Adventures with the Meanderthals.: Visiting the Big Island 1: Kona side

In mid-February, John and I decided we'd had enough of the cold. It was time for a father-son dive trip. We had hoped to take Luciya, who is now a certified open water diver, but her school schedule was too intense. Disappointing for us, way more so for her.

After assessing our options, we determined that Hawaii was the best choice. I'd been wanting to go to the big island for years, but had never gone, and even John, who lived on Maui for seven years, had never spent much time there. One of my bucket list dives was a night dive with the mantas off Kona, so we booked that first thing.

The temperature was below freezing when we drove to the airport for a late evening flight to Seattle. The nearly full moon was casting iridescent rings on the icy clouds.

After a short sleep in Seattle, we hit the airport at 6:30 am for our flight to Hawaii. John had a lot of travel points on Hawaiian Airlines, and was generous enough to share them, so we had first-class seats from Seattle to Honolulu. I'd almost forgotten how lovely it is to fly first class on a long flight.

We started with mai-tais, of course.

A delicious brunch soon followed.

The next leg was the 50-minute hop from Oahu to Kona. The weather was perfect, with great views of Honolulu, Molokai, Maui, and Lanai.

At last the big island came in sight. The west coast above Kona is barren and rugged with black lava flows. Hawaii is the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands, formed beginning about 800,000 years ago, with eruptions from Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world, adding more land to this day.

We rented a two bedroom condo in downtown Kona through AirB&B. It was a nice place, centrally located.

We strolled around Kona village for a bit, then found a ocean-view table for martinis and poke at the Kona Inn.

Our first sunset on the big island.

The next morning, we joined Kona Honu Dive Co. at 7:45 am for our first two dives. They are a well-organized, friendly group, and I recommend them highly.

John surfaces from the first dive. The water was about 77 degrees and very clear, viz well over 100 feet. The sea life was profuse, better than most dives I've done in the other islands.

I love to be under the water. It's my happy place.

We were lucky enough to see a rare Hawaiian stingray racing past.

And, of course, turtles.

Life on the surface was abundant as well. We saw several large pods of dolphins as we motored to and from the dive sites.

We also saw a few humpback whales: a mother and calf escorted by a large male. We could hear them singing during our dives.

After lunch at a little harborside dive (delicious fresh fish sandwiches), we shipped out for our evening dive with the mantas. The surge along the rocky shore was intense.

Just as we anchored at the dive site, a large manta swam just under the boat. We took this as an encouraging sign. Sometimes the mantas don't show, which would have been a real letdown.

While we waited for dark, we were lucky enough to see a rare Hawaiian monk seal hunting in the crashing surf.

The late afternoon sun painted rainbows on misty curtains of drifting rain.

The clouds were spectacular in the golden light.

At last the sun set.

The manta dive takes place in about 45-60 feet of water just off a rocky point. A dozen or so boats filled with divers and snorkelers arrive for the show. A battery of high-intensity lights is set up on a flat, sandy clearing. The lights attract swarms of plankton, which in turn attract the mantas. We descended to the seafloor and settled in for the show. Unfortunately, the surge, even at 60 feet, was intense. I found a rock to hold on to, but even then it took all of my strength to keep from being tumbled head over heels across the sand into the lights.

Was it worth the effort? Oh, yes. After a few minutes of waiting, the first manta loomed up out of the darkness, mouth agape, sucking in as much plankton as it could. The creatures are huge, as much as 15 feet wingtip to wingtip, and weighing up to 1500 pounds. My mouth was agape, too, as first one, then two, then four mantas swooped overhead and around me, almost brushing my head, making pass after pass over the lights, pirouetting, looping, barrel-rolling, impossibly graceful for such large animals. That's my head in the foreground.

John was able to get these great photos, but unfortunately, he was not able to find as secure a spot as I had snagged, so the surge forced him to abort the dive early.

The next day, we took Kona Honu's smaller, faster boat, the Honu Lele, on a longer-range trip. Excellent dives.

That night I had scheduled a blackwater night dive. I didn't really know what to expect, but I love night dives, so I wanted to try it. John had work to do, so he decided not to go. I almost decided to skip it, too. I'm so glad I didn't.

Here's how the blackwater dive works: when it is well and truly dark, the boat runs straight out from the harbor for three miles and sets a sea anchor (think of a large parachute). Out here the bottom is 5,000 feet down, so you don't want to drop anything.

The water was indeed black, but the full moon was rising behind the clouds.

Three weighted down lines about 45 feet long are set up on each side of the boat. Each diver hooks an 8-foot tag line to his individual down line. Then you leap into the inky water.

At first it's just a spinning confusion of lights and bubbles, then what look like white specks of debris resolve into a myriad of tiny iridescent creatures, whirling and wriggling in the beam of your flashlight. There are little dots of intense neon red orbiting madly in tight circles in the midst of the light. Long chains of jelly-like salps lit up like small passenger trains writhe past. Laval fish and cephalopods feed in a frenzy. It's incredible how much life teems in just the small space illuminated by our lights.

This video I found on YouTube gives you some idea of what it looks like. It captures the profusion, but unfortunately can't capture the color, everything is actually iridescent with rainbows of neon color.

We saw dozens of pelagic seahorses.

A tiny octopus resplendent in iridescent colors: blue, red, purple, yellow.

Comb jellies pulsing with moving strings of neon color.

A bobtail squid about an inch long. It was one of the most amazing dives of my lifetime. I was reluctant to get back in the boat, even though I was quite cold by the end of the dive. I will definitely do this again. And next time I'll take a camera so I don't need to find pictures on the web.

The next morning we did our final two dives.

Excellent dives, excellent visibility, a spectacular profusion of sea life. This area is called Red Hill. The locals see Pele in the cliff. Look closely and you can see her lying on her side. Her head is to the left with her black hair blowing off to the left and her two eyes slitted malevolently. The highest point of the cliff is her hip and her legs trail off to the right. We thanked her for the great diving and asked her to bless the rest of our trip as well.