My husband and I traveled to the Big Island to spend time with his parents and celebrate our anniversary. On our last full day, we traveled from Kona eastward towards the City of Refuge. Interesting: In ancient Hawaii, if you had committed a serious crime or defaulted on war duties, rather than facing punishment, you could be forgiven of your sins if you made it to the City of Refuge before you were caught. Now this town is preserved as a state park; similarly, I imagine This is the Place State Park in Utah, where I am from. Because of the impending tropical storm, the park was closed, and now we were an hour away from our lodgings. We began meandering and found a small sign directing traffic to an off-beaten path to the beach. To our surprise, this was the best snorkeling we have ever seen on any Hawaiian island!
We parked in a private parking lot. The area was enclosed by a handmade volcanic rock fence and featured a handwritten sign: “$5 Parking, Cash Only.” To our right, there was. A large corrugated-metal overhang pavilion in the parking lot with a fake-grass carpet.
Looking out to the ocean in front of us was a thick layer of volcanic rock, ideal for tide pools. To our left was a calm, small bay, probably the size of a basketball court, with water that was strangely very cold. As it opened up towards the ocean, it was bottlenecked, and housed a chaotic break of choral and rocks where the water would transform from waves with momentum, tumbling with white water splashing, and then transmute to calm dispatch. After the break, the bay opened up to a half-mile open half circle. This water hit the banks of the land, covered in black rocks. Not a friendly, smooth beach, but a consistent conflict between water and land.
Jonny immediately grabbed his snorkel gear, and despite the windy conditions above water, he jumped right in. “Come on, Sarah, the fish are amazing! Go get your gear!!”
I am a reluctant snorkeler, a recovering panic attack snorkeler. Rather than collecting snorkeling memories, I have collected panic-attack memories while snorkeling around the world: the Red Sea, Cancun, and even Hawaii. While I have made huge strides in learning to love the water, it still takes a lot of bravery to get in and put my face in the water. I decided to go for it.
By the time I went back to our car to change, a large Hawaiian man was sitting under the pavilion. His skin was naturally brown, but you could also tell it had been warmed by years in the sun. He was sitting in an electric wheelchair. Only wearing a tiny black swimsuit. I learned that this was his home. His small dwelling sat on the back of the parking lot property, and this is how he made his living.
The Hawaiian man pointed to the ocean, “Look, there are dolphins!”
I immediately jerked my head to look into the distance, a pod of dolphins, maybe 6-7 fish, jumped in succession.
“There’s a baby whale out there, too.”
Because the Big Island is such a tall mountain from the ocean floor, mother whales will drop their babies off in the bays, and they will dive off the drop-offs, just a stone’s throw from the beach, that drop thousands of feet into the depths of the water.
For the next hour, while we were playing in this beautiful landscape, braving the cold water of the bay, swimming with hundreds of yellow tangs, and even being greeted by a sea turtle, we enjoyed watching a pod of dolphins leap. Every time I saw them fly out of the water, I wanted to holler to the visitors of their whereabouts; most of them being obvious to the wonder.
I was grateful for my new friend. When we asked him if he was going to stay when the tropical storm hit, he said, “This is my home. I have survived a tsunami and a hurricane. I will stay for the tropical storm. This is my home,” he said as he pointed to his small abode, “and this is my swimming pool.” He pointed to the bay in front of us. “So many people come here and complain that they don’t see anything. But you, you’ve seen it all today!”