I am sorry that this one is long. I should have divided it into two.
Our third place of stay was on the west, dry, side of Hawaii at Kailua Kona. This was the view from our hotel room. I will say that we didn't spend a lot of time at the hotel though.
This is Kealakekua Bay, the bay into which Captain Cook sailed and anchored January 17, 1779. It was the first major western contact with the native people. I am standing on the shore where there was a Hawaiian village of around two thousand people.. There is a monument for his landing on the opposite side, at the left end of the hill. The marker is shown in the next picture. You can only reach it today by boat or a very long hike.
This is a Hikiau Heiau or Sacred Temple, where I am standing, that was built by the natives. This is a large platform as can be seen in the second picture.
There are numerous other rock walls in the area also.
Today there are very few native Hawaiians left. With the entrance of the western world also came the diseases which eventually killed over half of the native populations. Then, as people from other countries came to work the sugar cane fields, etc. the natives intermarried.
I was surprised that on Oahu there is a very high population with oriental ancestry. This also has influenced many of the restaurants there. On Hawaii one sees more of the Hawaiian influence.
I just took this picture because this is a very knotty tree.
I followed these birds around for awhile until I finally got this picture. We saw several like these on this side of the island.
This next picture shows the thickness of a wall that was built, without mortar, around the land side of Pu'uhonua or Place of Refuge, located on Kauhoko Bay further south on the west coast. The wall is 12 feet tall, 18 feet wide, and over 950 feet long. It defines the sacred space. They figure it is over 400 year old. On the land side of this wall was Royal Grounds where Ali'i would come with his advisors and priests, staying for several months. They would hold ceremonies and host gatherings; maybe engaging in negotiating war or peace in the shade of thatched shelters.
Priests consulted with the Ali'i on matters of spirituality, and conducted rituals here, at Hale o Keawe (seen below), and in the Place of Refuge. This heiqu was a royal mausoleum housing the bones of 23 ali'i, including Kamehameha's (the ruler who united the islands) great-grandfather. The bones gave the heiau immense mana. It is still revered by Hawaiians and sometimes offerings are left on the lele or tower. The wooden images are ki'i representing Hawaiian gods.
During times of war, this also served another role--as sanctuary for children, elders, and other noncombatants. Defeated warriors could also seek safety in the refuge. When the battle ended they were free to return home and resume their lives regardless of the battle's outcome. Kapu ended in 1819 and thus the need for a place of refuge.
Learning about this made me think of the Cities of Refuge, mentioned in the old testament, in which a man who accidentally committed homicide could take refuge from the avenger of blood.
In this area were also the impressions of trees in the lava. The moisture in the tree caused the lava to harden before it burned. My pictures didn't show them very well.
At times there are park cultural festivals here, showing the Hawaiian culture. This is an old canoe. It is made with stone tools and lashed together. Even patches were done with lashing.
This guy was trying to blend in. Note the smiley face on his back.
Some of their tools.
After exploring south of Kailua Kona we went north. We should have stopped in at Akaka falls when we left Hilo as we drove almost all the way back to see it.
You can see that from this 442 food drop and hitting rocks on the way down, it is mostly spray at the bottom. There is a native goby fish, with suction cups on it's body, and a type of shrimp which climb up this falls to spawn.
Walking in to see the falls we also saw many different trees and types of palms. These are a type of banana but maybe most interesting was the glob at the end as seen in the second picture.
This picture shows the glob when it is blooming and upright. So I guess there is no season but they form all the time.
We also saw first a brown dried one of these and then this one hanging in a palm tree. No idea it's kind, but it was pretty and about a foot or more long.
From the falls we drove back up north. This is looking out on the north west shore.
We proceeded on to Waipio Valley. This is where the valley enters the ocean.
Tsunamis have hit this area and really done some damage. There are farms down in this valley. This was the home of taro farms and of royalty. There is a paved 4 wheel drive road down into the valley. It drops 900 feet in about three fourths of a mile. It is very steep. We did hike down it to be able to see the falls back up the canyon.
This is 1,200 foot Hi'ilawe Falls. We probably could have gotten a little closer but it is on private property so you can't go into it. We also started to go out to the beach but ran into lots of mud puddles across the road so stopped. It was a good hike out and my calves were sore the next day.
There were lots of bushes and trees blooming at the top. We say these "bells" in many places.
We say lots of hibiscus plants all over the islands. Most were yellow. These were the only peach colored ones that we saw. The plant was at least ten or more feet tall.
One of the things we heard about was the Atlantis sub. We decided to take a ride on it. It had a row of seats facing portholes on each side. People sat back to back. It was not full when we went so it was easy to look behind and out the other side also. That is the captain at the front bubble. You will note a blue area above him outside the window. That is the top of the sub which overhangs where we are.
Since we did not have artificial light, the water density blocks color. The deeper, the more colors lost. So the fish and things we say appeared more blue.
I am not exactly sure the kinds of fish we saw but this is my best on trying to identify them from the brochure we got.
Pink Durgon
Butterfly Fish, they are yellow which showed the best.
Yellow Stripe Goatfish
More butterfly fish
Dascyllus fish school
School of Blue Stripe Snappers
More Dascyllus fish and old tire
This Surgeon and its companions like to hang around the sub. One was riding the wave in front of the sub, under that overhang blue area, and could be seen just above the captain. Apparently, one always shows up to ride there as the captain and tour guide can identify it and have even given it a name.
There is a sailboat that caught fire and sunk in the bay. It is down 110 feet. It is in the pictures below.
There is a Moray Eel in this picture. Can you spot its head?
Its head is right above here ^ Its mouth is open and it is about half way up the picture, just down from the open end of the tube at the top of the picture.
Don't know what this is. Maybe Bryan can help out.
What is left of the sail boat
A giant snail on the bottom.
If you really want to see how pretty these fish are, look them up on Google. Some are really beautiful but their color is lost at this depth.
Back on the transfer boat with crew waving goodbye.
This is the Kailua Kona shore line. This is in the afternoon and the clouds have moved in on the mountain. This happened most afternoons that we were there. It would rain further up the hill but most of the time the sun shone down by the water.
The Kona temple spire. We went there in the evening. Beautiful temple and grounds with lots of orchids blooming.
Just another surfer that we saw up the northern western coast. The waves weren't that great.
Again, this was how many of the beaches looked on the Big Island, lots of lava rocks.
However, this coast also had lots of dead coral washed up. Some were fairly large but most were small like this.
We also came across this lava cave on our way in.
The area is an old smooth lava flow. It has been here for as long as anyone knows. There is no knowledge of what the figures represent. You can see the size of the area here, looking up and down the length.
These drill holes were at an edge. The surface is lighter colored than what is beneath. Maybe they mixed paint in these holes?
Some looked like they were in fighting stance such as these next two.
And then there were strange ones like the one with the oval.
Some had multiple legs or arms and not a head. Looks like it could be a giraffe next to it.
Others had another connected below, similar to this, maybe a family record?
There were some of these that I thought might represent an outrigger canoe, but who knows?
The whole area was very dense with pictures which you can see in these next two. The second also has some circles with things around them.
The real wonder, as another woman who was there said, is that they haven't been covered by more lava. Hope there is some recording of these so that if that happens they will have it for the future, when maybe they can figure out what it means or what was recorded here.
We went to the northern area of the island to Kapaau. Located here is the original casting of King Kamehameha I. It went down with the boat it was being shipped on from Europe. It was insured so another was cast and shipped. In the mean time, a fisherman found this and it eventually ended up here, once the kings home. The second cast one is in Waikiki. The yellow feather robe and headdress were only worn by the King. It was made of feathers. Remember those yellow birds that I took a picture of?
On our way north we had stopped in at Samuel M. Spencer beach, (Shock shock, an English name.) So on our way back down we stopped in to go swimming, cool down, and relax. Besides, it was the only time that I got to see the sun set on the water. No Green Flash though.
The next day was our last on the island as we flew out in the evening. The evening before, when we went swimming, the historical park right next to it was closed. We went close to there, going back to the Hilo airport, so we stopped in.
A little history: Kamehameha I took control of western and northern Hawaii island in 1782, but for the eight years following, fought a number of inconclusive battles. After returning from Maui in 1790, he was attacked by his cousin who still controlled the East side of the island. He returned to the village where he has spent some time earlier. A respected priest suggested building a sacrificial temple to gain the favor of the war god.
The name of this one means Temple on the Hill of the Whale. It was built entirely by hand with no mortar, in less than a year being completed in the summer of 1791. It measured about 224 by 100 feet. The red stones were transported by a human chain about 14 miles long from a valley to the East. It involved thousands of people. The king also worked on it.
In 1790 the ship Fair American had been captured along with one surviving crew member, Isaac Davis. He and a stranded British sailor named John Young became important military advisors to King Kamehameha. It was Mr. Young who introduced the British cannon and British strategis thinking to the King's wartime arsenal.
Once the temple was completed, Kamehameha summoned his cousin Keōua Kuahuʻula
with the ruse of a peace treaty. It is not clear why Keōua accepted the
invitation. Perhaps he was surrendering to fate, discouraged by losing many of
his warriors in the Battle of Hilo and subsequent volcanic eruption of
1790. One story told is that Keōua secretly mutilated himself in order to
defile the sacrifice.
As he stepped ashore, he and his party were captured and killed. With the
offering of the bodies the new temple was officially dedicated. The campaign to
unite all the islands continued with Maui in 1794, and Oʻahu in 1795.
The unification was completed when the king of the island of Kaua'i became a
vassal to Kamehameha I in 1810 making him the first king of a unified Hawai'i.
There were two earlier and much smaller temples built in this area. This is the second one which sits below the last or third one.
Here you can see the second and third temple. The first temple's remains were last seen in the 1950s at low tide, just off the shoreline. It is said to have been dedicated to the Blacktip reef sharks who are often seen in nearby Pelekane Bay. There were signs down by the water here saying no wading or swimming due to blackfin sharks. That is right next to where we were swimming the evening before. And B did go out beyond the reef on that end closest to this bay. Do sharks only swim in certain bays?
After getting back to Hilo we had many hours to kill so we went down to the beach where we had gone before and ate lunch. It is rocky. There are green turtles who come to eat the moss on the rocks, we had not seen any earlier, and we hoped maybe we would see one now.. All we say this time were the flippers of one but non came ashore.
Things I didn't take pictures of were the variety of fruit we had picked up, already sliced, to eat one day. It was beautiful just to look at. I didn't take pictures of the friendly people who live there, who gave us directions, who gave us a ride to church and handed out yarn lei's to all the visitors, then insisted on giving us a ride back to the door of the hotel. Neither are there pictures of how patient and non hurried the drivers are there. "Hey, you can travel to anyplace on the island in a day, so what is the hurry?" I also didn't get pictures of the many many cinder cones that can be found all over, especially on the northern part of the island in the Waimea area. That is a beautiful area where many cattle are raised. It is very green as it is along the base of the Hohala mountains and at a higher elevation, thus lots of rain. (Just think, there was a trail that went the circumference of the island that the Hawaiians traveled by foot.)
I didn't tell of us picking up a pronouncing guide book so that we could sort of say the names of places. Having non familiar names made it had to navigate, but we did do better by the end.
As we set in the open sided airport check in counter area, we were joined by another very nice couple who were traveling back to Maryland. It was several hours until flight time. We each thought that we could check our bags and then do something else for awhile. (We found out they don't open check in until about 45 minutes before flight time. So we had a very good visit and shared the things we saw and did. The question we asked each other was, "What was your favorite part of the trip?" Non of us could come up with an answer. Each part was special in its own way.
We were sad to leave but ready to return home. If I ever get the chance to return, it will be to Maui. But until that time 'OHANA ALOHA (family goodbye).
