Kona! – Part two of our Anniversary Trip to BI
ho’omaha: = to rest, take a vacation
Mauna Kea
On our way to the west side of Hawai’i, we stopped at Mauna Kea to do some star gazing. We didn’t have the right car to go to the top where the international observatories are, and there was some cloud cover, but we still had an amazing time waiting for the sun to disappear beneath the clouds. And we finally had a valid reason to wear the jeans and jacket we brought when we moved.
Kona Town
We stayed at an airbnb in Kona, which had a nice view of the coast and was close to lots of bars and restaurants, including Huggo’s on the Rocks, which had a GREAT happy hour. I wish O’ahu had happy hours as cheap as Kona seemed to have 🙂 The views are nice, but from our experience, Big Island is not where you go for sunny beaches. Rocky, black, dramatic coastline, sure. Incredible old lava flows, yep yep. Beautiful reefs and fish, definitely. But not beautiful, sunny beaches.
Anyway, I digress. Kona is pretty touristy but was a good choice for meeting up with Riv and Marielle, especially because of the beach volleyball court!
Kohala Coast and MANTA RAYS!
Our wonderful neighbors Sony and Gustavo had given us the lowdown on how to snorkel with mantas for free at the Mauna Kea Resort on the Kohala coast. The catch is that, while all beaches have to have public access in Hawai’i, they don’t have to provide unlimited parking. So public parking spots are few and we knew we may have to wait hours to get one. We stopped briefly at the Hapuna Beach, but we were unimpressed and quickly moved on, after admiring the nenes drinking from the shower.
We completely lucked out and immediately got one of the limited parking spots at Mauna Kea, so we drove up and hung out the whole day. The resort fronts a lovely little bay with decent snorkeling on the rock sides and platforms to swim out to. We were really proud of Marielle who swam out to one of the platforms with us. River had the ukulele in his hands pretty much the entire trip, so we ate at the resort restaurant and explored the grounds and played in the sand and swam and snorkeled and waited for dark.
At last, the sun fell and a tour boat settled out in the bay with their group of snorkelers. We patiently waited for them to get their fill of the manta rays and leave, which they did after a half hour or so, which is when the mantas went over to the lights the hotel shines into the water from the rocks on one side of the bay. Troy, River and I grabbed our one dive flashlight and snorkeling out 100 yards or so (walking a good portion of the way even!) and had the MOST MAGICAL EXPERIENCE EVER! Marielle was on land at the watch spot and took great videos so we could remember this incredible time forever. The mantas were like huge black butterflies – so gorgeous and graceful! There was no way you could be scared of them, even when they would come straight at you staring down their wide open mouths. We had so much fun that River wanted to go back for a repeat viewing, which he did by himself.
Two-Step
On our last day in Kona, we stopped at an excellent deli called Poi Dog (try it – you will not be disappointed) and then drove south to go snorkeling at Two Step. We first stopped at an historical within the Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, where we may or may not have heard the ghosts of ancient warriors . . .
The snorkeling was amazing! So many incredible fish of all shapes and sizes and lots of huge coral formations! It was cloudy again and a little tricky to enter the water, but very worth it.
So. Kilauea or mantas? I’m not sure which experience was more spectacular, but they were certainly two highlights of Troy and my twenty-five years of adventures together!
