put her injured leg up on another chair. "This is comfortable," she said, "I won't need those cushions." Her mother picked up her ankle and, ignoring the wince and protestations from her daughter, put the cushions under her ankle. "There, that feels better, doesn't it" she said with the air of someone for whom the answer "No" is not an option. Her daughter holds the record for the number of times she managed to say, "I'm fine mom," in a five-minute period.

11th April - Kind friends Kathy and Lloyd invited us for a day's fishing on their boat with regular fishing buddies Bob and Mae. They are all experts, whereas Marijke and I have never fished before. Our main aim was not to get in the way. This was serious fishing - as soon as the boat got out of Honokohau Harbour, everyone worked efficiently to get 6 lines out with exotic lures on the lines. For a couple of hours nothing was biting. The main activity was taking in lines, changing the lures for something even more exotic and letting them out again. Then we saw a group of boats a couple of miles south and when we got there we saw they were hauling in fish. Soon after we got our first 'hit.' They let me haul it in and it turned out to be an Ahi (Yellowfin Tuna). Marijke also reeled in an Ahi.

This was exciting enough, but we also found the boat surrounded by a large pod of Spinner Dolphins, riding the boat's bow wave and leaping out of the water. And then, as we were heading back to harbour, we saw two Humpback Whales. Each of them breached completely out of the water - it was an awesome sight. Mahalos to everyone on the boat for a wonderful day. And the fish was delicious.

13th April - What a great trip! Priscilla and Tom took us up Mauna Kea to the Onizuka Visitor Center. There's an observatory at the summit but you can't look through the telescopes there - they're not that kind of telescope. You can, however, freeze AND see what it's like to breathe thin air. Whereas the people who staff the Onizuka Center at 9,000 feet do have telescopes you can look through and who will tell you all about what you are looking at, the general theory of relativity and hilarious jokes about which is the brightest star in the sky (clue - it's not Sirius). Almost as amazing as looking at Saturn was the colour of the sky as we drove above the clouds about half way up the mountain. These are colours that you will only see if you drive up Mauna Kea. We also knew exactly how high we were because both of us guys had devices that measured elevation. The women did not understand why this was important. Tom also had a pocket-sized device for measuring wind speed. I have to have one. Marijke dug me in the ribs as I wrote this and said that she likes gadgets too - she just doesn't want to own as many as me.

PS You cannot do this trip in most rental cars - it's written in the contract. But there are tours that go up there.

15th April - The night Manta Ray dive off Kona is one of the world's great dives! Marijke and I have been fortunate enough to dive in some great places, including Shark Fin Reef in Beqa Lagoon, Fiji. This Manta dive is right up there with the best. It was still light when the dive boat moored in the small cove just north of the Natural Energy Lab. We had already seen a large pod of Spinner dolphins leaping around the boat and Humpback whales breaching, before we even got there. We did one dive before sunset and saw three Mantas near the surface, silhouetted against the sun. After it got dark we went in again and settled on the black sand bottom, pointing our lights upwards. This attracted plankton to the light and then the Mantas came in for the plankton. It was truly awesome to see a group of these huge fish - the largest had a wing span of about 5 metres or 16 feet - swirling backwards and forwards over us. Sometimes they brushed against our heads as they came from behind. Other times they seemed to be coming straight for us, only to veer away at the last moment. It was a beautiful and unforgettable experience.

Spectacular Night Dive with Mantas

16th April - I really liked the music of Hapa - I have all their albums and regretted not being able to see them live before they split. However, they both carried on playing and this evening Marijke and I went to see Barry Flanagan, with his new partner Eddie Cruz Jr, in a free concert at Keauhou. They were really good - they played some Hapa numbers, some from Eddie Cruz' repetoire and some new pieces. Those guys can really play and they created a good atmosphere too - go see them if you get a chance.

25th April - We went down to the Green Sand Beach, near Ka Lae (South Point) in the Ka'u district, with Priscilla and Leona. To get there involves a walk along the shore, from the small boat launch near the end of the road, of just over 4km (just over 2 miles). The seas here are dramatic. The waves may not be quite as high as on the north shores in winter, but the constant winds and strong currents make these some of the most difficult waters to navigate. The Green Sand Beach itself is in a more protected bay where you can swim (but never turn your back on the ocean). The beach is olive green and the water is clear blue. It is beautiful and well worth a visit. Make sure you have plenty of water and sun screen with you. Cover up if you are light skinned.

Before driving back north we stopped off at Ka Lae itself. There are sheer cliffs here, dropping down to deep, clear water. People jump off the cliffs and climb back up ladders to do it again. A few hundred metres from shore there are black balloons hovering just above the water. The local fishermen call these 'black sail boats.' They are there to carry the ends of their fishing lines out into the deeper water where the bigger fish are.

26th April - With only three days left, we headed north, stopping first at Kaloko-Honokohau National Park, where Marijke's group planted some indigenous Hawaiian plants as part of a project to replace alien invasive species. Marijke needed to take some pictures for a talk on restoration she has been asked to do when we get back to Fiji. We stopped off in Kawaihae for lunch and then went on to the Kohala Book Store in Kapa'au - they have a very good collection of Hawaiiana and science fiction, amongst other things. I don't have enough space in my case, but I bought a couple of books anyway. Finally we went on to the end of the highway and then walked down the trail to the black (actually more like grey) sand beach at Popolo. The sand here is very fine - this end of the island is much older than the south and the black sand beach at Punalu'u, so erosion has had longer to work. All you can hear are the wind and the waves. This is an area that we want to explore the next time we come back to Hawai'i, but we don't have the time or equipment with us to do it today.

Before we came, we had the idea that, because we would be spending longer here than in any previous visit, we would not miss it so much when we leave. Now we know that isn't true. We are already thinking about how and when we can come back again.

4th May - Back in Fiji. We want to say mahalo nui loa to everyone who helped make our time in Hawaii so memorable and enjoyable. We had a wonderful time and experiences that we will never forget. We will be back - we don't know when or how yet, but we will be back.

Things to like about Kailua-Kona:

»	Beaches - a wonderful variety of white, green and black sand beaches
»	The weather - comfortably warm with lots of sunshine all year round. And if you get bored with this, other options are just a short drive away. You can even ski in winter.
»	The scenery - beautiful mountain views, stunning surf and shoreline, stark volcano fields interspersed with lush, tropical vegetation.
»	The scuba diving & snorkelling - clear, warm water with plenty of fish you won't find elsewhere and lots of dive organisations competing for your business. The shore diving is good too. The wild life may not be as plentiful as places like Fiji or Papua New Guinea, but it is pleasant and interesting diving nonetheless.
»	Humpback Whales - they arrive in Hawaiian waters around the end of November and stay until around April, when they return to their feeding grounds in the northern Pacific.
»	Kona Brewhouse - a microbrewery that makes a variety of tasty beers, which you can drink in the bar or beer garden, with decent food.
»	West Hawaii Today - the daily newspaper that includes the Dave Barry column AND Shoe - essential reading. The classified ads and supermarket offers are also worth reading.
»	Sunsets - it's not just that there are often beautiful sunsets here, but lots of people take the time to watch them. People stop what they are doing, shopkeepers step outside for a few minutes, people sit on the sea wall on Ali'i Drive and watch the sun go down.
»	Huggos on the Rocks and Beachcombers - nice places with great views.

Over the years we've read a lot of guide books to Hawaii. Most are fine, but Jerry and Janine Sprout's Trailblazer guide to the Big Island is our favourite. It covers the usual resort and tourist areas, but also includes places most tourists never get to. If you have visited Hawaii as often as we have, that is a big plus. It includes clear and concise driving directions, and trail descriptions. The book includes: * 142 hikes and strolls through mountains, valleys, beaches, rain forests, tropical gardens, waterfalls, petroglyph (traditional stone carvings) fields, the Kona and the windward shores. * 71 snorkeling and swimming spots. * 39 surfing spots. * 24 bike trails through mountain, coastal, forest and grassy terrains. * 25 campgrounds and simple cabin locations. * 9 maps. * Over 200 photographs. The guide also includes sections on Hawaiian culture and history; museums; a 'Kids Only' section; tours of the Parker Ranch and the Kohala Coast, Hilo and the Heritage Coast, and Kona coffee country; and safety tips and trip-planning advice.

Notes for travellers:

Okay, you have arrived in Honolulu after the last inter-island flight, so you can't get to Maui or wherever until the next morning. You are not rich. What do you do? I suggest you give thought to the Shower Tree hotel on Nimitz. The rooms are unbelievably tiny, but they are clean, it's inexpensive and very close to the airport.

It's important to us to have Internet connections wherever we go. Turquoise and Interlink Hawaii in Kona not only provide connectivity here, but they can provide roaming access in many other countries too. AOL and Earthlink have local dialup numbers, but Juno doesn't.

It is possible to get around on the Big Island by bus, but they are not well advertised. For example, the Hele On bus runs on weekdays between Hilo and Kailua-Kona and beyond. The fare is $5.25. You can find the schedule for that and other services at http://www.hiohwy.com/h/helonbus.htm There is also the Ali'i Shuttle that runs several times a day between Keauhou and Kailua-Kona.

Try to avoid driving in the Kona area between about 3.30pm and 5.30pm - the traffic is bad and getting worse. If you are driving south into Kailua you are going to find a jam going back to the Honokohau turn off. On a bad day it goes back to the airport turn off. You also need to allow about 15 minutes just to get through the Henry - Kuakini traffic lights. Or you could rent a bike. We bought cheap bikes from WalMart and sold them before we left.

We prefer low-cost, self-catering accommodation. On this trip we are staying at the Islander Inn in Kailua village - good value and well looked after. If you prefer the cooler temperatures up-country then try Kona Mountain Sanctuary near Honaunau. It is worth remembering that there are very few mosquitoes near the sea, but numbers increase rapidly as you travel inland.

Visitors can join the public library in Kailua for $10. It's worth doing because they have a good collection of books, CDs and videos about Hawaii's plants, animals, culture, language, music, volcano etc. It's on Hualalai Street near the junction with Kuakini Highway. They also get all the local newspapers for those people too cheap to pay $0.50 for West Hawaii Today.