Da Big Island Part 2

Apparently this blogging app has character limits, so here is Part 2... Anyway, Monday was another early morning, as I had to make the 2 hour drive across the island in time for a 7:15 check-in at the dock. I ventured out with a small group on a traditional double hull canoe, the kind that the Tahitians used when they found the islands. We had a whale flanking us for a few minutes, surfacing a few times before diving down again. It was about a 45 minute ride out to Kealakekua Bay, the place where Captain James Cook (the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands) docked during his second visit to the islands. The bay is known for its rich marine life and excellent snorkeling, and it definitely lived up to the hype.

After that voyage, I ventured into the town of Kona and added tried two new elements of Hawaiian cuisines. The first was a drink called Kava, which is made from the roots of a pepper plant, and has a natural sedative quality.  It is consumed in the Pacific to relax without disrupting mental clarity. The other was squid luau, which is made by cooking young taro leaves and squid in coconut milk until the leaves are tender. The squid dish was quite delicious and reminded me of cream spinach.

Monday night, I went out on a Manta Ray dive, which was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. On the way out, we passed a school of spinner dolphins, which are known for the aerobatic displays. The captain stopped for a bit and we were treated to a pretty cool show. 

The boat anchored in the bay just after sunset, and we dressed in wetsuits, with some gearing up for scuba and some for snorkel. The crew setup a big surfboard with 6 bright lights on the bottom, which attract the manta rays who feed on plankton. They are truly beautiful creatures, and I never knew how enormous they were. Some of the rays around us had wingspans of 15 feet and weighed over 1,000 lbs. As they swam around us with mouths wide open, it often times looked as if they were swooping in to bite our heads off, but they were extremely swift and would turn at the very last second. Manta ray populations are threatened, and a bill was passed in 2009 to protect them. The rays also have distinct patterns of black spots on their underside, and over 200 have been identified and named and are tracked online, so the crew was able to tell us which ones were around us.

Well, mom and dad arrive this Friday, and then my sister Kristina and brother in law Nate after that, so I hope to have more fun (and hopefully delicious) experiences to share in a few weeks! Mahalo for reading, a hui hou!