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.

On the last dive, John spotted an octopus hiding in a coral crevasse.

Uncomfortable with his presence, it soon jetted off to a new hiding place.

On the way back to the harbor, we saw more dolphins.

And more whales.

Our last night Kona side, we ate oceanfront at Huggo's. Excellent ciopinno!

Last sunset before we head Hilo side.

P.

Road trip! Road trip!

This sort of vista is why I love road trips.

I have to confess that Covid had driven me a little mad. After a year and a month of careful quarantining, I had a bad case of cabin fever. Though we had done a few day trips here and there, as well as a brief visit to Jackson Hole and northern Idaho last fall, I needed a good strong dose of the open road.

So a month after getting our second vaccination, we hit the highway for a glorious three-week road trip.

Our first stop was a visit to Napa to see our friends the Pereiras and the Sterns. We stayed the night in Reno as we usually do to break up the long drive to the Bay Area, but this time instead of continuing on in the morning, we decided to meet our friend Doug for breakfast in Tahoe. 

After a lovely visit, we continued on down the west side of the lake to Emerald Bay. My mother loved Lake Tahoe, and Emerald Bay was her favorite place there so I wanted to check it out.

It wasn't until we got there that we realized the we had been here in May 2013 with the Sterns.

And that in fact this vertiginous terrain is the exact location where O was proclaimed a goat.

Before that miraculous day, O had mostly manifested the sheep energy, but as I watched her climbing straight up those rocky slopes to the road without even a faint trail to guide her, I saw that she was all goat. I was always taught that "when you see the goat, you must promote." I did so without hesitation, and ever since she has been goat.

So it's a happy place for both of us.

After breathing in those fond memories, we continued on to Napa. Unfortunately, Steve was in the hospital, so he was unable to join us. Michele came up, however, and we enjoyed the Pereiras' hospitality for the next couple days.

Although we had all had our shots, none of us were interested in going out to eat, so we all rotated cooking duties. Since we are all excellent cooks, we ate and drank well.

On Sunday, Steve was able to join us, and since it was our turn to cook, we made a special celebratory dinner. I cooked Asian carnitas with ginger, garlic, and lemongrass. O made a wonderful banana flower salad  and spicy Thai eggplant.

After a delicious final breakfast, we parted company, and O and I drove to Oakland to see my sister and brother. It was such a delight to see them and hug them after a year of enforced absence.

We took a long walk through the Oakland hills where the poppies were in full bloom.

This snake was also enjoying the sunny spring day. He was about a foot and a half long, about the same size as the rattlesnake we encountered in Escondido later in our trip.

After a couple days of family fun, we crossed the bridge into San Francisco. We got an amazing rate at The Donatello downtown, and spent three wonderful days seeing friends and revisiting  our old stomping grounds. The city was somewhat subdued because of Covid, but we managed to have a great time. We were nostalgic for old-time SF, so we visited some of our favorite old-line restaurants: Original Joe's, Brandy Ho's, Tadich Grill (since 1849), and John's Grill (1908). Lunch at Tadich was a hoot. By my count, diners at fully a third of the tables were guzzling a martini or three with their meals.

We left SF early Friday morning, racing down 101 to make a noon lunch date with our granddaughter Syona in Santa Barbara. We had a fun visit with her, then continued down to Escondido, with a quick stop at Phillip's BBQ in LA to pick up some delicious ribs for dinner with Teresa, Matthew and Devon.

In the long year since we've seen them, T & M have made their beautiful home even more beautiful. It was such a pleasure seeing them and being in their energy for five whole days.

Matthew and I made a run to San Diego Old Town to stock up on mezcal. We made some delicious choices. The Xicaru was everyone's favorite. You can actually taste a hint of the mole used in the second distillation. Here's a link to the post I did in 2015 on our visit to mezcal distilleries in Oaxaca.

We had a close encounter with a young rattlesnake who decided to sun himself just outside the patio door. O saw it and  alerted us all. Tenchi the cat had to be dissuaded from joining in the fun. Regretfully, we decided that the snake should not be allowed to grow larger and establish their yard as his territory, so Matthew killed and decapitated it with many apologies.

I took one day to go up to LA to visit some of my favorite galleries, bookstores, and eateries. I started at Phillipe's for a lamb French dip sandwich and wound up at the Hollywood branch of K&L wines to stock up on scotches for me and for John. On my way back to Escondido I stopped at the Alhambra branch of Chengdu Taste to pick up a tasty Sichuan dinner for us all. Their Toothpick Cumin Lamb is sensational -- insanely hot and flavorful. Here's my post from 2015 on my discovery of the dish and my ongoing love of LA.

I did not eat at Banh Mi My Dung.

From Escondido, we went to San Dimas to visit our oldest granddaughter, Eryn, and her family. We got to spend an afternoon and evening with her and her husband and our three great-granddaughters. 

The girls had grown a lot in the year since we'd seen them. They're adorably cute and very talkative and it was wonderful to spend time with them.

The next morning, we left very early for the eight-hour drive to Escalante, Utah. O and I are in love with the southwest Utah landscape. We've visited Zion and Bryce as well as Moab and Arches, but for some reason, we'd never visited the Escalante-Grand Staircase area. Our friends the Sterns are besotted with place and have urged us for years to go. 

We're glad we finally listened to them.

Our first glimpse of the wonders in store was at sunset. 

We drove from our motel in Escalante to the overlook where the landscape changes from rolling brush lands to deep, eroded canyons of spectacularly-colored sedimentary rock.

It had been raining off and on that afternoon, and the setting sun painted the drifting rainclouds in pinks and oranges.

Just gorgeous.

The owner of the motel put together an itinerary for our one-day visit. It was a full day, well spent.

We started with an early morning hike to Calf Creek Falls. 

The six-mile roundtrip winds through beautiful canyons of eroded rock.

The cactus was in bloom.

The colors of the various strata look almost artificial. The demarcation of the different layers is remarkably precise.

The impressive rock formations often resemble ruined structures.

The falls have created a cool green oasis in the midst of the jumbled piles of stone. Calf Creek itself is filled with small rainbow trout.

Just downstream, beavers have dammed the creek to form a large pool. We caught a glimpse of a beaver swimming through its domain.

We were enamored of the myriad fanciful shapes of the wind-sculpted stone.

Right off the road was the narrow entrance to one of the area's many slot canyons.

The cliffs resemble the drip castles I used to build as a child at the beach.

The canyon only goes back a few hundred yards.

Some of the rocks along the canyon walls look like frozen puddings whipped up by a giant.

Down twelve miles of dusty gravel road was our last stop for the day: the Devil's Rock Garden.

These massive hoodoos seem more otherworldly than devilish.

I guess the devil found work for his own idle hands. I commend his efforts.

From Escalante, we drove ten hours straight back to Boise. It was an excellent and much-needed road trip, but we were glad to be home.

P.