We woke up to a clear blue sky and a gentle tide. We had bought pineapple, papayas, and apple
bananas at the Hilo farmers market the day before and sliced these into our
yogurt for breakfast. As you would
expect, fresh tropical fruit is plentiful on Hawaii, with papayas being
particularly inexpensive, so fruit and yogurt became our breakfast staple.
We had made plans to meet my cousin and his family at their
hotel in Kailua-Kona. After a morning
spent swimming and snorkeling in the easy surf at Spencer Beach, we piled in
the van for the hour drive south through barren lava fields on the inland side
and sweeping coastal views on the ocean side.
We gazed wistfully at the Jeeps turning off to dirt roads that we’d
heard led to spectacular sights.
Kailua-Kona, on the west side of the Big Island, is where
the sun, sand, and surf are most typically Hawaii. As one guide book put it, Kamehameha, the
first person to unite the islands and be crowned king, could have chosen anywhere
to settle - he chose Kailua-Kona. Here, it
is sunny and warm most days of the year with little rain, the sand is as soft
as powder, and the ocean is as blue as the sky.
Kona is also where one will find most of the touristy hotels and
shopping, and we were surprised that the hotel my cousin chose offered only
limited views of the ocean from the pool deck and no apparent beach
access. We spent the afternoon at the
pool charging drinks and food to his room.
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| Maya (left) and her cousin Bella enjoying the ride . . . |
In the evening we set out for Honokohau Harbor, the
departure point for our manta ray snorkel adventure. After a 30-minute
motorboat ride around the point of the harbor through ocean swells that had most
of us white-knuckled and queasy, we anchored in a loose circle with three or
four other tour operators. While we waited for night to fall, we snacked
on fruit and chips provided by the operator and listened while the guide introduced
us to the manta ray family we could expect to see.
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| Cousin Mike, Jonah and me . . . not so much. The waves were big! |
Although somewhat threatening-looking due to their size (Big
Mama, with a wingspan of 13 feet, was the largest that fed in this particular
area, but the species can grow up to 23 feet) manta rays are harmless to people. They are not sting rays (they have no sharp,
pointy appendages) and have no teeth.
They eat large quantities of plankton, which they swallow with their maws
open as they swim. The plankton are drawn
to the lights shining from the bottom of the boats and attached to the flotilla
that our group held onto as our guide pulled us back and forth across the
surface. It is rare for mantas to be
kept in aquariums due to their size, so it was quite a thrill to watch as these
prehistoric, kite-like fish circled within inches of us in their nightly feeding.
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| Our Manta guide telling us facts about Mantas |
When we returned to the docks, it was dark and we were
plenty tired and cold from our adventure.
The boat captain said it would be alright to spend the night in the parking
lot of the marina, so we said goodbye to our cousins, popped the top up on
Mahana Pu’u, and quickly fell asleep. It
was five in the morning when the fishing boat crews began preparing to go out
for the day. Easing myself from the top
bunk to the driver’s seat, I slowly drove to a quieter corner of the lot while
the family slept, still cozied up in manta dreams.
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