Our Aina
The girls had flown into Kona the night before and picked up the rental car, i arrived at 12:23pm and they met me in the Red Rental Car. They’d been up since 4am because sleeping in the car on a pull off beside the highway was not that comfortable and since the grocery store they discovered was open 24 hours they went shopping and stocked up with a few days of food. I loaded up my bags and hopped in and after hellos and kisses we drove to the book store next to Island Market in Kona. We needed books for the trip and this bookstore is big and has lots to choose from.
I texted my friend Acorn whom I met in AK in 1994 and who has just bought some land in the same subdivision as us in Na’alehu and is on the island. He arrived aswe were checking out. I got a a non-fiction book called The Blue Bear about the friendship between a charter boat captain and a japanese photographer in SE AK, theo other was Called In Search of Spirit Bear and also takes place on the Inside Passage.
Acorn was heading to the same place as us but we were going roundabout because we had to get another car in Hilo (Cheaper to rent a car for a day out of Kona and then drive to Hilo to rent one for 3 weeks than to rent one for 3 weeks out of Kona). So we drove the Saddle Road between 13K foot sisters Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, past the ecampment at the Mauna Kea summit access road where the locals are trying to keep another telescope from being built on the summit. It was a ghost town of tent and tarps flapping in the winds cause the winds are up. They ended up just letting us keep the car and we stopped at Wal-Mart ot by flippers and slippers before heading over Kiluea to Ka’u and Na’alehu.
Waiting for us on the aina were Ben, Carolina and our nieces/cousins Eva Luna and Avea. The outdoor kitchen is now under the covered porch, Ben has cleared a patio area beside the porch next to tree with a table looking south towards the sea.
I cleared our tent spot in the back of the land where there are 3 bee hives belonging to the Bee Boyz who are that couple with the nice house behind all the foilage on the corner. We havent seen them since 2008 and won’t see them this trip as they are off island for the holidays. Ambiana and Jakobi were super happy to be with their cousins. Acorn came over and we did a bog hit and talked story. It’s dark at 6:30pm and by 8 i was asleep in the tent. It doesn’t feel like visiting, it feels like coming home.
In the morning Colleen and I ran up the road towards the hills of Wai’ohino just after sunrise which was around 7am. It is such a beautiful run with the sun lighting up the hills which come close as we ascend the hill to the highway. As we ran we looked for lilikoi passing the overgrown lots and the playground and the community center. Up up up to the belt road, over the spray painted “Love the A’ina” which is still on the blacktop after all these years
In years past we turned around at the top but now we turn North up the road and run up to the Wai’ohino Park where early risers are filling up their water tanks and the beautiful tropical forest climbs the hill on the other side of the concrete channel over looking the big grassy square of park.
Twice we run around the square and then back to Ka’alu’alu Rd and down the hill still looking for lilikoi and guava, down to Maka’i St where we turn for home past Richards still empty foundation to the parking spot where we stop.
Its only 8am and I have 3 hours until breakfast. I journal as Acorn and Ben carry the metal roof sheets and the girls head to the playground on a guava hunt for Jakobi who has been talking about eating one for months. The shack’s roof needs replacing and Ben and I were gonna do it together so he said but he had Acorn helping him and a iron worker buddy was coming over in a day or two to help him put it on. I’ve done enough building so I was happy to go to the farmer’s market instead and load up on bananas, papayas and avocados.
Gauva hunt was a success. I make up my breakfast to eat later and grab a small scythe and clear the path to the tent.
The old outdoor kitchen is abandoned & overgrown, used to be the center but that is up on the shack where it is under roof and a bit more sheltered from wind and rain.
Our beach trip today is to Punalu’u, the black sand turtle beach. The lot is full and there are more people here than I have ever seen before. It is a nice sunny warm day and the ocean is littered with white caps as a strong wind is blowing out of the SE. The beach is crowded as there is a turtle sleeping on the Western end of the beach.
We plop our stuff down beneath the palms and Ambiana and Jakobi and Colleen write postcards as I take my new oval mask and old beat up fins and head out into the sea. The water is cool with spring water and i bump my toe on a rock; no soft sand here in the surf and the lifeguard told us to stay in front of the buoys and be mindful of the coconuts above us as they have been falling with the wind. Jakobi gets her mask and is in with me as well and she immediately spots a humumunumunumuapuaha. The water is kicked up with all the aves but there are fish; Morrish Idols, Parrot Fish, Mihi Mihi and the humu-humu all darting around in schools over coral heads, lava rocks and sea urchins nestled in the cracks.
It is glorious to be swimming in the South Pacific once again. Back ashore Ben has rolled a joint and and we head over to the trees to smoke then hang on the beach and all go maskling which is what Jakobi calls swimming with a mask with no fins or snorkel. The surf is rough and the current a bit strong so we don’t stray far from the beach. Ben throws Avea into the waves and Jakobi wants me to toss her and I try but she is too heavy.
Ben and Carolina left to put Avea down for a nap, we followed about an hour later and drove into Na’alehu. to the shopping plaza with the still vacant supermarket, the coffee store is still there as is the laundromat but the thrift store is now the Bee Boyz Honey Shop. The theater is still derelict and the sports bar is still open.
Back at the land we went to visit Acorn’s lot. He is clearing it of the invasive Christmas Berry Tree and their is ancient stonework visible beneath all the tangled growth. Ben says that back in pre-contact times the sea was the main mode of transportation and that the road into the subdivision was the main trail down to Ka’alu’alu Bay where the canoes would come ashore and commerce would commence meaning the subdivision we are in was on the main drag back in the day and since there were no invasive trees and brush which clutter the subdivision nowadays this whole slope down to the sea was open grassland and lava fields
We stopped by the Punalu’u Bakery from yummies and ice cream
We spend the day lazily around the land, waking up early to a symphony of birds and roosters, Jakobi gets us up to watch the sunrise and then Colleen and I run up the hill to the park. The girls paint while I build a sink station for washing dishes
The cousins enjoy spending time together, here they are all enjoying a book
