Kaimusailing

Our stay at Kahala came to a close and we flew to Hilo on the Big Island. Here I had two brothers and a sister and their families. Here my parents are buried, so it is also a pilgrimage to see their grave.
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The Big Island is big and the size isn’t apparent until the trip is taken across the island or up to the north portion of the island. The island is a cluster of large volcanoes, one of which is continuously active, spewing out lava since the mid 1980‘s. I have been visiting regularly for all that time and more. The first few visits brings you to all the usual tourist spots, then later other spots, off the beaten path, are explored, until it seems we have seen it all.
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But Hawaii is a big island and there is always something new, maybe not apparent to the tourist bustling about, in a hurry to see the usual. My plan was to focus on the southern shore of the island and photo doc the Kings Highway, an ancient path around the island used by the chief’s messengers and for commerce between clan territories. The system of land ownership divided the island like a pie with clans controlling a slice. The Kings Highway ran around the coast and crossed all the major territories. There were complicated rules about who could traverse where. Might was right. It was a feudal system and human life was expendable. Many minor offenses were punishable by death. Cannibalism was practiced.
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It would take a long time to follow the Kings Highway all the way around the island, but if I concentrated on just the southeast quadrant, from Hilo to Kalapana, it could be done in a few days. The section between Hilo and Kaloli Point is private property and not easily accessed, so we would skip that section and start near Kaloli Point.
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The original footpath transformed to a bridle path for horseback after Europeans arrived. In the 1800‘s there were no carriage roads on the island. All travel was by boat or canoe, or by horseback or on foot. After plantations were begun, railways were built to move agricultural products, machinery, and people.
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The Kings Highway or beach road never became a major thoroughfare, it existed as a rough dirt road or semi-improved road. The main roads were further inland from the coast. Unlike most islands, on Hawaii there were no seaside villages with coastal roads connecting them. This hindered development and resulted in the development of towns further inland. Thus, the towns of Keaau and Pahoa grew while coastal villages died out. They exist now as maybe a group of houses, maybe with a small local store. Others completely died out and we only see a grove of coconut palms where a village existed in the past.
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We drove down to the sea near Kaloli Point in a community known as Paradise Park. We took photos there and then began on Beach Road at Makuopihi Point. The road was very rough at first, then it had some kind of semi-pavement on it. Then we were into the lower part of Hawaiian Beaches subdivision. Now the roads were paved and marked properly with stop signs, etc. We continued out of the civilized world into the jungle.
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The beach road was now very hilly and rough. There was evidence of old villages. Coconut trees, rough beaches of round cobbles, and level areas which might have had dwellings long ago. All along the route were giant fruit trees and in some places, trees that should have been removed to make a proper road, but were left to form a zig zaggy road, one lane in places. The road began to find its way into more open country and then we were in the area of Kapoho and Cape Kumukahi.
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Kapoho was a resort and fishing community on a small bay frequented by the Japanese. In the old days when there were railroad lines running through the sugar cane plantations, there was also one serving Kapoho.
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In 1960 Kilauea crater on the slopes of Mauna Loa was erupting and then at some point there was a subsiding of the lava in the crater. It wasn’t over though. The lava had melted through into a lava tube that ran down the East Rift Zone, and then burst to the surface in a spectacular eruption that devastated the village of Kapoho and filled half of the bay. Although the village was mostly destroyed, a few houses remained, and acres of new land were created, fresh lava rock.
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Cape Kumukahi was on my list to photograph, but the narrow dirt road to the cape was blocked by a large truck. The huge piles of volcanic rock and cinders are in demand for landscaping and road maintenance. Just bring your truck and pile it on. The volcano will add more, someday.
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The Kings Highway continues along the coast leaving behind the banana groves and flower farms of Kapoho. Soon we are at the boat launch at Pohoiki (Po-hee-kee). The road jogs here and continues along a very pretty part of the coast, past the tiny hamlet of Opihikao (opihi are limpets, small shellfish that are scraped off the rocks at low tide and eaten, kao means to eat, so Opihikao is where you eat opihi).
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Our trip is cut short due to a scheduled boat ride to photograph the lava flowing into the sea. It is about 18 miles by boat and though the sea is quiet today, it is rough, it is the Pacific Ocean. We return to Pohoiki and get on the power boat, head out, hugging the coast, and find out the two brothers who operate the boat are brothers of my niece’s boyfriend, native Hawaiian, and they had lived right across the street from my parents’ first Hawaiian house. Big Island is a small world.
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After our photo op, we return, head to Paradise Park, and then up to the volcano.
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The photo is of the lava pouring into the sea and exploding into a fine black sand.