(Reminder: rest mouse pointers on photos for captions. Yes, you have to.)

Our flight didn’t leave until 11:15p and our rental car wasn’t due till 10p, so we got a late checkout (5p) at the hotel, had an authentic island “spam” (they call it Portuguese sausage now, probably cuz Spam is a brand name) breakfast at a cute place by the water and hit another famous tourist spot, Captain Cook’s Monument off the coast. First, one thing about the restaurant. It’s known for its gecko residents. Greg told us on Tuesday that the geckos have learned to recognize the jam packets, and will come up to the table to give the preserved fruit a lick. Of COURSE we had to go for that. A gecko stopped by fairly soon after we sat down, but Mr. W scared it with his big camera, and despite the jam we set out on the sill, we never saw another one there.


While I turned around to look for other geckos, I spotted this furry little guy behind the open doorway.

On to the monument. Captain Cook (or as Mr. W calls him, Captain Hook) is the “discoverer” of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. The reason “discoverer” is in quotes is because when Mr. W read the monument plaque to me, I said, “Wasn’t there already people on the island when he got there?” Anyway, the monument is a white vertical spike-looking thing set up where he first landed on the Big Island and near where he later “fell.” The reason why “fell” is in quotes is because it’s really the place where the Hawaiian natives took him out. As in, navigate to the bright light, Cap’n! Navigate toward the light.

In order to get to the monument, we either have to hike down a steep grade jungle-y mountainside for miles (ick, mosquitoes!) or kayak there from about 1-2 miles away. We opted to kayak, and rented a 2-man plastic kayak for $40 for the entire day. It was a beautiful watery trip, and the clear teal ocean was so full of life that I was afraid I’d hit a fish upside the head when my oar dipped in. We didn’t cause any fish this pain (that I know of), but my body did not escape the soreness. There just wasn’t enough blood in my deltoids and I had to take a few pauses and wait for sensation to return. Any guilt I may have had about not having any upper body workout for the past week was obliterated.

We “parked” our kayak (what’s the proper term for that? “dragged to rocky coast?”) near the monument and jumped into the warm water for some amazing snorkeling. The coral reef in that area is expansive and beautiful. Mr. W had purchased some 35mm underwater cameras and we both went thru our 27-some shots in less than half an hour. I even saw some ancient petroglyphs on a rock underwater but the photos didn’t come out too well.

There were many different fish, and I loved hearing the colorful parrotfish munch on the coral.


Whenever I’d drift by and hear the “chomp chomp” scraping sound, I’d look all around and try to find the coral munching fish. Man, fish are constantly eating down there! What a bunch of piggies.


Mr. W found it remarkable that he wanted out of the water before I did cuz he says usually whomever he snorkels with wants out way before he’s willing to get out. That day, once he said he wanted to go, I tried to swim over to the kayak and get out of the water, but I kept getting distracted by stuff like this.


A few times a huge swarm of hundreds of thousands of baby silvery fish swam up to me and they’d split to go around me, and rejoin behind me. At one point I had a cloud of silver swirling all around me and I kept spinning to see them all, sparkling in the sunlight like liquid mercury drops. Like a big spillover of silver stars. Like that one scene where the bad cop explodes into a million cold quicksilver droplets floating in the air in the Terminator 4-D show at Universal Studios. (graphic, huh?)

Wanna see that again but slower?

Our photos spent along with our energy, we rowed back toward the other bay where we were parked. For some reason, I turned around and looked behind me. And saw small triangular black fins sticking out of water in the bay we had just left. Spinner dolphins! We quickly turned the kayak around and rowed back so fast we passed other kayakers like they were standing still. There were probably 20+ dolphins in the school, and they were doing mating shows, smacking their tails against the water surface, leaping into the air in teams. One dolphin demonstarted why they’re called spinner dolphins. He leapt high into the air and spiraled the entire arc until he hit water again, like how a football spins if thrown correctly. But faster. And he jumped back out and did it again as the onlookers cheered and clapped. And a third consecutive jump. Mr. W hurriedly put on his mask, snorkel and fins and jumped in the water and got to swim with the dolphins. He said they swam deliberately slowly underwater around him to wait for him, a whole family with a baby. After he got back on the kayak I tried to do the same but at this point, the dolphins were at a different spot and the water had poor visibility so I could only see them if I had my head out of the water and could spot their fins. I only saw them in the water when 4 or 5 swam in a downward arc about 10 feet underneath me. We cursed the moments we used up all our films on stupid fish.

After getting out and returning the kayak, we hit up Costco and dropped our film off for 1-hour processing, and went back to the hotel to clean up, pack and check out. Our swimsuits and towels were too wet and sticky with ocean saline to pack, so I did a load of laundry at the hotel’s outdoor facility while I chatted with an Oklahoma woman on vacation there who saw my UCLA travel wallet and had to comment that her husband’s also a Bruin. She loaned me her laundry detergent so that I didn’t have to buy a box, and I gave her the remaining half bottle of our dark Maui rum since she was staying another day past us, and she told me about her family as we played with cute little geckos. Small brown furry ferrets or meerkats or mongoose or something frolicked on the lawn, too.


Then we had a nice seafood dinner (well, I had a fresh-caught ono wrap while Mr. W had a bleu cheese burger) back in Kailua-Kona town in an outdoor patio overlooking the ocean, walking distance from our hotel, walked through town visiting some more shops, and then went to return the car (a great experience, the streets and directions were perfectly labeled street-side and visible despite the late hour, and the Hertz return guy came out to us and checked the car, then took instant payment right there and printed the receipt from a portable hand-held machine he had in his hand, we never had to go in) and shuttled over to the airport. Where I slept waiting for the flight to come in (about 2 hours) and slept immediately on the plane through all of the 4+ hour flight home.