Aloha is Versatile

Goodbye Hawaii! Today is officially my last day on the Big Island. I'm packing my things, cleaning my house and getting ready to go.

So I thought I'd give a blog farewell to each of my beaches. This is where I've been living for the last three months. Be jealous.

Apua Point (at sunrise)

This was our lovely backcountry beach. After hiking out 6.5 miles over rugged lava rock, we would reach this beautiful beach. This was either my first or second favorite beach, I could never quite decide. The wind could get a little intense, but on good nights the stars were beautiful and we always got great sunsets here. Sometimes Pu'u O'o Crater would be glowing particularly bright and we could see the glow of the lava lake reflected on the clouds emanating from the crater. From here, our 10 mile day hike included Keauhou and Halape, both beautiful beaches with excellent snorkeling. The main danger here was being eaten by a coworker which happened with surprising regularity.

Kamehame

This was a fun beach. I always ended up here with fun coworkers and had a good time. This is also the beach where I saw my first nesting momma turtle. Had to watch out for animal dangers though! This beach was were I was almost crushed by aforementioned momma turtle, stalked by a bloodthirsty ninja kitten, menaced by hungry cows, and attacked by vicious wasps.

Kaloa

Nobody much liked Kaloa. It was dirty, had tons of odd visitors, and we didn't have a camp set up, so we lived out of the cars that we drove in. I had some good times here though. It was always fun to talk story (my second favorite Hawaiian slang term after howzit) with the local fishermen and educate people about the turtles. If you got too bored, you could always walk the five minutes over to Punalu'u Black Sand Beach to watch the tour buses pour out tourists who would photograph basking green turtles and black sand before rushing back onto their buses. Sometimes if we did something entertaining enough, the tourists would photograph us too.

Pohue Bay

Pohue warred with Apua for being my favorite beach. It was my first and last beach and I spent the most time here. A gorgeous idyllic oasis in the midst of a lava desert, Pohue was everything you could ask for. Soft white sand, swaying palm trees, occasional visits from pods of dolphins, could you really doubt this was paradise? Of the two day hikes from Pohue, Awili was a brutal 8 mile round trip trek across A'a roads, with nothing good at the end, but Kahakahakea had a wonderful saltwater crack in the lava rock to cool off in on hot days.

(Kahakahakea crack- made of win)

Aloha Hawaii! Thanks for all the good times. Keep it real.