Kona – Out in the World

Floating with Spinner Dolphins

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Sun high in sky as we launch the double kayak into the teal blue waters of Kealakekua Bay. We quickly coordinate our strokes and paddle toward where the Pacific’s waves crash against a cliff. This is the pace a small pod of spinner dolphins followed my kayak during a visit more than a decade ago.

As if expecting us, we first see a set of small, angled fins in the distance, heading right for us. Then two more off our starboard side. Suddenly, a pod appears just off our port side. I count 10, maybe more. Diving, surfacing as air from blowholes sounds like the forceful exhale of a post-dive snorkel.

They’re curious, taking a look before submerging deeper. The younger ones try their hand at the jump – spinning and splashing back into the ocean. Knowing the dolphins come to the shallower bays to rest during the day, we don’t follow as they cruise away. We continue on toward Captain Cook monument, to snorkel along a reef next to the big blue. But the dolphins double back toward us, so we float and just take in this connection to nature – it definitely rates in my top five list of outdoor experiences of my lifetime.The next day, we SUP in Kailua Bay, to be out in the sun, on the water on our last full day in Kona. We’re out on the Ironman World Championship swim course, at mile 1.2 buoy when another spinner pod shows up, slowly moving in sync. We kneel on our boards and watch them swim under us, turn their silver bellies up like my tortoiseshell cat wanting attention back home.

A swimmer we later dub the dolphin whisperer sings and talks to them through her snorkel, or maybe it’s a recording? The pod collects near her as if she’s one of them. Wherever she goes they pop up, in pairs and groups. We take this in for more than an hour before heading back in – another few hours of nature TV we’d tune into any day.

Check out Nat Geo’s underwater video, with great views of the spinners in action.

Makalawena Beach

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I’m burying my bare feet in the soft, warm brown sand. It has that perfect packing consistency – not too soft and not too hard. It’s our little piece of paradise on this stretch, many feet from the crashing waves. The next couple is hundreds of yards away, in their own world. We’re all looking at the turquoise blue Pacific, letting time stand still in this pristine location.

I watch waves climb over and around a single lava boulder – my moments of Zen as I call it. We steal a nap and magazine reading as our reward for hiking in more than a mile to this spot, over mid-day radiating lava rocks from 1800s-era eruptions of one of many volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Passenger planes fly overhead, past lava fields to Kona airport’s runway several miles south of here. I saw this spot from one of those planes days before, vowing to return to this place where many years ago I ventured out furthest into the ocean than I had ever before – where I first saw a brackish pond and an untouched lagoon I was afraid to swim across.

We were some of the only visitors then, back when the road from the highway was truly “unimproved,” washboard gravel and ruts everywhere.

Now the road is tame by comparison, smoothed out and even paved in places. I see now why its location and increased access has become even more contentious to locals. This feeling bad for enjoying paradise at the expense of a culture is challenging to me, and familiar in the mainland states as well. I’m not sure tourists and people in general really think about that as they travel, but it’s always on my mind how tourism affects the local culture.

I try to balance these conflicting ideas by respecting places we visit, packing in and out everything we bring and learning about the history.

Waking Up in Kona

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Sliding open wooden blinds to see what morning has brought 2,000 miles away and on an island in the Pacific.

Beginning of sunrise over lush mountainside, about to fill a thin slice of clear space between the mountain and cloud bank. Humid, warmth on skin previously covered by winter layers on the mainland’s Pacific Northwest.

Spot on small beach, calm salt water lagoon as my nature TV. Waves crashing over outer reef, water trickling over pond rocks. Three palm trees frame my view to the right, over lagoon. Blue sky, puffy clouds. Sun escapes its cloud lock, warms my skin to the bone. I turn my face to it like a sunflower and soak it in.

Breeze off Pacific picks up, palm frond leaves dancing like the chords inside an open-face piano. They all lean left, into direction of the wind, which will pick up later.

Breathe in air. Dry, but humid at same time. Clouds gentle, floating past the palms, collecting with fellow puffs under sun, drawn to the greater cluster inland.

Sand soft and fine, rocks and coral broken down to tiny pebbles and chunks. Lagoon’s resident fish a few Moorish idols, butterfly fish, an eel. Smaller fish darting between rocks. Tide comes in, turtles with it. Coming to feed, their fins flapping to balance as the waves recede back over reef.

This is why we leave our home nest to establish a temporary one for a week or two so we can take in all that an island has to offer – or just relax on the beach, absorbing as much vitamin D as possible for our serotonin-depleted Pacific Northwest bodies.