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+--- Thread: Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) (/showthread.php?tid=1208)
Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) - Kelena - 07-07-2007
“I put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane” –so goes the song about a boy who has the blues and lands in Memphis. I’ve done that, landed in Memphis with the blues (the first boy I ever loved died in Memphis, his bright red hair turned to ashes and his blue eyes that shot stars, closed forever). But this time I was landing in Kona, slightly melancholic over a failed real estate transaction in Puna. Never name your house before close of escrow: Hale Kea Kai, I would have called it, which, I think means something like “White House by the Sea”. It rose from the red cindered ground like a soft white cloud. It had a beautiful lava rock wall across the entire length of it, and was fully fenced –perfect for Ben and Mindy, my two Dalmatians. And not just any fence – chain link fence around ¾ of the acre, blasted into solid lava. Hale Kea Kai was not perfect though. The kitchen was dated and the appliances mismatched. The floors were, in my subjective opinion, a scratched up, ill-chosen, dirt-catching mess. They needed to be replaced. And it had those window type air conditioners jammed right into the walls. It would have been expensive to remove them, and expensive to run them as they were not very new. More importantly, there appeared to be a problem of unknown severity with the water system (I'm no expert so I don't know for sure). As it took a lot of hand-holding to get me to embrace the idea of a catchment in the first place, this was a real setback. There was almost no water pressure on the day of my inspection. Was it an easy fix? I’ll never know. The transaction went from bad to worse from there despite my best efforts. I was crestfallen. Sometimes you think something, or someone, is your destiny and the universe has other ideas. I was pretty mopey.
My friends thought they had the cure. They were going to Kauai, where they have a condo, and were going to dash over to Puna for a couple of days to look at real estate, thanks apparently, to my constant babbling. They asked me if I would like to join them. They were staying at a place we called the “Red Lanai” house. My friend –I’ll call her Missy—and I had been watching property in Puna and we had a nickname for every house of interest to us. There was the Red Lanai House, the White House, the Dolphin Gate House, the Asian House, and the Bamboo Door House.
The thought of coming back to Puna and Hawai’i Island after watching a dream slip from my hands was painful. But Missy talked me into it. I thought this might be a good time to see the West side of the island, before I joined Missy and her husband on the East side. I was very worried about how Missy might take to Puna. The only Hawai’i they knew was North Shore Kaua’i. I was concerned that I had talked up Puna too much, that they wouldn’t like it and would blame me if they didn’t. Anyway, I decided to fly into KOA and leave from ITL.
I landed in KOA to –what????—cloudy weather. Unbelievable. Every single time I had been to Puna, where the weather is supposed to be, shall we say, substandard, the sun was shining bright, very few clouds in the sky, and what rain fell on me, fell at night when I was tucked in bed. Kona was cloudy? And it stayed that way all four days when I was n that side. I had a marvelous time nonetheless. I stayed in an inexpensive and unique place just above Honaunau. It was a studio below a house. No windows, just screens. It was delicious and warm the entire time I was there, even though the sun came out infrequently. Snorkeling at Honaunau was transcendent (get there in the morning –it gets choppy later), but you have to get over the urchins. They sit in pockets and their spines stick right up to the top, but not over the top, of the pocket. So, you must get in carefully, but once you get in, you are in an extraordinary aquarium with fish of every color and beautiful coral. It’s near Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the place of refuge. The story says that people who had fallen on the wrong side of things could seek absolution if they could reach the place of refuge before their pursuers caught them. They would often swim there. So, I decided to swim there. As I got closer, the clear water turned murky. Then things I could not see started bumping into me. I thought about sharks. I had to steel myself to continue. The surf kicked up. All of the sudden, I really felt that something was breathing down my neck. I swam hard and kicked hard. The next thing I knew, I was walking up the beach at Pu’uhonua o Honaunau to the surprise of startled tourists who were meandering around the grounds. I said a little prayer, took some deep breaths, and then I headed back. I slept well that night and felt like I had exorcised whatever demons had held me back from reaching my dreams.
I snorkled all up and down the West side. Some snorkeling was good, some snorkeling was forgettable. Honaunau was about the best unless you count the barracuda I saw at Kealakekua Bay. I left the “screens only place’ and took the drive through Ka’u, through Volcanoes National Park to Puna, to meet my friends. I had never seen it rain during the day in Puna, except for short spurts. The rain was drenching. My friends were very wet and my friends’ husband did not appear to be happy.
So much for appearances. They bought a half acre in Puna the next day, fell absolutely in love with Puna, and are looking forward to building there when they retire. Well I experienced just a teeny twinge of envy that this had been so easy for them, I got over that pretty quickly and we celebrated by drinking lilikoi margaritas on the Red Lanai, whipped up in a very magical blender (thanks Mark and Ron!). They were so good, I started singing really bad Paula Fuga a capella. The next day I looked at a few properties for old times’ sake but nothing was of any interest to me but Hale Kea Kai. Drove out to Kapoho to see Cat Dumond, who gave me a nicely sprouted coconut. I drove to the end of the road, rented a cane and walked out to the new black sand beach and planted the sprouted coconut. Then I snorkeled at Champagne Pond, stopped by Malama market for provisions and to marvel at the clientele, and rejoined my friends for more margaritas from the magic blender (it starts up, reverses itself, pauses, blends, stops, and then blends like mad).
The next morning when I left the Red Lanai house, I saw Mauna Kea in the early morning sunlight, as I was coming down the stairs. I thought to myself “How can something so enormous look so very ghostly?” I said a little prayer that I would have something to celebrate, too, the next time I came to Hawai’i. I had no idea that I would be returning so soon, that things would get so impossibly complex, that a tragedy would be involved, and that Pele would present me with such a gut wrenching choice.
Edited by - glen on 07/09/2007 19:18:41
RE: Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) - KeithLee - 07-07-2007
Ok Glen..you've got me waiting in anticipation.
How long until the story continues...lol.
Perhaps we shouldn't regard Aloha as a requirement of the people of Hawaii and just be grateful when we recieve it?
RE: Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) - Carey - 07-07-2007
Glen, I love the suspense. I have often wondered how Muana Kea can just disappear - vanish, sometimes on a blue sky day, then just dominate the skyline on those crystal clear days. (Still haven't figured out how Mauna Kea always looks taller & more massive than Mauna Loa....though the research portion of my brain has learned that it is the other way 'round..)
I will wait for your wonder filled tales to continue....
RE: Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) - Kelena - 07-08-2007
I'm not sure where Mauna Kea goes... into the clouds, I guess. But when it appears it is impressive and ghostly. I guess what comes to mind is that Mauna Kea can kill you if it wants to. Looking at a normal "mountain" doesn't have the same effect. I always sit on the left hand side of the plane so I can see Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. I agree. Mauna Loa doesn't loom as large, I guess because it is off in the distance. Seems bigger from Ka'u!
RE: Glen Goes to Puna (Part 3) - Carey - 03-13-2008
bump