Vacation Day 6

We didn't have any trips/excursions/anything planned for today so Hilary and I went to the painted church. It is actually called St. Benedict’s Catholic Church. It is a quaint little church in the countryside near South Kona. It was absolutely gorgeous, both the church and everything that surrounded it. The picture above is one that we took immediately when we got out of the jeep. This little church is surrounded by vegetation like the stuff you can see here. It looks like a jungle everywhere around the place. The inside of the church is painted with many different AMAZING murals. The church was built in 1899 by Father John Velghe. He had no professional training and painted the murals on the wood used to make the church using regular house paints. A lot of the Hawaiians that inhabited the island at that time could not read, so he used pictures to help get his message across.
The front of the church was painted to make it appear to be a HUGE cathedral. Almost all of the structure you see in the picture above is created by the paint, not by the architecture.
There are 6 different murals depicting significant biblical events. The only pictures I took of them would not do them justice. This page has much better pictures of these 6 murals and also includes an explanation of each of them.
As we walked outside, Hilary and I were completely blown away by how beautiful EVERYTHING was. In the picture seen above, it is hard to make out, but from the front steps of the church’s entry you can see the Pacific Ocean beach. It is several thousand feet down, though. There is a cemetery to one side, neatly tucked away from your view as you exit the church. I believe a number of folks who have served at the church are buried on the grounds.
The flowers and vegetation were continuously AMAZING all over the entire property. I think this is a variety of Hibiscus, as we’ve said in earlier posts, the beautiful Hibiscus flowers are EVERYWHERE.
This yellow flower was also very pretty.
The flowers from this plant were also beautiful, but the plant itself looked painful.
There were birds of paradise flowering EVERYWHERE…probably one of my favorite flowers that grow naturally on the big island.

This place was so amazing.

One last pic, Hilary was going nuts trying to get a good picture of this flower/plant. It was much prettier “in person”. The next thing we did was definitely on my list, not necessarily on Hilary’s list of “must-do’s”. We went to the city of refuge or “Puuhonua O Honaunau”. This was a significant historical spot for the early Hawaiians.
Pictured above is a half scale replica of one of the original temples in the city of refuge.

This guy and a lot of his “friends” all stood watch around this ancient Hawaiian city.
These “god figures” were supposed to bring different types of luck, fortune, etc. to the folks that visited Puuhonua O Honaunau. This link tells the story of the city of refuge for my fellow nerds that would like to know.
Hilary took this picture of me smiling while driving us in the jeep, I was smiling because I had just found the spot where we would be dining for lunch.
This contraption had several spits that all held whole chickens over a fire. I think the wood was the Hawaiian version of mesquite. There was a motor attached to the spits and they all turned continuously, somehow contributing to the tastiness of the birds. This was one of the best friends I(Heath) made in Hawaii, although we only exchanged about 10 words. Our most important exchange involved our greenbacks and his chicken and rice. This was the BEST meal we had in Hawaii, “bang for the buck” wise. It was $10 and Hilary and I shared a chicken and an order of rice. It was DELICIOUS.
After our fantastic lunch, we headed back to the condo to change and get our snorkeling gear. We rented some snorkeling gear from a little shop in front of our condo. We became almost obsessed with finding snorkeling spots. Neither of us knew Hawaii had such awesome fish. We went to two pretty cool beaches north of Kona. The guy we rented the snorkel gear from told us to look for fish near the rocks. This was probably some of the best advice anyone gave us while we were there. The first beach we went out pretty far and Hilary got freaked out a couple of times. It’s amazing how fast the current can move you out to sea. While we were at this beach we saw TONS of fish and a couple of turtles feeding on the rocks above our heads. They couldn't have been more than 10 feet from us. We saw all of the fish you see pictures of here.

Above is a threadfin butterfly fish.

Above is a wrasse, they clean off the other fish.

Although Hilary swears these are called Sunshine fish (just kidding...that is just what she calls them), they are yellow tangs.

Above is a teardrop butterfly fish.

Above - this funny looking fella is a triggerfish. This one is called a picasso triggerfish, but the state fish of Hawaii is a reef triggerfish. His Hawaiian name is much more entertaining - Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

This guy was like 3 feet long and about as big around as a coke can, he could change color. ABOVE - This is a trumpetfish.

And this guy eats coral, you could hear him chomping on it under the water. He then turns the coral into white sand…what a guy. So all the beaches in Hawaii are really mounds and mounds of parrotfish poop.

Hilary was totally obsessed with the snorkeling. I(Heath) really did enjoy it, but if the sun was out she wanted to be in the water and snorkeling, I wasn’t quite that hellbent on it. The snorkeling was unbelievably beautiful at almost every spot we tried out. If we counted it all up, I am pretty sure we snorkeled more than 20 hours while we were here.

Strangely enough, as we trekked out to find the best underwater scenery the big island had to offer, we encountered this fella. This is, obvious to some folks maybe not to others, a wild turkey. He was hanging out in the parking lot of one of the places we stopped to snorkel.
Another Hibiscus that Hilary or I absolutely had to take a picture of.

This was a really unique plant that Hilary had me stop the car for. I have no idea what the heck it is, but it is VERY unique.

Speaking of unique…the big island is into some heavy experimentation for controlling speed in their residential neighborhoods. Pictured above is the fairly uncommon “SPEED TABLE”. Hilary and I thought this was so funny I think we may have turned around to get a picture of the sign.

After a full day of snorkeling and otherwise exploring, Hilary and I went to a GREAT place for dinner. The place is called Merriman’s. It was actually in Waimea, not Kona. Hilary and I had some amazing shrimp. We also had a filet, the beef came from a herd at a ranch here on the big island, Kahua ranch. Also, we had some wok-charred ahi…Hilary didn’t care much for this, but I am pretty sure it was swimming in the Pacific Ocean no more than 24 hours before. The menu said something about the fishermen coming in to the docks and bringing in the fish that would be served the next day at the restaurant.

Vacation Day 5

Today we ventured out early on the Fair-wind catamaran. We had a blast.

The ride over to the reef was very smooth and we enjoyed the views without a lot of vog. We couldn't wait to get into the water. It was an incredible snorkeling spot. We saw many fish and they had to drag us back onto the boat after 2 1/2 hours of being in the water.

Here we are on the way out to Cook's Monument where we would snorkel for the day.
To the left of all the boats you can see here, you can make out Cook's Monument. Supposedly where British Captain James Cook made landfall and first saw the early Hawaiians. More here about Captain Cook, if you'd like to know.

Here we are by the boat when we returned.

Later that day we walked down into downtown Kona. We had dinner at Island Lava Java and watched the waves. We then walked some more and watched a beautiful sunset.

We also had some "shave ice." They leave off the d in Hawaii. On this night we were in bed asleep by 9.

Vacation Day 4

Today we saw much of the island in a helicopter! It was my (hil's) first experience in a helicopter so of course I was a little nervous. Heath reassured me many times. We really really really enjoyed it. We did this tour: Blue Hawaiin Helicopter. Blogger is being weird so I will post more pictures tomorrow.

Heath shook his head the entire trip because he couldn't get over the views. It was truly amazing. There were times when I thought he was going to take us right into the cliff. It was a very smooth ride though!

After our helicopter ride, we headed more north to Waikoloa and found another great snorkeling spot. No hiking this time :) The sand was very different at this beach. It was lighter in color and not so gritty. We went out maybe 10 feet and found many many fish. We had a blast snorkeling off of some rocks. We went back to Kona for our Luau.

The luau was a lot of fun. They did a spear dance, a knife dance, and a fire dance. They really did wear coconuts! We enjoyed the sunset while eating from a huge buffet dinner.

We got these really pretty shell lai's while at the luau.

The band was awesome.

Tomorrow we go on a 6 hour snorkeling cruise out of Kealakekua Bay. We will see the Captian Cook's monument.

Vacation Day 3

We woke up late on Thursday and we saw all of these people huddled together taking pictures on the rocks right outside. When we first started researching a trip to Hawaii, we got this great DK book and it had a sea turtle picture in it. I told Heath that I really wanted to see a turtle while in Hawaii. I got my wish! There were 3 of them eating off of the rocks. I was so excited.

Next, we decided to go snorkeling. On our Mauna Kea trip, Mike the tour guide pointed to this snorkel spot while we were driving. He said it was about a 10 minute hike down. We thought no problem. These are the wild goats we saw on our way.....we went the wrong way somehow and ended back tracking up a highway! Good times! We found our way and realized it was a lot longer than 10 minutes. Here is Heath hiking.

All of the sudden it was beach. We only saw one other couple. It was amazing. We saw many sea turtles on this adventure. The water was really murky, but we had a good time.

This gecko rode with us to breakfast!

We ate dinner at a place called Boston Basil's for dinner. We had bb'q chicken pizza w/ pineapple. YUM!

Vacation Day 2

Well, day #2 was awesome! We got in pretty late from our drive from Hilo so we couldn't see the ocean because it was pitch black. We were excited to see our view. We didn't get up in time to see sunrise, but the view is spectacular! There's a picture below from our lanai.

We slept in a little bit and then went to eat breakfast. The place was right on the ocean and we enjoyed our Kona coffee and burrito. After breakfast we decided to explore. We walked on the rocks and learned that the Pacific ocean is quite cold....brrrr. We sat on the lanai while Heath wrote a blog post and I (Hilary) played Soduko and read our handy dandy Frommer's book.


We then left for our first excursion. We did the Mauna Kea Summit Adventure. Our tour guide/ driver was very knowledgeable. We met some nice people from Connecticut, Ohio, and Houston.

It's hard to describe our experience. The pictures do not even do it justice. It. Was. So. Cool. I said that about 10 times to Heath throughout our experience.

We started out in Kona and got on the bus for our tour. Mike, our guide told us a lot about the volcanoes while on our way. We drove through lava flows where the rocks were very black and shiny. We also drove past Michael Dell's house. It cost a mere $185,000,000. Holy Cow. We drove through Parker Ranch. We got a huge history lesson on our 2 hours drive to the visitor center. The tour took us through a military compound. The road we were on was called "Saddle Road." It was built in 45 days by the army a long time ago. It was quite bumpy. The drive up the mountain was really neat. There were time however, when we had a hard time looking out the window. There were no railings at all. I got over my fear of heights pretty quickly.

It was interesting how quickly it took us to get above the clouds. We stopped and ate our dinner at the visitor center. We people watched and saw some interesting folks. We think Heath might start the trend "crocs with capri pants for guys" when we get back to Lubbock.

After our dinner we continued up to the summit for sunset. The summit reaches 13, 796 feet above sea level. We learned that the most expensive telescope on the summit was 350 million dollars. There are plans to build a billion dollar telescope in the next year. We got out of the van and that is when the cold hit you. It was 25 degrees. We were provided with Arctic parkas and ski gloves. Man, it was cold. At the summit, we got to see Jupiter and Saturn through a telescope.

After sunset we were led back down the mountain for a star show. I've never seen so many stars! There is no light and no pollution in the air so we were able to see many stars. Our guides set up their own telescopes for us and we looked and learned about many many stars. We had hot chocolate and macadamia nut cookies before we took the long drive home to Kona. We were exhausted when we got home. If you are in Hawaii we highly recommend this amazing adventure. We will never forget it!

This picture was taken on our way up to the summit.

Do we look cold?

We were so high up that we could see Maui!