Hawaii: Honaunau snorkeling & Lava beach (Day 7)

Our 7th day in Hawaii, we went to a second snorkeling spot on the Big Island. It was a recommendation from the owner of the coffee estate where we were staying. The name of the spot was Pu'uhonua O Honaunau, but it's also known as "City of Refuge" because it was a place where societal outcasts found solace.

This became my favorite spot to snorkel because there was probably 1/4 mile of bright coral at a depth of 10-50 feet, starting immediately at the shoreline. We snorkeled here 3 mornings in a row. Unfortunately the GoPro camera didn't capture the in-person brightness of the coral underwater. This video shows me cruising out to a spot where it dropped off very deep. If I'd kept traveling more to the left, there was no drop off and the coral and fish just kept going. As you can see, snorkeling here feels like you're flying over an underwater forest:

They even had what looked like a mess of cinder blocks from an old structure, but was actually an underwater message that spelled "aloha". You can see the "A" in the first picture below, and then the entire word "aloha" in the background of the second picture:

While at this location (which we just called "honaunau", pronounced "hoh-now-now"), I caught this sea turtle swimming up near the surface and then diving down to eat vegetation from the bottom. This was my favorite video that I shot for our entire time in Hawaii:

Later that day, we tried out some other beaches along the western coast of the Big Island. We tried Makalawena beach (which we now refer to as "the lava beach"). The road immediately off of the highway turned into this:

For 5-7 minutes of driving, there was about as much off-roading that you'd want to do in a rental car when you didn't buy full coverage. Once we reached the parking area, we walked 5 minutes to get to Mahailua Bay. We followed the trail below to get to another beach at Puu Alii Bay:

See that cluster of trees way off in the distance? Alisha had read online that the trees out at the end of this trail marked a secluded beach with clear water. It sounded like it was one of the better beaches on the island. The unfortunate thing was that we walked 20 minutes across this lava field and then found a "Private Property" sign posted where the trees started. We tried walking around an alternate path and peered to the beach area, but it didn't seem worth the rest of the walk, so we just came back. It was about 40 minutes of walking across "hot lava" (okay, mostly just warm) but it ended up with a fun story of failure. You can see the road and trail we took using google maps by clicking here.

We went up the highway a little bit to preview the beach where we'd spend our last day in Hawaii. Then we drove back, hit a rainstorm, and then had dinner at Bubba Gump's with the ocean crashing beside us.

Hawaii: Kahaluu snorkeling (Day 6)

On the Big Island, our first snorkeling was at Kahaluu Beach Park. The snorkeling was good and we saw another turtle, but we hadn't yet rented fins. We borrowed fins from the coffee estate, but they were flimsy and didn't work well, which made snorkeling a chore. Luckily we saw this sea turtle right near the shore:

We also saw some other colorful fish.

It was a good snorkeling spot, but nothing in comparison to the snorkeling spot we went to next, which I'll post later ...

Sniffing a Slim Fast

For those who aren't familiar, I work at Hewlett-Packard. I started working here in June of 2003, and since then have put over 11 years under my career belt. Some of you reading this may have children who are 10-11 years old. When I showed up for my first day of work, this unopened can of Slim Fast was there (note the expiration date on the bottom):

I kept working at HP and the can kept staying in the refrigerator. Each fridge at HP has a sign on it that says it will be cleaned out every Friday, but that never happens. This can has remained in the work fridge since it went bad in mid-2002. Through power shutdowns, layoffs, hiring swells, and late night debug sessions this can remained. During the tenure this can spent in the refrigerator, HP cycled through 6 official and interim CEOs (Carly Fiorina, Bob Wayman, Mark Hurd, Cathie Lesjak, Leo Apotheker, Meg Whitman).

A few years ago, myself and two friends at work agreed that if any of us ever left HP under our own volition (ie: not layoffs) then the one leaving would need to open the can and sniff it. Today, one of the three (not me) had his last day at HP and he kept his word:

Surprisingly, there was no weird smell and the slim fast had barely curdled after 12+ years past the "best by" date. Think of that the next time you try going on a diet.

Hawaii: Kahaluu Beach & Volcano (Day 5-6)

We spent the 5th day of our vacation worshiping in the morning with the Hawaii congregation. Then in the afternoon, we headed back to the north shore for some last sight-seeing before our afternoon flight to the Big Island. We ended up mostly driving and looking from the car, since time was too short to do much else. We boarded our inter-island flight, grabbed burgers for dinner, and then drove to our next location to sleep.

On the morning of the 6th day, we got to look around and explore the South Kona Coffee resort. We spent the next 4 days of our trip here:

A welcome sign to show us where to park

When we arrived, our cabin had freshly picked apple bananas and a bag of their own coffee waiting for us. Each day we were welcome to pick papayas or macadamia nuts from the trees on the 7-acre estate. As with many parts of the Big Island, right next door to this lush estate was a hill that had been wiped clean by lava flow.

Coffee beans

Fresh macadamia nuts that haven't split open yet

Macadamia nuts after a few days. The hull splits open
to reveal the nut (which needs to be cracked) inside.

Our macadamia nut cracker

Freshly picked apple bananas

To our surprise, the macadamia nuts were ripening, which means they fall off of the tree and hit our roof or the deck with a loud pop in the middle of the night. We got used to it. Staying at the coffee estate was halfway between camping and hotel, because we had electrical power, a grill and burner, and running water but we lacked air conditioning and were on the constant lookout for all sorts of bugs.

A welcome sign on our cabin

Walkway from the cabin to the car

Cooking area, overshadowed by a banana tree with huge leaves

The geckos made a frequent appearance both sunning themselves on the deck and on the upper inside walls of our cabin. The last day we even let one gecko eat from a banana that had split open.

After we picked up some groceries, we headed off to Volcano National Park. The active volcano was the primary reason that we'd chosen to visit the Big Island, instead of others. Here are some of the things we saw while we were there:

A grassy field billowing smoke, which we saw from the car on the way there

An old volcano cavity

A road that was closed due to lava flow in 2003

The oil in the lava made it shine different colors.

Only "recent" lava (10-15 years old) seemed to do this.

Petroglyphs carved into an old lava field by natives

Walking through an old lava tube at night

Our view of the active volcano at night.

Hawaii: Hanauma Bay, Kaneana Cave, Manoa Valley Inn (Day 4)

On the 4th day of our vacation, we went to Hanauma Bay, which is the most popular snorkeling spot in Oahu. I was really looking forward to this, since snorkeling was big on my wish list for our trip and we'd heard that Hanauma Bay had lots of variety. We got there before the park opened at 7am, so parking and admission were free.

The water ended up being a little choppy the day we went, so the visibility was lower with more sand floating around. We saw some fish, but liked Shark's Cove better because it was clearer. On the good side, I stumbled upon a sea turtle and followed him around for a while near the reef:

Check out this video, which I was taking when I found him:

I also got some pictures and videos of other fish swimming around the bay:

The water was too choppy for Alisha, so she spent the morning protecting herself from the rays of the sun:

We went back and checked out of the condo, but we had several hours to kill before we could check into our next location. We decided to drive up the west side of Oahu to check out Waianae and Makaha. The water was blue and there were some nice looking beaches, but nothing that looked much different than other parts of the island.

What surprised us was when we drove past Kaneaha Cave, which we didn't know was there until we passed it. We looked inside and explored around a little. The cave only went back a few hundred feet, but the entrance was impressive:

We stopped by Leonard's bakery and snacked on malsadas, which were similar to (but not as good as) the beignets we'd had when we returned to UCSF:

That night we stayed at the Manoa Valley Inn in the Guild Master Suite. We'd previously stayed at the Powers Mansion Inn closer to home, and liked the inn feel. The Manoa Valley Inn is listed on the national register of historic places, had good reviews, and looked unique. Unfortunately, we felt a little like we were sleeping in an antique store. It was roomy, but not nearly as comfortable as the condo. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Our room was a suite with a sitting area and then a separate bedroom

We even had a stained-glass window looking from our room toward the inside of the house

One fun surprise is that the inn was also a location where scenes from LOST were shot. We didn't know that when we booked our room, but it was a fun discovery. Compare these TV show stills to the pictures above that we took when we were there.

Where we checked into the inn

Scene from the show

Our room looked out the bay window and flat window above the house entryway

Scene from the show

We got to relax a little by the pool before the mosquitoes made an appearance.

That night we ate burritos while sitting on a cliff that overlooked a bunch of surfers. We watched them surf until the sun went down and it was too dark to see, then went back and got ready to go to church the next morning.