Kona Sky

The pictures don't really do it justice, but the sky is amazing to watch from the farm 2000 ft. up. My favorite is when it is clear during the day and the sun is casting rays through the clouds and onto the ocean. And then there are the sunsets...

Okoe Bay

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited to Nicole's beach house at Okoe Bay. It's basically a private beach 40 minutes down a 4x4 road that no one knows about except for a few locals and fishermen that wander in. There was ancient Hawaiian ruins, amazing diving and shell hunting, whales and kayaking, and camping right on shore. Need I say more?

The Other Side of the Other Side Part 2

So after checking out Hilo and the Puna district (southeast part of the island), we met up with Michelle (Sarah's cousin by marriage) who offered us a great opportunity to help plant some native trees 7000 ft. up the tallest volcano on the island, Mauna Kea (14,000 + ft.). It was very neat because we were above the cloud inversion layer, so we were basically looking down on the clouds the whole time. When it was clear we could see the mountain on Maui. But being that high meant it got super cold at night, I mean like 30 degrees cold. Brrrrr. We got to sleep in these funny little a-frame cabin things. We also got hooked up with some sweet camo overalls :) Ha ha! The terrain was pretty gently sloping, rocky and dry grassland. It kind of reminded me of Marin a bit. It looked nothing like we were on a tropical island. All of the grasses are non-native though, as this mountain used to be completely covered in native forest under the tree line. Everywhere we looked up there, we could see dead remnants of the trees. The Brits brought cattle onto the island in the early 1800s, which destroyed the forest (along with logging) and transformed most of the slopes of Mauna Kea into grazing land.

So our job was to help re-forest a large section of Mauna Kea with native and endangered Mamane and Koa trees (Koa is in the pictures above) as well as a native shrub A' ali'i. Specifically we were doing this to help save the endangerd Palila bird which feeds on Mamane trees. It was pretty hard work, but a lot of fun with some good people, and we ended up getting over 3200 plants in the ground! Thanks Michelle for the good time! After four days of this we headed back down the mountain and waited on the side of the road for our farmer friend to pick us up. Unfortuantely we got caught in some crazy wind storm. It was like Kansas or something, but a fitting good bye to Mauna Kea!

The Other Side of the Other Side Part 1

A couple weeks ago we made it to the other side of the Island. We spent our first month here exploring all the amazing places in Kona, but finally we decided it was time to see some of the other stuff this island has to offer. Like volcanoes, rain forests, and warm ponds. We also found sprouted coconuts...something I have been looking for since arrival.

We stayed at our friend Nicole's house (she's also the one who taught us how to crack coconuts on the lavarock) in Puna. About 3 in the morning sirens started going off to warn of the impending tsunami that you probably heard about on the news. Luckily we were at 2,000 ft. Tsunami day was actually one of my favorite days yet! We all hung out at the house, doing a puzzle (I love puzzles) til 11 when it was suppose to hit us. Then we went to brunch to watch it on tv. The town was abuzz with uncertain energy. Thankfully nothing really happened except for several small tidal surges, but they eventually called the warning off. So then what did we do? We went to the beach! A very secluded beautiful beach that you had to walk over a relatively new lava flow and through a forest to get to. About ten years ago, the area we walked through was pegged for a large housing development. Then the lava started flowing in this direction and took out the whole development. You can see where the flows went right over the roads and everything. Now that the lava has changed direction, people are starting to come back and build right on top of the lava. What a wierd place to put a house! And the lava is flowing only about a mile away still.

So on our way to the beach through the forest, we found sprouted (cotton candy consistency) and unsprouted (water and flesh) coconuts. Both are delicious and refreshing. The ocean was very angry, so after our scenic snack, we headed to the warm ponds for a dip in a volcanically heated pond. The water was fed by the ocean into the pond through a crack in the rocks and heated by volcanic vents. It was a beautiful day of hiking, swimming, and exploring.

That's a caldera on Kilauea Volcano in the bottom pictures. We stopped there on our way to meet up with Jill and Nicole in Hilo. It is a pretty crazy place, and the source of all the air pollution on the island.

Kealakekua Bay

This one is definitely in the guide books...for good reason. The Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay is one of the most amazing places I've ever been. The snorkeling is phenomenal!
We saw all kinds of crazy fish, very healthy reef, and crystal clear water. About 50-100 feet from shore the reef dropped off and the water got very deep. This part was my favorite because the water was so clear that you could see the reef dropping. Apparently this bay (the deeper parts) are where Spinner Dolphins come in the morning and people swim with them.

You have to either hike down a pretty steep trail for about an hour (we did this) or swim or boat across the bay to it. Next time I'm going by water. That's Zues hamming it up with us (the guy who was taking the photo's dog); he snuck into the picture with us somehow.

The cultural significance of this spot is pretty cool too. The bay is actually a huge caldera that caved in. Those cliffs in the background (the edges of the caldera) were where the Ali'i (chiefs) of importance were buried. A volunteer was lowered down by a rope with the remains (mainly bones) of the Ali'i. After securing the bones in a cave, the volunteer signaled to the people above and the rope was cut, sending the volunteer to their death. This was done so that nobody would know the exact location of the Ali'i's remains.

The historical significance of this spot is of course that it is where Captain Cook landed, and ten years later, was killed. There is a small white monument on the rocks commemorating this.

Avocado Fest

A couple weekends ago we went to this funky little Avocado Festival right down the road from the farm. It's avocado season right now, and man are they going off! We've been eating guacamole with every meal :) mmmmmm! I had no idea how many different varieties of avocado there are. On the mainland we usually just see Hass or Sharwil. And the picture above only shows the tip of the iceberg!

There was good food and music and some pretty entertaining activities like this human avocado sculpture. Those poor people got wrapped in plastic and then had plaster poured on top of them in 90 degree heat! It was pretty funny to watch, but I felt bad for them. I saw a couple people escape. Whose idea was that?

We also went to an avocado grafting workshop put on by this funny Cooperative Extension guy. Like many fruit trees, you can start new trees from seed, but they will probably not grow to produce the same fruit as the parent tree. You have to graft part of a fruiting tree (called a scion) onto your new tree seedling in order for it to produce the desired fruit. Douglas just planted a bunch of avocado seedlings in the ground at our farm, and we will be grafting them soon, so this workshop was helpful. You basically just cut a wedge in the stem of your tree seedling and cut the bottom of the scion into a V-shape and stick it into the wedge on the seedling. Then you tape it together with special tape to keep moisture out and help it mend. Eventually the tree will begin to grow from the graft spot and will take on the traits of the scion (you have to cut off the other part of the tree because it will also grow). In the picture above, he just grafted the scion from a fruiting tree to the stem of a seedling and is taping it together. The scion is the curved thing sticking out to the right with buds. Pretty cool!

Farm Friends

Here is the group we've been living and working with on the farm. Friday we came back to Kona from a trip up one of the dormant volcanoes (pics of that to come later) to a picnic on the beach at Place of Refuge. During ancient Hawaiian times, a person would flee to this place if he had broken one of the rules or customs and people were after him. If he made it here, apparently he could cleanse himself and be safe from any harm. Now they've turned it into a pretty sweet national park and beach spot!

Anyways, the two people in white are Douglas and Sheree, the couple that run the farm and have been on the island for over 30 years. The other man is Jan, a German guy that Douglas picked up hitchiking 25 years ago and has been coming back to the farm from the east coast every winter ever since. His wife Jurga is in blue, and she is from Lithuania. Jill in black with her sweet dog Poppy is the resident farm worker that lives right next to us, and her partner Nicole in green. They're originally from the west coast but both studied tropical agriculture at the Univ. of Hawaii. It's a great group!!