Hawaii Day Five and Six
Day five we left Oahu, and went to the Big Island. We stayed in Hilo, which is the second largest city in Hawaii, but still rather small. The whole island really felt small townish. The first day we just went for a drive to check the island out. We drove up the north shore since our plans for the next day were to go south. Many areas felt like I was at home. They had rolling hills of farmland, and little crappy towns with just a bar and convenience store.
Day six we drove sound to Punalu’u Black Sand Beach. The black sand was weird. Since it was black, your mind thinks you will get dirty in it, but it’s sand so it just brushes off. That beach is famous for it’s sea turtles, but they were all out it the water, so we just saw a head peeking up from time to time.
After the beach we kept driving south. That evening we were going night snorkeling with manta rays in Kona, but had the day to explore.
We then went to South Point. It’s the southern most tip of the US. It was a long rough road out there, and it really felt like the middle of nowhere. At the point there was a cliff and people were jumping off into the ocean. It was a crazy high cliff. I didn’t even like to get close to the edge. The Wife was crazy and wanted to jump. I wasn’t going to let her, but then a few guys just jumped and were waiting for her in the water. She jumped and hit the water hard. She got a huge bruise on her leg, and lost her contacts when she hit the water. She was a good sport about it though, and didn’t complain much about her pain.
From there we went on to go snorkeling with manta rays. We went on a short catamaran ride and were just off the shore. They placed a light rig in the water. The light attracts plankton, which in turn attracts the manta rays. It didn’t take long for them to appear. It was so peaceful just floating in the water and watching how graceful the giant manta rays were. They would come at the lights and just do flips eating up all the plankton they could get. I wasn’t sure what to expect from night snorkeling, but it was pretty amazing. It was just quite and peaceful watching the fish and manta rays swim around.
From there we had a crazy drive across the island. I just set the GPS and followed it. It was crazy drive through the middle of nowhere. It was a very windy road with places that the road was actually missing. It was super dark, and raining, and half the drive was uphill where it was hard to get over 40 MPH, and the second half was downhill and I never touched the gas peddle for the longest time, and it was hard not to speed. I was so glad when we finally made it back to our hotel.