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Heading South on the Big Island of Hawai'i

Thursday March 30, 2006

Posted In: Hawaii | Comments: 10 | Written By: Kai Conragan

Naahelu, Hawai’i. The Southernmost restaurant in the United States, and a damn fine place to get Liliko’i lemonade

As they say, when it rains, it pours. And it has rained in nearly biblical proprtions in Hawai’i the past few days. Typically, afternoon rain showers are a welcome treat in the tropics; they are a cool and cleansing respite from the afternoon heat and bring a sweetness to the air. But I’m not talking afternoon spritzes. I’m talking torrential downpours, flash flood warnings, and heavy thunderstorms.

In fact, Hawai’i has been receiving record rainfall. Kaua’i took the brunt of the storms with several dams in the North breaking resulting in a few tragic deaths from mudslides. But all of the islands have received record amounts of rain. Today brought a break in the weather, and with more rain forecast starting tomorrow, Julie and I were eager to get out and enjoy the day.

Our past day trips have lead us north of Volcano, including several trips to Pahoa and the surrounding area, as well as a couple trips north of Hilo to Honoli’i and Onomea Bay. Yet today, as we descended onto Highway 11 from our house in Volcano National Park, on a whim we decided to head South.

A tropical path to the beach

We drove for 15 miles through lush green fields, Kau trees, and the occassional Macadamia tree grove. The backside of Mauna Loa ascended sharply to our right, covered at it’s peak with a light dusting of snow from the day’s previous rain. To our left, the terrain descended gradually for several hundred meters before it reached the ocean. Several miles further up the road we saw a sign for Punalu’u, so we turned off the highway and drove past the outskirts of yet another golf course before reaching a parking lot filled with tour buses and rental cars. Unsurprisingly, Punalu’u Black Sand Beach Park is a pretty popular tourist stop as it’s one of the few easily accessible beaches on this side of the island that actually has sand. A good amount of the shoreline is still covered in hardened lava, beautiful to look at but miserable to lie on.

A hundred meters off the beach a shallow reef caused little waves to cap and then subside into the calmer waters inside. This created an ideal little cove for snorkelling so Julie and I decided to grab our gear. Most of the tourists seemed content to snap photos of themselves and then reboard their tour bus without even dipping their feet in water . As such, though the beach was crowded, there were only a handful of people in the water.

A sleepy turtle

We gingerly made our way out. Even though the beach is sand, it becomes rock again pretty quickly and our feet haven’t toughened up quite yet from years of urban tenderizing. We kicked out a few yards and the water quickly changed from sandy and sediment ridden to clear and blue. As my eyes adjusted I realized I was staring face to face with a sea turtle, no more than 5 feet away, and less than 15 meters from the shore. I took a breath and dove down, equalizing my ears as I reached the bottom. I turned and faced back towards the surface and watched as the turtle glided gracefully above me, completely unconcerened with my presence. I kicked along slowly, following the turtle. Out of the blue depths ahead, a second turtle materialized. The turtles met up and then drifted out of sight. Julie and I continued kicking towads the outer reef. We noted several old boat anchors rusting on the ocean floor, quite a few angelfish, some Parrot fish, a Bottlenose fish, and an eel.

Back on Highway 11 we moved on further South. The landscape was green and verdent. Small pastures lie just off the road with cows and horses grazing lazily in the midday sun. This part of the island felt strangely familiar to us, like the rolling hills of Bolinas or Bodega Bay back home in California. We passed through several small towns, their streets lined with red plumeria trees and hand-painted signs advertising small art studios and fresh smoothies. We spotted a sign saying “South Point – 12 miles”, so we turned left off the highway onto a small country road. The road winded down the countryside, eventually becoming 1 lane. We passed some old farm houses and a collection of wind turbines, a few of them turning slowly in the breeze.

We reached the end of the road and pulled into a lava rock parking area along with several other cars. This truly was the end of the road. The small point we were on was surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on three sides, and the the lava rocks we were parked on extended perhaps 10 more meters before plummetting 40 feet down into the sea. We felt like were standing on the edge of the world. In some sense we were. This spot is southern-most piece of land you can stand on in the United States.

Kai admires the view

As we got out of the car we saw a handful of people standing around what appeared to be a hole in the lava rock. A shirtless man holding a beer, who clearly had spent many years in sun, bellowed at us “Well, you flew all the way out here, and then made the drive all the way out here. Are you going to jump? You can pick the pool or the cliffs”. We approached to see what he was talking about. As we neared the hole we realized it descended perhaps 25 feet straight down and that the ocean was clearly visible at the bottom of it, forming a “pool”. My hearbeat picked up a little. A tan girl in her mid-twenties stood at the edge of a rock jutting out over the pool, and on the next surge of water, jumped. Everyone standing around the hole hooted in enthusiasm. We walked over to the edge of the cliff and saw the girl appear out from under the cliff and make her way towards a rusted ladder that extended all the way down to the water. Apparently the pool opens underneath the lava, forming a cave that allows you to swim out to the open ocean and climb back up the ladder. I looked a little further out and saw a free-diver, speargun in hand, take a deep breath before diving down.

A hawaiian with his Baracuda

Julie and I walked further up the cliffs a ways. We came upon 3 Hawaiians who were fishing. They had garbage bags attached to a second piece of line off their rods that would catch the wind and pull their hooks further out than they could cast, thus getting closer to the big fish that swam in the depths. One of the fisherman had a huge bend in his rod, and we watched as he struggled with whatever was attached to the other side of his line. After 10 minutes or so we saw a flash of silver in the water below. Another fisherman, with a large hook attached to the end of a 10 foot piece of bamboo, gaffed the fish and brought it up the cliff. It was a Barracuda, perhaps 30 lbs in weight.

Kai plays with gravity

I’d had enough standing around. I walked over to the cliff area that had an old wood structure jutting a few feet out over the cliff and took off my shirt, hat and sunglasses. The salty local who had initially greeted us, now on another beer, told me the cliff was 36 feet high. How he knew this exact measurement I had no idea. The cliff was higher than the pool the girl had jumped in earlier, but I liked jumping out into open as opposed to a closed in space. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and jumped. It was a long enough of a drop that I had time to think, “Was this a good idea?”. I hit the water abrubtly, but managed to keep pretty straight so as to minimize the impact. I descended 10 feet down and kicked slowly back to the surface. The cliffs from the bottom were truly spectacular. The water was crystal clear and beautiful as it surged up and down around me. I swam under the cliff overhang and back into the pool the girl had jumped into. I looked up and saw the the top of the hole that a few minutes ago I had been looking down from. The whole ambiance had a feel of Goonies. I swam back up out from the overhang and towards the ladder. I took a hold of it and hoisted myself up, with the latter swaying to and fro as I made my way up. When I reached the top I took one last jump and then Julie and I got back in the car and headed back out the road.

Southernmost Restaurant in the USA

On the way home, we stopped in Naahelu for a late lunch. The restaurant we chose proudly proclaimed to be the “Southernmost Restaurant in the USA”. Inside, the restaurant was like an old diner from the 50’s, with teal chairs and a checkerboard floor. Paper cranes hung from the ceiling and Elvis music played in the background. I had stirfry and Julie had the Korean beef plate lunch. We both had Liliko’i lemonade and smiled about the day. As we got in the car and pointed it North, raindrops started falling on the windshield.

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