ericahitshawaii

[ericahitshawaii]

Destruction breeds creation

Today was my scheduled “lazy day,” so for me that meant a maximum of two activities! :) Today’s main activity was to check out a black sand beach and thermal pools.  The newest black sand beach on the island born out of the 2018 eruption of Kilauea.

So the one thing about solo travel that can be great and hard at the same time...you can do things really efficiently when there is only one person calling the shots.  The downside of that, is I haven’t stopped running since I got here.  No one to slow me down with lolligagging.  So a of today, I am EXHAUSTED.  Luckily, I had the gift of rain to slow mw down.  I slept in, which was AMAZING!  Sleep has been questionable at best since I arrived..  Remember how cute I thought the wild chickens and roosters were when I first arrived.  They are no longer charming.  Roosters are the worst.  I’m not sure what time they think sunrise is, but I promise you, it is not 3am.  I have had rude awakening every morning since I’ve been here at approximately 3am.  I hate roosters.  For real.

Also, I am not naturally in shape.  So the amount of physical activity that I would normally do is walk from the couch to the kitchen.  This is a bit of a shock to my system.  All this to say, I slept in today, drank a bunch of coffee, got caught up on my blogging and hung out under a shady, dry tree for the morning and waited out the rain.

Once the rain finally cleared up, I made myself a picnic lunch and headed to the black sand beach at Isaac Hale Park called Pohoiki. 

I was excited to check out this amazing phenomenon of a black sand beach.  Hawaii h as many because they are born from lava rock/  Lava is something Hawaii is not in short supply of.  But one of the magical part of checking out the beach was actually the drive to the beach.  Until very recently the beach was inaccessible.  After the 2018 eruption part of the road were blocked by cooled lava flows. There is only one route to the beach, which lies on the the southeast corner of the island.  This part of the island is in an amazing rainforest climate zone.  As soon as I turned of the road onto the windy two lane highway, I knew I was entering a different world.  I know can see why much of Jurassic Park was filmed in Hawaii (Most on the island of Kauai however).  It had some insane Jurassic size ferns and creepy giant rainforest trees.  The whole time I wase expecting a Velociraptor to jump out at any moment.  “Clever girl...”  No dinosaurs attacked, thank goodness, but it was still a wild and picturesque ride.

Hwy 137, Jurassic style.

The recently cleared road to the beach.  You can really see the size of the lava flow from this viewpoint.

If I haven’t already mentioned this, driving in Hawaii is not for the faint of heart.  I may have just been accidentally inducted into rally car, offroad racing.  Not by choice, by the way.  I have now become an unwanted expert on driving on crazy winding, hilly, cliffhanging roads in the rain blinding sunlight and pitch darkness.  After having sworn to never do anything again like driving route 1 in California, here I am again.  It’s strange how I’ve actually gotten pretty used to it at this point.  Although I won’t complain to be on less cliff hanging roads upon my return.  Anyway...I digress...  back to the beach.

Before the 2018 Kilauea eruption, the Poholiki beach was know for the large park leading to the beachfront and a boat launch into the ocean.  It was a popular spot for surfers.  The lava flow during the eruption ran through part of the park (narrowly missing complete destruction), cutting it off from the ocean and emptied into the sea.  What came from this is the newest black sand beach on the island.  What causes a black sand beach to form, you ask?  Well, when hot lava hits the cool water it explodes (similar to glass shattering) into tiny pieces.  Eventually the waves erodes the small rocks into fine sand, which creates black sand beaches.  All black sand beaches were once hot lava that flowed into the ocean.

This beach really demonstrated to me the destructive power of a volcano.When pulled into the parking lot for the Isaac Hale Beach Park it was literally a ghost town.  What was once a lovely park with picnic tables and BBQs that faced out into the ocean is now...a lovely park that faces a giant wall of lava.  The park has no more access to the sea.  It was however, a great spot to stop and have a picnic lunch with absolutely NO ONE around.

My complete lonely Kia Rio in the abandoned parking lot of Issac Hale Park.

View of the park, looking out toward the ocean, which is now completely obscured by the lava flow.

I headed further down the road to the beach.  It was interesting to see that the 

beach is still forming.  Closer to the water there were finer grains of black sand, although still more pebbles than sand.  But walking up to the beach there were still large boulders of hardened lava.  

What was once the boat launch is now a boat launch to nowhere.  Or maybe more a accurately, ,a boat launch to an enclosed thermal pool.  The shattered lava now blocks access to the ocean from the dock and the boat launch.  However destruction breeds life.  Along the new beach there are several pools of warm thermal water that are heated from the hotspot under the island.  The former boat launch is now a thermal pool and several other areas cut off from the ocean are thermal pools as well..

Thermal pool I swam in.

Boat launch to nowhere.  Now completely cut off from the ocean by the newly formed black sand.It’s now a thermal pool.

I could not pass up the chance to wade in this geological marvel.  It was absolutely incredible.  As I entered the wate it started to rain, the perfect time to wade into a warm pool.  It was about the temperature of warm bath water, not hot, just warm.  I waded over to the rocks of the lava flow.  They were still warm to the touch.  I learned at Volcanoes National Park that lava can take as many as four years o fully cool.  

Its hard to imagine that this was once molten lava destroying everything in its path.  On other places on the island there are entire beaches, roads and buildings that were forever engulfed by the lava.  In the eruption, over 700 houses were lost. It’s one of nature’s most impressive and terrifying forces.

Photograph taken from a drone of the lava flow that now covers a large part of Issac Hale Park and the Pohoiki Beach.  The pond looking thing is the thermal pool I was swimming in.

Next up: Last full day in Hawai’i :(

Kayaking the Kahulo Ditch

[ericahitshawaii]

Pele, Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes

Today’s big adventure is to check out Volcanoes National Park.  In 2018 Kilauea, one of several active volcanoes on the Island of Hawaii erupted.  The eruption at the summit threw ash nearly 30,000 feet in the air and opened up fissures along the flank of the volcano that destroyed several communities, displaced many Hawaiians and actually extended the island more than a mile into the sea.

Since the eruption in 2018 the volcano is now inactive.  There is no active lava flow beneath Kilauea.  Although the volcano still sits above the hotspot under the Big Island and could continue to erupt in the future.  It may take several years for the cavity under Kilauea to fill with magma again.  This is both good news and bad news for tourists.  Kilauea was previously a unique spot where you could look into the crater at the summit and see churning lava.  It was also super dangerous because it was about to erupt.  Now there is no active lava, but I arrived as many parts of the park have been rebuilt and you can see what the eruption has done to the landscape and the volcano itself.

According to Native Hawaiian legend (and what I can remember from my tour guide), this is the resting place of Pele, the goddess of Fire and Volcanoes.  Legend has it that she was actually born on Tahiti.  She got into a quarrel with her older sister over a very handsome man that Pele seduced.  Her sister chased Pele off of the island.  She continued  moving from island to island digging craters, filling them with fire, so that she could live in them.  Unfortunately her sister continued to follow her and extinguish her fire.  She eventually go the the Big Island where she died and now resides within the volcanoes here.  This is the basic gist of the story.  Let’s just say it makes me glad to be an only child.  Fascinating.

View of Kilauea caldera/outer crater and inner crater

For several weeks before the eruption the height of the volcano started to rise and fall.  At first, it began to expand and raise in height.  Then it dropped suddenly and the lava in the inner crater emptied, leaving a deep depression..  This was happening simultaneously with hundreds of earthquakes a day happening below the volcano.  The largest was a 6.9 that could be felt across the island.  This was the signal that the volcano was going to erupt.  Further down the volcano, in areas populated  with homes, most notably Lelani Gardens, over 20 fissures were opening and lava was pouring out of the side of the mountain. These fissures that opened as the lava that drained from the summit made its way under ground, caused the greatest damage to the island.  As the lava came in contact with dormant pockets of lava, those erupted to the surface.  Eventually, the fresh lava from the summit made its way to the surface, primarily in fissure 8 and exploded with force and speed down the volcano to the ocean.  The lava flow covered an area the size of Manhattan in over 30 feet of lava.

This is not the first time that Kilauea has erupted.  The first major eruption was reported in 1790 and eruptions have been happening periodically ever since.  There have been smaller eruptions happening at Kilauea regularly since 1983.  The lava pond formed in the crater in 2008 and occasionally would spill out over the rim.  After the eruption in 2018, the summit of the crater looks very different .  the inner and outer craters are much larger and are now filled with cooling lava.

It is likely that the next big eruption will not come from Kilauea, but from another active volcano on the island, Mauna Loa.  Mauna Loa is actually the tallest volcano in the world, at 54,000 feet from base to summit.  However, only 13,000 feet of it are above ground, the rest being under the Pacific Ocean.  It is the largest volcano on the island of Hawaii. It last erupted in 1984 and our park ranger believes it is due to happen again.  It is also more likely to erupt when there is no volcanic activity at Kilauea.  Mauna Loa is much larger than Kilauea and could potentially do much greater damage to the island.  It is currently in a “advisory” warning state, as the volcano is growing.  It has grown over a hundred feet in the last few years, which could be a sign that it could erupt, although it is currently deemed stable.  Intense.  Our guide seemed a little too excited about the possibility.  Probably because he wasn’t yet alive for the 1980s eruption.

Kilauea crater with Mauna Loa in the background.

Next stop was the Thurston Lava Tubes, which recently reopened.  Lava tubes are exactly what you think they are.  Basically tubes that have formed under the hardened lavaflow above, where hot lava flows during an eruption.  Once the eruption is over and the lava has all flowed out, they harden into very cool underground caves.  Walking through them is truly Indiana Jones style.

Entrance to the Lava Tubes.

Inside the lava tubes.

Next stop: Steam vents.  Although the valcano is no longer active it is still located above the hot spot and there is plenty of residual heat and gases under Kilauea today.  This comes out in the form of steam vents along the edge of the crater.  If you stand in front of them it feels like really hot water vapor.  Super refreshing.  It was kind of cold and windy along the crater, so I was pretty stoked to just stand there for a while.  I actually have no idea if the gases are safe, but there were no signs saying it wasn’t, so I just went for it.

Steam vent along the crater of Kilauea.  Check out this video to see them in action.  You can see hwo windy it was at the summit.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bDdE6fdHiDe3ciTT9

Speaking of windy...my last adventure in the park was to drive the Chain of Craters Road.  This is kind of a graveyard of eruptions from various volcanoes on the island dating back to 1959 including Mauna Loa, Mauna Loa and Kilauea.  Part of the road is now blocked from the 2018 eruption, but still runs 19 miles from the summit of Kilauea to the sea.

It is incredible to see the devastation that the lava can cause.  Leaving behind massive plains of cool lava as far as the eye can see.  It looks so desolate, like the surface of the moon.  It also is one of the windiest places I have ever been to in my life.  There were several times where I had to brace myself against something to keep from being knocked off of my feet.  I think it was a particularly windy day in general, but the landscape lends itself to windiness, due to there being absolutely no wind breaks at all. Faily flat with no trees.  It was such an extreme environment.  Liek nothing I’ve ever seen.

Pa’uahi Crater.

Lava fields overlooking the ocean.

Cooled lava flow headed down to the ocean

Overall an amazing experience, even without the active volcano.  Volcanoes are really incredible and powerful forces.  Such a unique experience to see what they can do!

Next up: Black sand beaches!

[ericahitshawaii]

Beaches of emerald...or at least moldy green color

Today I begin my circumnavigation of the island as I leave my home base in Kona on the west side of the island and head for Hilo on the East side of the island.  I will be making a pit stop at a few magical places along the way, the National Historic park of Pu’uhonua o Honaunau and the green sand beach of Papakolea.

But before I head out of Kona I decide to stop at a farmers market in Kona...because I love farmers markets.  You understand so much about a place by analyzing the kind of cheesy trinkets they sell that “represent” their community.  Fascinating.  The one purchase I was most excited about was the fresh fruit available.

Breakfast of champions.  For $5 (total) I got fresh mango, papaya and pineapple.  I don’t even what to contemplate what this would have cost me in Minnesota or how gross it would have been.  This may have ruined fruit for me forever.  It was SO MUCH better than fruit I have ever had in the midwest.  So. Much. Better.

Anyway, on to my first stop.  Pu’uhonua o Honaunau.  I can gladly check another National Park of the list.  This national historic park was founded in 1955 and up until 1819, it was known as a place of refuge (Pu’uhonua) for Hawaiian that broke a kapu (or ancient law).  Hawaiians that were sentenced to death for breaking a kapu would flee to this city of refuge to be absolved of their sins by the priests that resided there.  Others that would seek refuge there included warriors that were defeated in battle or people fleeing war.  This site was used for hundreds of years until the end of the practice of Kapu.Outside of the walled city of the Pu’uhonua was a village that was reserved for the powerful ali’i (chiefs) on the island. (Think of it like a vacation timeshare for island royalty.)  They would stay for several months and socialize, make deals, hold ceremonies and pay their respects to past chiefs.  Many generations of chiefs, 23 to be exact, were buried here and that is another reason it held important significance to the Hawaiians.  The site now has recreations of some of the temples and heiau (houses) ans well as the remains of the original walls and foundations of temples within the City of Refuge.

A halea (thatched shelter) on the Royal Grounds

An ancient board game called konane.

Entrance to the walled City of Refuge.

Walls were built out of lava rock and were fitted together with amazing precision, using no mortar.

Recreation of the temple where Hawaiian chief would worship and refugees were absolved of their sins, so that they could return safely to their homes.

Temple.  Some of the laws that you could be sentenced to death for under the kapu system included casting your shadow on an ali’i, fishing out of season or a woman eats a meal with a man.  Harsh.

Those who wanted to visit the City of Refuge would have to boat/swim to this inlet in order to access the entrance to the city.  It was very dangerous.  There were strong currents and very sharp lava rock to contend with.  Not for the faint of heart.

This site is still considered a sacred place with extraordinary mana (spiritual power).

My next stop was to visit the very southern point of the Big Island (and the entire Hawaiian chain).  This is the site of one of only four green sand beaches in the world. (The other three are in Norway, Guam and the Galapagos Islands)  I had no idea what an adventure it would be to GET to the beach.  It requires a very rugged and steep  2.2 mile hike to the beach.  The only people that are allowed to drive to the beach are Native Hawaiians due to the danger of tourists driving the rough roads and tourist being disrespectful to the land there.  So hiking it was.  The hike was beautiful  I represents the strange diversity of the Big island.  The west coast is more what you think of when you imagine Hawaii: perfect sunny weather and white sand beaches.  But the souther area is more hilly, cool, windy and filled with huge expanses of what looks to me like prairie.  Only prairie that borders the ocean.  Also, prairie that is scattered with lava rocks.  So strange.  I made the extraordinarily windy and hilly walk with two German friends that were also making the hike in.  According to my handy fitbit, I climbed the equivalent of 100 floors over the course of the hourlong hike.  Dang.  I’m getting too old for this.  But it was worth it.

View from the hike to the green sand beach. (German friends in the background)

More views from the hike.

And here we are.  The green sand beach.  I won’t lie.  At first I was a little disappointed.  I was imagining emerald or neon green sand.  It’s really more of dark “mold” colored green, that is hard to see from far away.  But once you get down to the beach itself, you can really see the green and how unique and special it is.  So why is the beach green, you might ask?  Well...it is due to a special kind of mineral that you sometimes find in lava called olivines.  You can find olivines in other beaches where there is volcanic activity, but the reason there are only four in the world has to do with the concentration of olivines.  Because of the shape of the cove, the olivine crystals are concentrated into this inlet and the much lighter normal sand gets washed out to sea, leaving a mostly green sand beach.

Part of the specialness of this trip was the sheer amount of effort it took me just to get there.  As many of you know, I have a fear of falling.  (Not a fear of heights, more of a fear of tumbling down steep hills and unprotected ledges).  I was very disappointed to see that the beach was at the bottom of a very steep hill and rock face.  I was sure that I had walked all the way there and wouldn’t make it to the beach.  But there was an interesting path down that included some wooden stairs and traversing narrow groves in the rock.  Totally unnerving but it got me down to the beach.

Precarious path down situation.

Narrow grooves in the rock face to get to the beach.

Now you can see that the sand is pretty green.

Having successfully made ti to the beach, it was time to head back.  There was absolutely no way I was making the hike back.  The wind had really picked up and it was going to start getting dark in the next hour.  Luuckily for me, some of the local Native Hawaiians are camped out above the beach to give silly tired tourists rides back to the parking lot.  This in itself was quite an experience.  You ride, standing up in the back of a pickup truck over some fo the bumpiest terrain ever.  Roller coaster-esque.  There were several time I feared for my life, but they totally knew what they were doing and got us back in one piece.  Stellar.

After a long day, I headed to my new accommodations, and Airbnb in Hilo.  BTW - I took this pic the following day.  It was super dark by the time I actually got bak to the Airbnb.  A lovely Bed & Breakfast with a garden in the back that had so many mysterious fruit trees.  Lovely.

My room.

Next stop: Volcanoes National Park.

[ericahitshawaii]

From the land

Today I am leaving the ocean and heading to the land.  The Big Island is even more biodiverse than Maui.  It contains 11 of the 14 climate zones in the world.  They even have snow on their tallest peak, Mauna Kea.  Today I am heading south og Kona to explore a Chocolate Farm, a coffee farm and a bee apiary!

Chocolate Farm

The Original Hawaiian Chocolate factory is the only chocolate producer in an industrialized country that processes the chocolate from the plant all the way to the final product.  Most chocolate producers start with the dried cocoa bean.  The beautiful estate grows cacao (the pod that chocolate is made from), macadamia nuts and coffee.  The entire operation is run by only eight staff, including the owner (Bob) and his wife.  (American Ex-pats)

Above are the tree that the cacao pods grow on.  They are about the size of a large eggplant when fully ripe.  Iniside these pods there is a fibrous membrane (like in a squash) that contains seeds.  These seeds have to be fermented and dried to give them the chocolate flavor.  This produces chocolate nibs which are ground to make cocoa powder, which becomes chocolate.  (More or less, you can google it if you want to fact check me on this one.)

Cacao pods growing in the trees.  This variety will will turn a bright yellow when they are ripe. 

Ripe cacao pods.  They grow in a variety of colors.  For example green pods turn yellow when ripe, maroon pods turn candy apple red when ripe.  Other colors include purple, orange and rainbow!

These are the seeds (or cocoa beans) inside of the pod.  They are covered with a bitter coating that will help ferment the seeds.

After they have fermented, they are cleaned off and left outside to dry on these racks.

Cocoa beans on the drying rack.  These will be ground to make the cocoa powder used to make chocolate!  This chocolate farm only makes milk and dark chocolate.

Fun fact:  White chocolate is not actually made from the solid bean, it is made from cocoa butter, which is extracted from the bean.  Since there are no cocoa butter extractors on the island, they are limited to milk and dark chocolate only.

It was really interesting to see this done as a small operation, given the extremely unjust conditions that many cacao growers face in developing countries.  At least one aspect of eating chocolate was guilt-free today! m On to cofee next!

Coffee Farm

There is a oot of coffee grown in Hawaii so I had lots of options for a coffee tour.  No one will be surprised to hear that I chose the Kona Historic Socity’s Living History coffee farm!!  YEA!  The nerdiest of an already nerd activity!

So...the Kona Historical Society has preserved one of the early coffee farms on the island that was run by a Japanese family.  It was purchased by the Ushida family in 1913.  The Ushida’s had immigrated from Japans and decided to take up farming.  However, they had no experience farming coffee when they bought the coffee farm in 1913.  The spent the next few years learning from local farmers how to grow it.  This was the beginning of what we know know as the Kona coffee industry, which was led mostly by Japanese immigrants.  The Ushida’s were one of the first Japanese families to do it and encouraged and inspired many other to take up the trade throughout the 20th century.

Fun fact:  In the 1940s 50% of people living in Hawaii were Japanese.

The Ushida’s tore down the small farmhouse that was on the property when they purchased it and built a traditional Japanese home.  The Ushida’s had 5 children, who all shared a three room house (a iving area, bedroom and kitchen).

The Ushida farmhouse, built circa 1917.

To be totally honest, I had absolutely no idea how coffee grew.  I knew it came from beans, but that was about it.  Well...it grows on trees.  Coffee trees can live and produce coffee for hundreds of years, in fact.  Coffee beans actually form inside of these cmall round berries.  (They sort of look like cranberries.)  They are green when unripe and turn a bright red color when ripe.  Inside each berry is a small amount of flesh (similar to grapes) and in the center is a coffee bean.  In order to make coffee, the berries have to be picked, the skin and flesh need to be removed, the beans need to be dried and then they can be roasted.  Coffee beans are harvested 4 months out the year from September - December.

Coffe tree.  The base of this tree is over 100 years old.  The branches are trimmed every few years, but the base and root systems can remain for hundreds of years.

Coffee berries.  These are small because the are yound.  They are about cranberry sized.  The will grow to be closer to grape size when it is time to harvest next September.

The Ushida’s also grew other plants for subsistence farming and to sell at local markets.  Although the weather in Hawaii is perfect for growing almost anything, it can sometime be difficult to farm because of the lava rock that covers most of the land.  Plants that do very well in Hawaii have extremely strong root systems that can actually break through the rock or grow within cracks a crevasses in the rock.  (Like coffee, cacao and pineapple).

It’s a baby pineapple!  It’s one of the only plants, where if you plant any part of the pineapple it is capable of growing a new one.

This may look like a cucumber, but it is actually a plant that grows bath loofahs.  Yep, for real.

See!?!  I didn’t make this up.

During the 4 month harvesting season, the Ushida men would wake up at 2:30 to start harvesting and finish after sunset.  The women would wake up at 4:30am.  The entire family, including small chilren, would harvest the beans.  The most difficult part of the process was removing the skin and flesh from the beans.  It is only since WWII that most farmers had a mechanized process to do it.  For centuries it was done by stomping on them with your feet.  Like grapes.

Once the beans are removed from the berries, they need to be dried, which can take up to 10 days.  The Ushida’s would leave them out in the sun to dry and bring them into the shed when it rained and at night.  At any given time there would be over 1000 pounds of beans drying.  (On average, an adult could pick 150 lbs. a day).  In the 1940 the Ushida’s developed a brillant idea to create a drying platform on the top of the barn/shed that had a sliding roof, so that they could cover the beans at night or during rain and not have to carry the beans in.  Genius.  This is the original roof and the sliding mechanism still works perfectly!

Kona coffee is still an institution in Hawaii.  Descendants of the Ushida family lived in the original house until 1994.  (They never modernized the house, it still had a wood burning stove and outhouse/outdoor bath house)  The historical society bought it and preserved it.  It is still a working farm today.

Lunch

L&L Barbeque is Hawaiian fast food institution.  I stopped here for lunch and was not disappointed.  Many of the things on the menu reflect the Asian and Japanese heritage of the island.  I ordered the chicken lovers platter, BBQ chicken,  Chicken katsu and...something else delicious.

Chicken Lovers Plate

Bees

My last stop for the day was Big Island Bees.  A bee apiary.

Big Island Bees, Kona

I have always been obsessed with bees (and colony animals in general, like ants) so I was SO EXCITED about this.  I have probably told many of you this, but the U of M refused to let me volunteer at their bee lab and I am still really bitter about it.

Kim, the master Bee keeper, gave us free samples and showed us the hives.  They have several sites across the island that produce different kinds of honey.  There are two ways to get flavored honey.  One is to infuse a flavor into already created honey, like pepper or cinnamon.  The other is to place the hives in a area where they have access to only one or prodominantly one kind of flower.  Their bees make three kinds of honey.  One from Macadamia Nut trees, one from the Wilelaiki blossom on theChristmasberry tree (introduced in Hawaii from Brazil) and the rareist type, the Lahua blossom honey, which comes from the Ohi’a trees.  Ohi’a trees are found only on Hawaii and grow out of lava rock.  The honey is naturally white.  (Apparently you can buy Big Island Honey at costco!)

So I learned a lot of cool stuff about bees.  I could write for hours about it, but I’m just going to give you my favorite fun facts.  If you want to know more, let’s hang out!

Fun fact 1: Queens can live for 1-5 years, where as the rest of the bees in the hive only live 4-8 weeks.

Fun fact2:  All of the worker bees in the hive are female.  The only male bees in the hive are called Drones.  Their only job is to mate with the Queen, so when the food is scarce or the hive is in trouble, the female workers bees evict the Drones by biting off their wings, pushing them out of the hive and leaving them on the ground to die.  Sorry fellas, they don’t have time for freeloaders!  I love bees!

Fun fact 3:The worker bees go through four different jobs in their short lives 1) Take care and feed of the baby bees, which hatch in the cells in the hive, feed and take care of the queen, protect the hive, and forage for pollen.

Fun fact 4: Bees are super ruthless, if the queen is not doing so hot, the hive releases special pharamones (sp?) so that the queen will give birth to her own replacement and then they will kill the queen once she’s born.  Total mutiny.  

Not so fun fact 5: Bees are in trouble because of a small hive mite that has starting taking over the hives, laying eggs in the cells and eventually forcing the bees out of the hive.  Hives have to be checked and treated regularly to keep from being infested by these small invasive beetles from Asia.  Boo!

Beekeeper Lisa

One hive.  It contains both the cells for honey and for making baby bees.  This hive has no drones, because it is a slow honey producer, so they opted to kill all of the drones until they have more honey.

The queen is in here somewhere..

Lastly, bees can make art.  Their so cool and talented.  I am ecited because my goal for this spring and summer is to plant a pollinator friendly yard.  I applied for a grant to do, I will know shortly if I got it.  My eventual goal would be to have a hive in my yard, but it is really hard to overwinter bees in Minnesota, so I might have to work up to this.  Future goals...

Honeycomb sculpture (Real honeycomb that the bees constructed over a metal frame)

That’s it for the day.  Tomorrow: Travel along the southern coast of the island to visit the Place of Refuge National Historic Park and one of only 4 green sand beaches in the world.

[ericahitshawaii]

Mantas and dolphins and whales, oh my!

Today I start my adventure on the big island!  The Big Island is probably most known for its active volcanoes and the recent eruption of Mount Kiluaea in 2018.  Because of the tectonic plates on earth, the Hawaiian island are actually moving Northwest over over a “hot spot” of volcanic activity.  Over 5 million years ago this hot spot formed the oldest of the Hawaiian islands, Kauai (at the north of the chain).  As the islands shift north, the volcanic activity slows and eventually stops and the surface begins to erode, which is why Kauai is smaller than the southern most island.  The Big Island, which is the most “southernly” island, is the youngest (One million years old) and the most volcanically active, due to its proximity to the hot spot.  Currently, another Hawaiian island is formed under the Pacific called Loini and if any of us live to be 10,000, we might be able to visit it.

I flew into Kona on Wednesday evening.  I am in love with the Kona airport.  If I thought the Kahului airport was “open air” then this airport is basically outside.  It is completely open air, with some roofage.  So amazing.

Kona Airport (KOA)

I very excitingly went to pick up my rental car, so no more bus adventures for me.  I forgot how luxurioius and freeing it is have a car.  I never did it in Australia because I was scared t drive on the wrong side, but not a problem here.  It’s also such a life upgrade to have a car that DOES NOT have a tape player.  Modern technology is awesome.  Thanks Kia Rio!

Ok, anyway, I checked into my hostel, aptly names “My Hawaii Hostel.”  If I thought the last one was halfway decent, then I will need to severely downgrade it compared to this one.  This hostel had furniture other than a bed, decorations on the walls, a rug and multiple pillows and blankets.  I know that sounds like a given in a hotel room, but not in a hostel.  Absolutely dreamy!  The hostel itself is absolutely charming with a little garden and an open aiir living room and lots of outdoor seating, just a few minutes walk from the beach.  I am living my best Hawaiian life, for real this time!

My Hawaii Hostel, Ali’i Road, Kona

Patio area outside my room.

My room.

Thursday morning I headed off for the next phase of the ocean part of my trip.  I signed up for a morning “Ocean encounters” tour and a Night “Manta Ray Swim” trip.  

Note: You are going to be disappointed again by the lack of photos, because I bought an underwater disposable camera for the trip, but some of you may remember, that you have to get those photos developed.  (I actually am unsure of how I’m going to do that in this modern age, but that is a future me problem.  Anyway, the tour company promises to post some photos in the next few days, so there will be another update post once I have those.  But keep reading, it still is exciting and there is a sweet video I took that you should see!)

The morning snorkeling tour started out with swimming with spinner dolphins!! So, wild dolphins are the best.  They are nocturnal, so we were visitng them during their daytime nap time.  Hilariously, while they are sleeping they still swim on the bottom in a big pack.  I have no idea how they do this.  How fascinating.  Anyway a few of them woke up and swam up ot the surface to say hi.  When we got into the water they headed down towards the bottom again.  It was amazing to snorkel right above big pods of dolphins.  There must have been at least 20 in some of the bigger pods and there were several pods around us.  Just as a few more of them were waking up and coming to the surface, our captain said we had to go.  I’ll be honest, I was pissed.  I had dreams of high-fiving a dolphin and Captain Taylor was ruining my dream.  But I’m glad he did,because what happened next was SOOO worth it!

Next we headed out to a site where whales had recently been spotted.  When we arrived, we discovered there were several large whales around and a BABY WHALE.  This whale was only about a month old and still absolutely gigantic.  The baby whale was splashing around in the water very close to us.  Just like a human toddler, it seemed to be having a blast splashing aorund, trying to breach (jump out of the water) and stick its head up.  It was still really floppy and uncoordinated in the water, which was absolutely adorable.  It was so funny to see a whale just playing around.  I don’t know how it had so much energy to do all that.

Eventually we saw the mam whale  pop up around the whale, apparently keeping her eye on it and maybe helping from below with its practice breaches.  While we were distracted by the baby whale someone yelled out that there was another whale further off that was breaching.  (Whales often will breach several time in a row, because they are communicating with other whales and trying to get their attention.)  I looked over just in time to see a huge whale breach completely out of the water.  It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.  It was like it was happening in slow motion. It’s entire body was up in the air and it seemed like it just hung there until it crashed back into the ocean with a huge splash.  Just like on Animal Planet!  I thought I had really seen it all until we looked back over at the playing baby whale and realized Mama had surfaced on our side.

All of s sudden I see her huge humpback surface like it is facing us.  It is coming right for our boat.  Right in fron of us, she lifts her tail and dives right under the boat.  I was both incredible and a little scary!  Seeing her SO CLOSE to us, it is astonishing how huge they are.  Just her back was probably as tall as the deck of the boat and she was easily twice as long.  It was shocking to see her giant tail come out of the water right in front of us.  Despite my fear that she miht capsize the boat, the crew said that they are insanely spatially aware and can get within inches of a boat and not hit it.  They have sonar like bats.  When I say this was a bucket list activity, I would almost say this was better than what I imagined being on my bucket list.  Even the crew was freaking out and taking video and photos.  They said that never happens. I will remember that moment for as long as I live.  I do have a video of the encounter.  Honestly, it doesn’t do it justice, but you can kind of see what I’m talking about.  Watch here: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QTA9JieqQdEWPfag6

Now as if that wasn’t enough, we went to a third spot to find Manta Rays.   We made a quick pit stop at an amazing place along the coast known as the Grotto.  It’s the outlet to the sea for a large series of lava tubes that run miles underneath the island.  The waters were the most incredible aqua color and crystal clear.

The Grotto

To add to the incredible day, we ran into two huge manta rays (In case you are worried they are not sting rays...who killed the crocodile hunter.  They are harmless plankton eaters.  One of our guides said we found his favorite manta named Amanda Ray.  She is the friendliest and has one bent fin.  Both mantas were about 10 feet long.  They can actually grow to have a to 15 foot wingspan.  They are beautiful to watch.  We hoppped in the water and snorkeled with them.  They looked like they were flying on the bottom of the ocean, completely gracefully.  This was preview for that evening.

After the snorkel adventure I decided to head to the beach.  I’m not really a beach person, but figured I should do it once.  I went to what they call a dark gray sand beach, which is half white sand and half black volcanic sand.  How do gray and black sand beaches form?  Well, when the hot lava hits the cool water it basically explodes and shatters like glass, spewing small particles of lava rock, which eventually breakdown into small pebbles and sand like particles.  The beach was very rough, but beautiful.  Its incredible to see the lava rock solidify in the form it was when it flowed into the ocean.  Very surreal.

Lava rocks at Kahalu’u Beach

After lunch and beach chill, I headed back to the marina for the night manta swim.  For this one, they take you out onto big boogie board looking things with lights.  Here’s a photo I did not take, that demonstrates this:

The lights on the bottom of the board attract plankton, which then attracts other fish and manta rays.  This was both an awesome and miserable experience.  The weather up to this point had been absolutely perfect.  *0m degrees and sunny everyday.  However, storms had come in that night and it was cold and raining.  The water was freezing, but the experience was still pretty great.  One of the coolest things that I didn't expect was that the lights also drew in tones of fish.  There were a bunch of fish that looked kind of like big sardines that swarmed around us in big schools, it was really interesting to be that close to so many fish.  The highlight of the trip was that a big manta swam right next to me and did a backflip to eat the plankton right under the board.  They have awesome white bellies and gills and huge gaping mouths.  Its really otherworldly.

After the manta show we headed back to the boat for the long and extremely rocky trip back to the marina.  I generally have a pretty good stomach for boat rides, but this was a rough one.  I had taken Dramamine earlier, just in case, and still feeling like I might lose my lunch.  It was close to a repeat of the Great Barrier Reef puke episode but disaster was avoided, thank goodness!

All in all, a dream of a day.  I am officially hooked on snorkeling and boating, in general.  Who knew I’d be such a water baby.  I spent most of my life avoiding getting my hair wet.  

Next stop:  Farm tour day in Southern Kona.

[ericahitshawaii]

There she blows!

Kayaks ready...Olowalu, Maui

The quote of the day:  “I had only been here three days and had been part of two drum circles...”  For anyone who knows my feelings on hipphies, you can probably guess that this quote was not from me.  It was from an amusing single-serving friend that I caught the wrong bus with.  He was a very tolerable hippie, despite the fact that he had participated in several drum circles on a nude beach.  It is with mixed emotions that I leave Maui.  Today is my second and last day before I head to the Big Island.

Since my flight to the Big Island was in the afternoon, I only had time for one real activity, so I signed up for a kayak whale watching tour.  Luckily for me, all the other people on the tour flaked out, so I got a private tour!  Christian was my tour guide.  He was also a hippie, but again, likable.  He was your classic adventurer who had clear trail in Montana and lived in Alaska and now was a kayak tour guide in Hawaii.  Classic.

I have to say that kayak in the ocean is an amazing experience, even without whales.  I’ve done lots of canoeing, but had never kayaked, so this was a pretty sweet way to learn.  Christian didn’t hesitate to point out that I kayak like a canoe-er.  He warned me to keep my arms down or my arms would be dead in the water before I made it into open water.  touche, he was correct.  

Anyway, almost as soon as we got out into the water, we started seeing whales.  Whale season in Hawaii runs from about December through March, so I was catching the tail end of it.  As it turns out, that wasn’t a problem.  There were still plenty of whales around.  They travel down from Alaska or Siberia to Hawaii to mate and give birth before heading north again.  There is no food for he whales in Hawaii, but the warm waters are ideal for giving birth.

As we paddle out into the ocean, I could see the wter spraying out of a whales blowhole, then I heard another one.  All of a sudden on both sides of me there were the backs of humpback whales hitting the surface.  There were a few boats and some other kayakers in the area so we knew this was a good spot.  The Christian pointed out to me that a few of the whales in front of us were actually raising their heads out f the water, which is really cool to see!  This indicated that they are part of  what’s known as a competition pack.  Meaning that there was one female and several males all following her.  The whales kept lifting there heads out of the water and slapping the water to warn the other whales to back off.  It was crazy to see.  Christian estimated that there were probably 4 or 5 whales in the competition pack.  A few of the whales got really close to a group of kayakers who were squealing with what I hope was joy, or pure terror.  Although I was still probably about 100 yards from any of the whales, it felt like I was so close to them.  It’s interesting to be at their level in the water.  You could also faintly here their songs.  It kind of sounded like a distant moan.  It was so quiet on the water, that the sounds really carried.  It was very cool!

Note: I have to apologize for the severe lack of photographs of all this.  Because I have a history of tipping over in canoes (some of you know this well) I decided to not bring my camera or phone.  The tour company takes photos with a fancy camera with a giant telephoto lens and underwater camera and will email the pics to me in a few days. So there will be a very exciting update with lots of pics later!)

We finished out the tour with some snorkeling.  It’s cool to now have snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef and Hawaii.  Although they are similar, the reefs do look different.  Some of the fish are the same, lots of angel fish and damsel fish, but the reefs themselves re different.  There were lots of finger coral here and schools of little tiny blue iridescent fish.  My favorite sea creature were these giant black sea urchins, that apparently are sharp enough to draw blood.  Spooky!

All in all, an awesome experience.  As I eluded to at the beginning of the post, the only downside to my day was that in attempting to save money, I decided to tak e the bus back to my hostel.  Bad idea.  The bus system on Maui is limited and confusing.  Buses running both directions pick up and drop off at the same stop, which is counter-intuitive if you understand at all how buses work.  Also, everyone and everything are on “Island time,” so you never really understand when the bus will actually come and no one ever seems to be concerned about it, except for tourists like myself.  The goal of this trip will be to learn something from my hippie island friends and just try to CHILL OUT!  (It’s a work in progress.)

Maui, what a strange and magical and weird place!  But it’s on to the Big Island for me!

Next post:  My next ocean adventure @ Kailua-Kona.

[ericahitshawaii]

A land of hippies and misfits

So, Maui is really a strange place.  It is absolutely beautiful and extrodinarily bio-diverse.  It is only 700 sq. miles, but contains 9 out of 14 of the earth’s climate zones.  Insane!  It is also diverse in the kinds of people it attracts.  I really started my vacation off with a bang, becoming a human magnet for some of Maui’s “characters.”

Before I get into the details of my day, I’m just going to give you a synopsis of some of the characters I met I can’t go into them all in depth at this point, but you should totally ask me about them later.  I’ve realized that solo travel is all about “single-serving friends.” (Props if you got the Fight Club reference).  On day one of my vacation I met a kind of spazzy, meth-y woman who was the keeper of all fun facts, a woman I percieved to be totally boring and suburban who told me about   her experience being homeless in Hawaii, a former femle brewer from Minneapolis, a hippie Gen-Zer who talked to me for way too long about his love of mother of pearl, a fellow natural haired black woman who was deeply in need of someone to talk to about hair, and my favorite single serving friends...a middle aged couple who were in Hawaii on a plumbing convention trip...who could turn anything into a dirty joke...and did!  Guys this was just day one!  I think this might be a start to a feature in each blog post, my single serving friends of the day!

April and Matt, my endearingly inappropriate friends

Ok, but what did I actually DO on day one!  I ate a bunch, I drank a bunch and I learned a bunch.  I took a craft tour that took us to a local coffee roaster, winery, cattle ranch, distillery and brewery!  Maybe the perfect way to  start my vacation.  Our tour guide was my spazzt, meth-y friend who grew up on Maui and was a wealth of fun facts.  Did you know...Maui’s primary export for centuries was Sugar Cane, but in 2016 after a bit of a community mutiny to stop the dangerous and unhealthy practice of burning the cane for harvesting and the fact that several hundred years of mono-cropping had destroyed the soil, the soil company that owned the sugar can land sold it to a hedge-fund guy who ended the practice of sugar caning entirely and is in a 5-10 year experimental phase of trying to set Hawaii up to be self-sustainable.  (Although they can grow almost anything there, they import 90% of all goods).  His plan is controversial, but is gaining acceptance more broadly.

One of many abandoned sugar cane plantations, now being run over by wild boars.

One of the other mono-crop offenders is Pineapple.  Maui grows a lot of pineapples.  If you are not sure how pineapple plants look, google it.  It’s so bizarre.  The local pineapple plantation only has 5 staff because each farmer can either plant or harvest 100 pineapples per hour, by hand.  Mind-boggling.  I tell you all this because the theme of the tour seemed to be pineapple.  I had the most delicious pineapple wine at maui Wine.  I’m obsessed with it now.  If you can find it, try it!  Also interestingly, Maui Wines is one of only 5 wineries in Maui.  The problem...it never gets cold enough there to grow grapes effectively.  ( I feel zero pity for them) so Maui Wines has to blend the a few grape types that have been bred to grow in tropical climates, with more traditional grapes from California, so the wines are really distinctive and then they add PINEAPPLE.  Dangerously like juice

Maui Wines Hula Circle

Built on the estate of a former Whaler and the guest cottage for a Hawaiian king.

The original Hawaii “drunk tank” (now the Old Jail tasting room.

Maui Wines also the only business with a pineapple juicer on the island, so they sell the juice to the local distilleries and breweries.  Very cute!  Did you know...that you can actually distill vodka, whiskey and gin from any fruit with a high enough sugar count.  The process removes all of the flavor from the fruit and you are left with just the alcohol taste.  The Hali'imaile Distillery showed us their factory and their almost exclusively pineapple based products.  Anyone want to get some peach juice and an old radiator and start making moonshine.  Come on, any takers? (I’m only half kidding).

At some point in there, I also ate an elk burger from the Ulupalakua Ranch.  The only ranch in Hawaii who raises Elk.  Sorry elk, you are delicious!  

Finally, we checked out the Maui Brewing Company.  Super eco-friendly place.  They are one of only a handful of breweries in the world that runs their entire brewing facility (which is HUGE, BTW) completely by solar power.  The also recycle their Co2 to fight greenhouse gas emissions.  Oddly enough they have to release the Co2 during some part of the process, which just goes back into the atmosphere and then they have to buy Co2 later in the process to give it bubble.  (These are the technical terms.)  Ludicrous.  So Maui Brewing just recycles theirs.  Brilliant.  Apparently, Minneapolis is their 3rd largest market in the country, so buy some TCers.  You are saving the planet one beer at a time. 

After that, I was kind of buzzed, hit the thai food truck by my hostel (best drunken noodles I’ve ever had) and wen to bed...hard.  More to come tomorrow, I’m running about a day behind on posting.  I’ll work on catching up soon.

[ericahitshawaii]

The eagle has landed

Hey all!  I made it!  I will be honest with you, that besides understanding that Hawaii was somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, I really had no idea  how far into the Pacific Ocean it actually is.  (Isn’t it in a box, just off the coast of southern California.  Thanks public school geography.  Anyway, it takes about 12 hours (with a layover in Oakland) to get here. But I’m here and no battle scars as of yet.  

I think inter in MN has broken my brain, because I remember thinking how nice it was that it was almost 40 degrees in Minnesota when I left.  I was wearing a sweatshirt.  It was 80 degrees at 8pm when I landed in Kahului.  Oh...that’s what it feels like to actually be warm.  Amazing!

So where is Kahului, you ask?  I am currently on the island of Maui.  Where is the island of Maui.  Well it’s the second one from the bottom...

...and Kahului is on the northern shore.  I will be spending the next couple days here and then flying own to the Big Island for a week.

I don’t really have any fun facts yet, because all I have seen today were airports, clouds, dark and a hostel.  Well, here are my thoughts on those things.  Ok, airports.  So the Coronavirus must have everyone spooked.  I flew out of Humphery Terminal at MSP, which I will admit is usually quieter then Lindburgh, but today, it was a ghost town.  There was one other person in line in front of me in security.  Kind of creepy.  Only a handful of people were wearing masks, so at least it didn’t seem like a scene from Outbreak.  But still weird.  Just so you all know, I am totally washing my hands.  Really, I am. A lot.

Humphery terminal, MSP...so dead.

Moving on...I didn’t even know Oakland had an airport.  It does. It was...fine.  The Kahului airport is so bizarre.  It’s kind of an open air building.  There were some walls, but a lot of was wall-less.  Must be nice to live in a place where that’s possible.     

Kahului (OGG) Airport, Maui.

Um...Clouds.   Flying through the clouds above Hawaii were really surreal.  There was a thunderstorm below us so it looked like a weird magical alien landscape.    I still think it’s cool to fly above the clouds.    (PS - Photos from insdide a plane always look like garbage, so you’ll have to use your imagination.)

It was dark when I landed so I haven’t really seen anything yet.  My hostel is nice.  It’s hostel-y, but the room is actually hotel quality...or at least decent Airbnb quality and I have a real sized bed.  I’m happy and ready to sleep for forever. 

The North Shore Hostel, Kahului.

 Tomorrow, I’m gonna visit some farms and drink some wine...I’m on VACATION!!!!