Honomalino Bay - We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto
26 October 2012 | Big Island
Donna/some sun/no wind
After eight days we’ve only made it to two bays, a mile apart! Okoe Bay was a great first stop. We snorkeled a couple of times and took the dinghy ashore to check out the area. Be sure to see our pictures in the gallery. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto” kept coming to mind. LOL. It looked more like Mars than Hawaii, the lush island. The beaches are all black, there are lava outcrops on either side of the beach and we were lucky someone had a level road leading out of the beach or we would have never been able to walk past the beach. It looks like rocks exploded from a volcano eruption and nothing has changed for years.
My picture shows these different colored rocks that made a stone path leading to ??? We guessed it was to a burial mound and wondered if we would be in trouble for visiting it. There wasn't any marker, just a mound and some fake flowers. Hmmmm. The stone path went at least a mile inland but we didn't explore it further. We didn’t see another soul. We thought it was funny that we came from Fanning and Palmyra and saw more people on each of these islands than here on the big island!
The snorkeling along the northeast coast was great. There was a good amount of fish and the coral was growing on top of a cliff edge so that was fun to look down at. There weren’t any dolphins while we were in the water but as we were washing up afterwards, I saw them enter the bay so I donned my mask and jumped in again! I was close enough to hear their squeals and saw babies next to moms and some swimming belly to belly (making more babies?). I got out the underwater camera for the ‘next visit’ but it never came.
Our Hawaiian cruising guide by the Mehaffy's gave some good location shots but their Lat/Long for the anchorage was way off. Beware of that. The Lat/Long I gave above is for the next bay we visited, Honomalino Bay. The book said this bay was very deserted but we saw people on the beach every day. It is prettier than Okoe because of Palm trees, in my humble opinion.
The weather turned to total haze (probably VOG) and waves increased so visibility was bad in the water as well. It made an awesome sunset though. Honomalino’s beach was very steep and with the increased waves we didn’t venture off the boat. Both anchorages had no facilities and we haven't had rain for over eight days so my wash is stacking up. Well, on to the next bay, Ho’okena, 12 miles north where water may be available.