When we were at Manini Beach yesterday we could see a sandy beach jutting out across the bay, and today we decided to go on a hunt for it. It turned out to be Ke’ei Beach, about another mile or so down a rocky side road that you wouldn’t necessarily think to turn down, but once you get close the water is lined with some fairly rundown old shacks and trailers where a lot of locals live. It’s good to know that the influx of people and real estate development in Kona hasn’t driven everyone out from their bayside homes. Even though it was a hot Saturday, there were no more than six or seven people when we got there (it got up to 20 or so later).
I tried snorkeling for the first time with guidance from Peter. He was a great instructor, but the cheap snorkel gear we were using tried to thwart his efforts. As soon I got under water I could see all kinds of little tropical fish and even a giant sea turtle, and that was in waist-deep water. It was quite intense, and breathing from a small tube as my goggles continued to fill with water was enough to make me panic a bit. It didn’t help that there were little sea urchins clinging to the rocks underfoot. I lasted about fifteen minutes, which I think was a decent first go, but Pete stayed out and got some great pictures—including a few of the turtle. He’ll post them soon.
I think this beach was somewhat of a local hangout—everyone seemed to know each other. The locals are divided into two general categories: there’s the really friendly, I-want-to-know-everything-about you local, and then there’s the “get the hell off my island” local. Today was our first encounter with the latter. An old man with two dogs was sitting on the beach drinking a Budweiser. He was obviously Hawaiian and obviously very drunk. When his dog started sniffing us he warned us that all he had to do was snap his fingers and the dog would bite us. Then he looked at his dog and said, "It's ok, he wasn't born and raised here like you." Great. We tried to ignore him.
At some point Martin and Fran showed up, which was a nice surprise because we hadn’t told them where we were going. They showed us a really cool swimming hole they’d discovered a few days earlier that was just down the beach. It was a series of five- to fifteen-foot lava-rock cliffs that led into a deep pool of blue water with a sandy bottom. If you dove down deep enough there was a rock you could swim under and pop out into a pool surrounded by more lava rock. I jumped into the pool but didn’t swim underneath the rocks. Pete did a few big cannonballs into the water and managed to swim under the rock easily enough.
When it began to drizzle we decided to head home, but before we could walk half a mile, a woman in a mini van stopped and asked if we needed a ride. Yes! We all jumped in and thanked her (it was about a four-mile walk home). She was a friendly local who chatted with us and then dropped us off a half-mile from Konacopia Farm.
Tonight we’ve decided to go into Kailua and meet up with Fran and Martin. They’re hitching there for dinner and then we’re meeting them for a happy-hour drink near the beach around 8:00. It’s only 10 miles away, so we figured it should be pretty easy to get a ride. They told us that the trick is to put the girl out in front to stick her thumb out and smile while the guy hangs out behind her. It doesn’t seem too risky given the laid-back culture here and the prevalence of hitchhikers due to the kind of adventurous travelers that Hawaii attracts.
Here’s a picture that I took of Pete on Ke’ei Beach, and another one of the swimming hole where Fran and Martin took us.
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