Green your Beach

Papakolea beach gets its green sand from a cider cone
that has a high content of olivine, a mineral mixture of 
magnesium iron silicate. Volcanic eruptions on this island
contain differing concentrations of olivine, which can be
used as a tag to determine the date and source of the lava. 

KA LAE, HAWAI'I, December 26, 2016—According to the locals, high-season for tourism begins the day after Christmas in Hawai'i and continues through April each year. With Papakolea Beach (aka, "The Green-Sand Beach") being one of the top tourist draws on the Big Island of Hawai'i—one of the Big Three must-see destinations—we thought we'd test this statement by heading to the southernmost point on the island to check out the beach, which gets its unique color from a cinder cone that is rich in Ovaltine, the signature drink of the Christmas season made famous in the movie, A Christmas Story, which played continuously for 24 hours the day before on cable television.

The rental car agent had warned us not to go there. He said the vehicle would be pillaged by hostile locals. We disregarded his advice and found ourselves at the parking area amidst a sea of tourists, most of them dismayed by the fact that regular vehicles cannot drive to the Green Sand Beach, and traveling there requires a two-and-a-half-mile walk along the coastline in buffeting winds. A hoarde of industrious locals had set up shop to cater to the lazy. For $15 to $20 a head, they'd drive you out to the beach in their 4x4 pickups. Business was brisk. There was more green exiting tourist wallets this day than grains of sand on the beach.

On our walk to the beach, we had helped a Japanese family navigate their large 4x4 rental SUV over some of the more treacherous spots in the road, but we lost sight of them about halfway along. Once we got to the beach, two young boys approached us and thanked us for helping their family navigate the giant vehicle.

"So you made it?" I asked with excitement.

"No," the older boy said. "Our father parked the car, so we ran here."

In which I face off with a big wave at the Green Sand
Beach.

Last time we had come here was a decade earlier. There were a half a billion fewer people on the planet back then, and the difference was apparent. While we previously had shared the beach with four other people, when we topped the overlook after our hour-long overland journey this year, we saw that the beach was packed to the gills with tourists.

Down on the beach, the waves were huge. People from Europe ate wraps and drank dairy products, while Asian tourists frolicked in the sand, kicking up clouds of green silica particles that were carried by the fearsome winds into every nook, cranny, and orifice of our bodies, as well as into the European lunches. Despite the winds, the smell of stale beer hung heavy in the air at the northern edge of the beach, and abandoned, forgotten, or discarded articles of clothing flapped helplessly in the wind along the cliff face above us. 

I waded into the pounding surf. The sea was roiling so much that the water was dark brown, apparently because the Ovaltine was being mixed so well in the surf. I wondered whether the Europeans had mixed some of the sand in with their dairy drinks to create a vitamin-packed chocolate-flavored treat. The undertow was harsh, so I forgot about the European drinks and I swam for only a few minutes, keeping my eye on the shoreline. The parade of people in and out of the beach area during that time rivaled the crushes of humanity who entered and exited shopping malls across the country in search of post-Christmas bargains.

We climbed back up to the rim of the beach, where I changed out of my snorkeling shirt. One of the Hawaiian locals in one of the shuttle trucks noticed my massive girth and offered to drive me back to the parking lot for $10. I thumped my chest. "Kamehameha!" I grunted. He winced and ran away.

We took a slight detour on the walk back that took us close to the shoreline. Just off the coast I noticed a pair of whales among the white caps. We watched them with binoculars for 15 minutes, marveling at their size and grace. As we neared the parking lot, a large Hawaiian woman nearly ran us down in her truck full of tourists. A monstrously fat man grinned and slapped his knee at the spectacle of me stumbling to escape the front wheel of the vehicle that was being steered by the Mammon-intoxicated woman.

"You pussies," I hissed at the group of riders.

The green sand was actually a little greener in a little
inlet just south of Papakolea Beach.

We told a walking Japanese couple and a nice family from North Dakota who had set out on the road about the whales we had seen, and they thanked us profusely. I knew that the hope of seeing a whale spout would drown out some of the monotony of the walk and the wind and the crowds. A sad-looking woman asked us, "was it worth it?"

"Hell yes!" I said.

Back at Ka Lae—the southern tip of the island, with the next stop being Antarctica—the ocean below the cliff shimmered like topaz. A pair of buff local boys snorkeled in the blue pool, and a retired marine named Mark told us about the fishing and hunting opportunities on the Big Island as he tended to the two poles he had cast off the coastal cliff. Later we tasted coffee from the Kau district of the Island before driving back north. It was delicious.

While we are certainly here during the high season, any place that has warm tropical winds, brilliant blue waters, tasty coffee, and sweet exotic fruits beats a day at the mall on the mainland. The green sand was stuck in my memory and contrasted with the bright red poinsettias we see growing wild here. It was a great way to round out the Christmas season.

See you on down the road.

Island Bounty

December 25, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—If you are a coffee lover, the Big Island of Hawai'i is a great place. Just a few miles down the coast from where we are staying, there are terrific coffee farms that grow 100 percent Kona coffee. When we picked up our rental car, Jeffrey the agent told us to buy local as much as possible to support the local economy.

We eat an enormous amount of food, said one person.

"Oh, and don't go to Starbucks," he said as we exited the building. "There's so much good local coffee that there's no need to go to Starbucks."

Nevertheless, yesterday, as I went to the market to get some local eggs for breakfast, the Starbucks was jam packed with people eating muffins and drinking huge silos of coffee or people gripping Venti Frappacinos. The price of two of those drinks would have bought nearly a half a pound of fine Kona coffee at the market that was just a stone's throw away.

"Drink local coffee," I said to a quartet of handsome dudes dressed in mainland fashions that they had obviously painstakingly selected for their honeymoons on the island.

"How rude!" one of the Style Boys retorted.

And perhaps it was, so I went home and pondered the matter over another cup of delicious Kona coffee as we prepared eggs and island potatoes. 

The locals sniffed out Captain Cook, decided he was

not a God, so they bludgeoned him to death near

here. This is the true price of fear.

For the gaggle of gay men, the coffee advice dispensed to them by an aging fat man with a sunburn who was wearing an ensemble from Kohl's probably made about as much sense to them as the story of Kamehameha I's rise to power that was written in the Hawaiian language on a plaque at the nearby Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park did to me. Although there are only 13 letters in the Hawaiian language, they are all still very confusing—at least to English speakers.

What was not confusing is how, no matter where you go, mankind seems to build political and social structures that end up with the ordinary doing all the work and paying all the taxes so that the rich and privileged can continue to maintain the lifestyles to which they are accustomed without lifting a finger. Thirteen letters or not, that was the bottom line of the Kamehameha story. It's no wonder the term "Big Kahuna" remains in the English and Hawaiian lexicons nearly 300 years after the Beefy King's rise to power. Kamehameha was named king after he hefted a giant stone, fulfilling a prophesy that bamboozled the superstitious commoners into accepting "unification" that eventually turned them into slaves for the wealthy and powerful. We've seen the same thing today with the appointment of Donald J. Trump as our new leader. He pulled off a miracle, and now the ordinary rabble will march through fire against their own better judgment, working against their own best interests, for at least the next four years.

Big-Island breakfast

As we drove down the coast, I wondered whether President Obama, ensconced for Christmas with his family on a nearby island, was having a similar revelation.

The sight of a whale spout in the brilliant blue waters just off the coast shook me from my stuporous thoughts, so we pulled over and prepared to hike down to the shore—which was about a mile away downhill over unsteady lava-strewn terrain. Just as we departed, a vehicle full of young Hawaiian hooligans—all drinking Carling Black Label at 11 a.m.—made me reconsider our idea. 

"You've got quite a journey ahead of you, Brah," the driver said.

I walked up to the passenger side window. The young woman's eyes were nearly closed, the side effect of morning beers and an intense seaside Wake-'n-bake session, most likely. The couple in the back of the 4x4 vehicle giggled at me. How rude, I thought to myself. The occupants eyed our rental car as I looked on the ground at the patches of broken window glass from previously parked vehicles.

"Yeah, I've never seen whales before," I said. "About how far is it to the shoreline?"

"About half an hour, Brah."

"Good to know. Mele Kalikimaka!"

The sushi rocks at Sushi Rock!

They watched us walk toward the beach in their rear-view mirror. After they got on the road, we turned around and went back to our car.

"They'll be back just after we're out of sight and our car will be ruined," I said to Caroline, motioning to the shattered and pillaged vehicle that had been abandoned at the edge of the road below us. Broken glass, tires, and various remnants of fabric and plastic lay haphazardly next to the useless hulk. We made the decision to find a better spot for whale watching. 

Sure enough, about five minutes down the road, we saw the gray SUV and its occupants heading back down main highway toward where we had been.

We were hungry and anxious to celebrate Caroline's birthday, so we stopped in Hawi for some sushi and a cool drink. The Sushi Rock restaurant was fantastic in every way, and one of the waitresses wore a Santa hat with a faux leopard-skin fringe. Mele Kalikimaka, indeed! We ate a chef's choice sushi special, which meant they shoveled a mystery array of delicious rolls our way—44 pieces in all. It was the perfect choice for Caroline's special day.

We made our way north toward the end of the road. After visiting Pololu beach—a big hike that attracts many to the parking lot high above the valley, but not nearly as many to the stony black beach below—we headed back south for dinner. We had stocked up on tons of local comestibles at the farmer's market in Kona a day earlier, so each of our meals have been fresh feasts. A papaya, passion fruit and local lime makes for a lovely breakfast, and stir-fry is easy and plentiful here. In between we snack on nuts, local breads, and island-distilled spirits. Not only is this place a paradise for the eyes, but for the stomach as well.

The black beach at Pololu, near the northern tip
of the Big Island

Some while back when we first visited the Big Island, a friend of ours remarked that we "eat an enormous amount of food." It's a true statement. We always have, and even though I'm a big person, I will never match Kamehameha's stature, but I'll never turn into a sumo wrestler type, like the 12-year-old kid we saw sucking on a popsicle by the Kawaihae Harbor, where we watched the setting sun and the last spouting whale of the day. 

With so much great local fish and fruit on this island, it's hard to imagine how a place like the Macaroni Grill and other chain restaurants survive here. But then I think back to the encounter at Starbucks, the history of Kamehameha I, and our recent election of Donald Trump. People throughout the ages hate chaos. They like a sure bet. Why gamble on a home-made cup of coffee or one prepared at a local coffee shack when you can be sure that a cup of Starbucks will taste the same no matter where you are on the planet? Why gamble on continuing socio-economic uncertainty when a larger-than-life demigod can assign you a known place in society, even if that place is endlessly toiling in service of the Elites and the powerful?

Fear is a huge motivator, and it stops us in our tracks. It's better to erase the unknowns from life than it is to find out firsthand whether the guy in the gray SUV was coming back to smash your windows and steal your beach towels or whether, fueled by a little early Christmas Spirit and the goodwill buzz of some kind Kona gold bud, he was checking to make sure that no other hooligans were disrupting the vacation of a couple of tourists from the mainland, isn't it?

Merry Christmas, and we'll see you on down the road!

A panorama of Pololu beach near low tide.

The Tub-O'-Soup Greeting

The cheese soup refugee

December 21, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—In celebration of completing two years of high-pressure work in the Atomic City, we fled to the islands for some rest and relaxation. The temperatures at home had plunged into the low teens, so the thought of being lulled into a state of supreme relaxation by warm winds, humidity, and softly waving hibiscus and bougainvillea flowers was particularly appealing. Instead, our island greeting was an immense tub of broccoli cheese soup.

This culinary orphan had been marooned and abandoned by the previous tenants of the condo we have rented. And while there's a certain generosity in me that gives the previous owners some credit for not wanting the plastic Tub-O'-Soup to go to waste—instead of pegging them as lazy and harried people who hadn't planned well enough to dispose of the item before they fled just minutes before checkout time—I cannot, for the life of me, understand why in Hell anyone would want to eat broccoli cheese soup procured at Costco while staying on the islands in the first place?

Baptism in the sea: Be healed, sinner! Be healed!

It is a magical time in Hawai'i right now. And this island paradise is alive with the holiday spirit. The summit of Mauna Kea is covered in deep snow, and yesterday, while at the beach, we stared up in wonder at the handiwork of the Hawaiian snow goddess, Poli'ahu, who, according to local lore, controls the northern end of the Big Island and keeps Goddess Pele in check there. As people who come from a land of fire and ice, we will not choose sides while on this island, but instead we will marvel at the beauty that has resulted from the interplay of these two deities. Already we have feasted on local lime and papaya, apple bananas, pineapple, of course, sweet Hawaiian breads accented with the purple starch of taro root. Such delicacies would not be possible without the cascade of snowmelt across the harsh lava landscape, and the kiss of the sun. 

Rest and relaxation are in order

Or maybe that's just the rum talking. The drinks on this island are as beautiful as the landscape, and tropical fruits mix well with fermented sugar. The man in the car rental place admonished us from going to Starbucks—sound advice that we would have taken on our own—and instead to support the local economy. It is in this spirit that we laid in a fine bottle of Hawaiian-made Maui gold rum, a mountain of fresh local fruit, deliciously strong Kona coffee grown just down the coast from us, bags of macadamias, and Meadow Gold yogurt—old-school stuff flavored with tropical produce and produced right here on the islands.

We won't be finding the time to eat the broccoli-cheese castaway that welcomed us here, because that's something we can do if we choose back home. Our homage to mainland life will be rounds of golf on the resort course. I am pleased to say that it has only been a short while since I last checked in at work, but already the bags and dark circles under our eyes are starting to fade, we are growing some melanin content in our skin again, and the Vitamin D deficiencies that had resulted from spending our days under artificial lighting are starting to reverse their course. This is no time for store-bought soup.

Aloha, and we will see you down the road!

Lessons learned from the Spouting Horn

Poipu, Kauai, Hawai'i, Nov. 18, 2015—There is a natural ebb and flow to life here in Hawai'i. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, I have downloaded an App onto my phone that tells me when the tides are coming in and going out. I don't understand how all of this fits together, yet, but we have learned enough to stay out of the water at the edges of tidal extremes. During such periods, the waves are fierce and the water is murky. The sharp lava rocks that ring the coastline can punish the flesh of the unwary. For a man such as me who has the grace of a manatee, this is not so bad if I am in the water, but at the horizon of sea and air, I am essentially useless when the big waves are up, and I am tossed like bag of potatoes onto the rocks and raked back out to sea again afterward. The human body can only take so much of this, and I am not eager to test the breaking point.

The Nēnē is Hawai'i's state bird

They have put out a sign at our condominium complex stating that this part of the island has been inundated by parakeets. The birds are larger than the parakeets we are accustomed to in pet shops on the mainland, and they more closely resemble cockatiels. They are a brilliant green with bright orange beaks. When they roost, they unleash a cacophony of bird chatter, and they poop vigorously on the cars in the parking lot, and this apparently is a problem.

According to the notice, the county health department has deemed the poop a health hazard and has instructed the "victims" of parakeet infestations to unceremoniously kill as many of the noisy little bastards as possible. The condominium complex has opted for a different approach—air horns to drive away the flocks at sunset. Personally, I am pleased with this strategy, but not all of the residents agree. Last night, as the birds were congregating, our neighbor lamented their arrival.

"The poop!" he said with disgust.

We have no idea what kind of tree this
is, but they are beautiful and remind us
of home.

The complex's dumpster corral lies just at the edge of the parking area, which has been denuded of branches during the past couple of days to prevent the fugitive birds from roosting. The amount of bird poop seems trivial when compared to the small mountains of garbage produced each night by humans roosting in our condominium complex, but I held my tongue.

"I like the birds," I said.

The man regarded me as if I were bird poop and changed the subject, which reminds me....

Earlier in the day on one of the nearby resort beaches, we came across a large woman sprawled out on her lawn chair enjoying the sun. She had pulled her knees up towards her ears, as if she were about to give birth. Her porcine private parts had overwhelmed the small strip of tropical colored fabric comprising her bikini bottom, and her flesh was oozing out like a sea cucumber emerging from a void in the reef. It was impossible not to stare in awe.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" she chirped.

"Ummm..." was the best I could answer. Suddenly I wished I had an air horn.

Ahoy mates!

The visibility for snorkeling was poor on this day,
but we still had a lot of fun!

We awoke at the crack of dawn to meet Cap'n Andy for a boat ride to the Na'pali coast, which is regarded by many as one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Anyone who has seen Jurassic Park or the remake of King Kong has seen the area. It does not disappoint. The surf was incredibly high, so we would be unable to snorkel on the coast, which is located on the northwest tip of Kauai. Cap'n Andy stopped off the southern coast to provide us with an opportunity to get off the boat, but the water was cloudy and visibility was low, so there wasn't much to see. One woman dropped her mask and snorkel in the choppy water, so I dove about 20 feet down to retrieve it. The pressure at that depth was hard on the ears, but I was able to equalize the pressure just enough to avoid crippling pain and a busted ear drum. Another man inhaled a bunch of sea water and Cap'n Andy's crew had to drag him back onto the boat while he coughed and sputtered helplessly. The unfortunate man joined the gaggle of lesbians who had opted to enjoy wine instead of taking the plunge.

Yes, it's a baby dolphin with its mother. It
seems like any kind of baby animal is cute,
well, except for baby parakeets, according
to some people's opinions.

Later during the cruise, Cap'n Andy expertly guided the catamaran over the roiling waters and we enjoyed a good jump or two over some deep troughs between waves at the front of the boat. Two pods of spinner dolphins guided us during part of our journey, and Cap'n Andy's crew prepared a stellar lunch, which was served just in time to stave off the sea sickness. During the ride back in, most people jockeyed to "get their money's worth" of liquor, but we remained satisfied with sobriety. Being from the desert, any ride on a boat is a good one. Cap'n Andy had given us a great day.

The Spouting Horn

Just up the coast is a natural spectacle known as the Spouting Horn. The relentless waves have carved out a hole under a lava shelf that magnifies the action of the waves. At regular intervals, the unsettled ocean spouts through the hole and creates a magnificent fountain that is accompanied by a high-pitched raspy moan reminiscent of a dying man's last breath.

The spouting horn seemed to be a popular destination for the blue-haired visitors to Kauai, which seemed a little creepy to me after listening to its song. Many of these visitors aggressively positioned themselves along the chain link fence overlooking the natural wonder so they could earnestly hold their iPads over the top of the fence to capture the perfect shot. It's strange to watch people taking photos with iPads. I can't help but wonder why these people don't buy cameras? There are plenty of good ones out there, and they aren't even very expensive. They take better photos than an iPad, too, and aren't as cumbersome. But I digress.

I shooed an old man away after he had taken 20 or so shots with his iPad. While Caroline tried her best to capture the perfect sea water eruption, I tried my best to mimic the sound of the Spouting Horn during each geyser event. My seemingly disembodied voice, with its low hollow death rattle, and my open mouth, with its gritted teeth and tongue curled over my lower lip toward the ground—like a tiki statue warning trespassers away from kapu territory—was repulsive to the other visitors, and soon we had the place to ourselves.

There are those who find the Spouting Horn on Kauai
a little bit unsettling.

The Spouting Horn used to have a companion that produced an even more magnificent show. However, about 100 years ago, when sugar cane plantations were introduced to the island, the horn vexed the Sugar Baron because it was depositing salt-water spray on his crops, reducing their productivity. The industrious Sugar Baron used steam-powered muscle to widen the natural hole into a huge square scar that remains to this day as a testament to the greed of Men and the might of Industry. We keep the things we like if they are profitable, but we eradicate the things we don't without batting an eye. To Papa Sugar, the original Spouting Horn was just another parakeet.

Playing Chicken

The Nēnē is the Hawaiian state bird, and Caroline was fortunate enough to see one while I was out getting a massage. As it turns out, the masseuse happened to have come from Santa Fe and had trained our former next-door-neighbor back home in the healing arts as well. It's a small world.

I am not ashamed to say that Kauai is also home to some of the most beautiful cocks I have ever seen. Chickens run wild all over the island. Strangely enough, the locals seems to tolerate them more than they tolerate parakeets. The island is also lousy with feral cats. At nightfall, immense herds of wild felines come slinking out of the jungle and clamber into every dumpster corral. We have seen cars swerving to run over the cats, but we have yet to see a dead one. Dead chickens are everywhere on the highways and shoulders, but no one seems to eat them. And the grocery stores all sell eggs. With so many wild chickens here, I'd figure out a way to locate their nests for a constant supply of fresh eggs if I had more time here. I guess there are several people who are already doing just that. Kauai is one of the most expensive islands in the archipelago.

Before our arrival here, everyone cautioned us about the rain.

If you're looking for cock, there's no better place
than Hawai'i.

"Kauai is a beautiful place to visit as long as it doesn't rain," they told us. So far we haven't had a drop.

There is an ebb and a flow to this place. On one hand there are shoot-to-kill orders for parakeets, but wild chickens seem to enjoy immunity, even though they poop just as much as their wild green cousins. Thankfully, everyone seems to agree that turtles are sacrosanct. And while the Na'Pali coast gets eroded at a staggering rate each year due to the incessant pounding of the surf, the turtles and the Nēnē remain as a constant reminder of the fragility of our world, and how fortunate we are to live in it.

See you on down the road.