Port 11 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Aloha!

We arrived at Kailua-Kona on Jan 20th. It was a choppy sea day – no fun to be tendering in to the dock. Challenging for even a nimble athlete to step in or out of the tender with it moving up and down 1 to 2 feet with the waves. It was really tough for the people with canes and walkers! Sunrise was muted, trying to crawl over the Big Island through the clouds.

A rooftop sign tells us we are really at Kailua-Kona!

Our tour today is to Volcanoes National Park, with a few other stops on the way. Our tour guide and driver is Adam. We headed south along the western coastline. At times the road was fairly high above the ocean, and gave us some breathtaking views such as this.

Our first stop is a coffee farm to see how Kona coffee is produced. This turns out to be Adam’s (the tour guide) company.

He sundries the coffee beans in this structure – you would think he has a much larger coffee operation than he has beans!

This beautiful guy showed up a few times. The colors are stunning! Here he’s hanging out on the lip of a coffee bean sorter that was on display.

Our next tour stop is St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church, better known as the Painted Church.  This is the “Sistine Chapel” of Hawaii. But we were warned that the artist was not Michelangelo.  ;0)

The front is beautifully treated.

The interior is where this church earns its name! There are biblical panels on the sides between the windows, but I didn’t capture those well due to backlighting. Michelangelo, no, but a beautiful design and lovely to see!

The next stop was a favorite of the tour guide, and is the southernmost bakery in the United States! They have donuts without holes, and are known as malasada – Portuguese for “poorly cooked” since they don’t have holes. The Lilikoi are passion fruit-iced and delicious!

From the bakery we continued on the southern shore to find the revered green sea turtle nesting grounds. These are a few of the coastal shots along the way. It is desolate and beautiful!

The dock in this picture was destroyed in a tsunami and never rebuilt.

Finally we see the green sea turtles. Six of them were resting on this dreary rainy day. The black sand beach is beautiful!

Our final stop, and the one we wanted most, is to the Volcanoes National Park. We hoped this tour would take us to a viewing point of the current lava flows, but, alas, that was not to be.  Instead, we went to the “safe” part of the park and to a lava flow that occurred over 150 years ago! The 1868 flow came from Mauna Loa went to the southwest side of the island.

We are taught that there are two types of lava:

The ‘a’a (ah-ah) lava forms sharp, chucky lava, as seen on the right.

The pahoehoe (paw-hoey-hoey) lava forms smooth sheets, as seen on the left.

The pahoehoe lava can be seen to have formed sheets several inches thick with air pockets underneath. The ground cracks and heaves as the underneath cools.

It takes up to 100 years for vegetation to start growing.  The ohi’a lehua tree is uniquely suited as it is hardy, can drive its roots deep, and can close its pores to toxic vapors.

Tread carefully. You never know where the lava will take you.

The landscape is stunning with the tortured flows, and rolling pahoehoe sheets.

The park trail is marked by stacked stones. Follow the stacks, for an obvious path in the laval flow may be going the wrong way. Can you spot the second stack in this picture?  How about the third?  Just kidding – there are only two stacks.

The ohi’a lehua trees that grow in this environment have an ancient tale.  As legend has it, Ohi’a was very handsome man who was loved by the goddess Pele. Howver, Ohi’a only had eyes for Lehua.  In a fit of rage, Pele transformed Ohi’a into this ugly, twisted tree. Lehua tried to get Pele to change him back, but Pele refused. Lehua asked the other gods to intervene. They agreed to make Lehua into a beautiful red flower that adorns the ohi’a lehue tree. This allows the lovers to always be together.

The clouds drop lower and lower, and rain begins to settle in. I’m glad we’re headed back to the ship!

As we sail away, the clouds thicken. This shelf cloud dropped, but didn’t do anything else dramatic.

Farewell, Hawaii! We’re on our way to the Marquesas islands! Next stop, Nuku Hiva!