The bus from Honolulu to Kualoa takes about 1 1/2 hours and costs only $3.00 (1). My body was still on East Coast time (Hawaii time + 5 hours), so I awoke about 5:00 and took an early bus. The sun was rising as I arrived at Kualoa State Park (2). Dave, the kayak tour guide came as planned at 8:30.
We soon paddled into the bay, spotting a monk seal coming up for air. Paddling out, we noticed the splash from a whale's flipper and headed further offshore on this calm morning. Lingering near the harbor entrance buoy, a humpback whale emerged from the deep, just 10 or 15 yards away. I backed away as the enormous whale lingered on the surface, spouting from its blowhole. Under her dorsal fin, she was sheltering her newborn calf (3), who poked his or her head up a few times to look around. This was Dave's first whale siting this year, and one of his closest ever (4). A sea turtle appeared on the paddle back, gliding smoothly under the water.
Mokoliʻi Island (5) means "dragon's tail" in Hawaiian, because the adjacent ridge on the mainland looks somewhat like a dragon (if you have vivid imagination). We ascended the (slightly) less steep south face of the hill (6), maintaining four points of contact most of way on the rocky scramble up: two feet and two hands. The sweeping views from the 206 foot summit encompassed the whole bay. The descent was a even more intimidating, with five points of contact (the aforementioned four, plus my butt; safety trumps pride). On the descent, I noticed some unusual bushes with flowers in purple, yellow and orange all on the same cluster (7)
A short paddle brought us back to Kualoa State Park, where Dave's wife, Kat was waiting with lunch. Kat offered me a ride in the bed of her pickup truck to Turtle Bay (8), at the northwest corner of the Island. My last ride on the bed of a pickup was when I was about twelve, so I hopped in. I enjoyed an iced coffee and the view at Turtle Bay Resort, before grabbing the bus for the two hour (and still $3.00) bus ride back to Honolulu (8).
(1) When the bill insertion machine works, which it seems to about half the time (a).
(a) The ride from the airport last night explains why so few tourists use the bus. Unless you have a Holo card (which you can't buy at the airport), you need exact change to board the bus at the derelict-looking, unlighted bus stop at the airport, which had no schedule information posted.
(2) The typical quick sunrise in the tropics, not the long lingering sunrises (and sunsets) we get in the higher attitudes back home, especially in the months surrounding the solstices.
(3) The whales migrate to Hawaii in the winter to give birth. During their residence at the islands, they do not eat, as their normal diet of plankton grows better in the colder waters further north. Dave marvelled that the moms nurse the babies with about 100 lbs of milk each day, drawing upon her own body mass to do so.
(4) He frequently exclaimed: "This is awesome, Dude."
(5) Also known as "China Man's Hat," for it's shape.
(6) There are caves on the northern cliff-face, into which deceased Hawaiians have been descended from the summit, judging by the bones that have been found there.
(7) I was too focused on not slipping and dying on the descent to take a picture.
(8) Kat's truck is a manual, which Dave has never figured out how to drive. When Kat was first learning, her father said to her "Only rich people can afford an automatic transmission. We're not rich, so you need to learn on a manual."
(9) The waves were 10 to 15 feet on the north side today (the waves were predicted to be 50 feet tomorrow), so an impromptu surf competition was happening, slowing traffic further up the road. I therefore returned the way I had come.
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