Rained Out

Friday night, in the middle of yet another rainstorm, Elizabeth came up to warn us that we might want to revise our plan to go to Volcanoes. Apparently the tropical depression that was headed toward the island was creating heavier than usual rains for the (normally rainy) east side of the island. When heavy rains hit, some of the roads near Volcanoes are sometimes forced to close since they're already quite rocky and narrow. So we decided that it was best to cancel our plans. We later found out that the east side of the island didn't get much more rain than they normally get, but it was too late to go.

Elizabeth took us down to Honounou for some snorkeling again, and this time we got a ride back from her, too. Pete got some great fish pictures that he's going to post. Thankfully we weren't there long enough to add to our sunburns.

There's a historic national park right next to the beach, known as Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, or City of Refuge. Up until the 19th century, if Hawaiians disobeyed the laws set by their chiefs, then they were punished by death. These laws were known as "kapus," although today you can see a lot of "no tresspassing" signs that also say "kapu," which generally means something that is forbidden by law. A native Hawaiian could escape the fate of this death penalty by fleeing to the City of Refuge, and being absolved by a kahuna (priest/minister/sorcerer), and then returning to their village a purified person. During tribal wartime, it also acted as a refuge for soldiers not wanting to fight.

After a fairly lazy afternoon, we went down to Steve and Elizabeth's yurt for dinner. It's 30 feet in diameter and surprisingly spacious and beautiful inside. It had all of the comforts of home, with a wrap-around deck overlooking the ocean (a similar but more expansive view than ours) and a separate bath house. Dinner was delicious, with curried squash (and not having to do the dishes) as the highlights.

Today is yet another rainy day. We enjoyed some jackfruit and pineapple that we'd dried using the food dehydrator yesterday, as well as some fresh mango that we'd been waiting to ripen. It's nice that we have the internet so that we can download movies, otherwise we might be going a little crazy right now. Maybe Jamie was right--we should get to the volcanoes and pay our respects to Pele to get a little more sunshine around here. It's worth a shot, I guess.