Pray 4 Something

  This is by far our favorite beach, and even though we call the beach barking sands, we don’t actually know the official name for this particular spot, this rocky spot that houses those bathtubs the kids love to play in.

One day we were out here when the water was not this calm and after testing out the pools for a bit decided they were just too big of a risk to enjoy. At he same time there was a young couple from Japan walking on the beach who just happened to see Joey coming out of one of the tubs. They went in them right after we got out, while the water was calm, so had no idea they’d soon get a swell washing over them. It wasn’t a pretty sight. He got pushed into her, pinning her to the side of the pool, and then the water was so strong it drug them right out of the pool, belly side down over the lava rocks, dragging him on top of her. I felt bad for her little skinny self, but hope they learned to watch the waves for a while first.

In the above photo I’m standing on the rocks, above the cave, that’s in the below photo.

The cave that Joey noticed tunneled below the rock and said that one day when the water wasn’t so rough he was going to see how far he could get in that tunnel.

Jewel beat him to it.

With the help of some little local boys, which she was so shy to talk to, they showed her the way.

We also carefully climbed that big rock in the center…….just to take in the views.

The local teenagers like to jump from this rock, something that we see more and more of everywhere now that the huge winter swells are gone.

And now we officially know the name of this great little spot. I had heard there was a place the locals called Pray 4 Sex but never knew where it was, and now thanks to some local vagrants not only have they revealed the location for us but they’ve solved my biggest dilemma for me (as to what to call this spot) ……………………. Only, since this is the, approximately, two feet of water they’re jumping into below, I think I’d be praying for something else!  

                                                                           

Another time Joey and I were out here alone with only another person or two within sight, just floating in the water and then walking in the sand, when a man from Iowa walked up to us, completely puzzled, asking:

Why is there nobody out here?

We’re still trying to figure that out ourselves, but ……………we’re not complaining.

Our Own Personal Fish Monger

Yesterday I talked about Tim, the spearfisherman that got stung by a jellyfish, but what I failed to mention was that he tried to sell us some of his fresh speared fish from his high tech set-up…..a cooler on wheels.

He succeeded.

We had no idea what we were getting or if we were getting a good deal, it was, as one wise observant woman pointed out……just because we COULD. We wanted a couple of the big ones, and then he threw in a couple more……just because. {When they do that I figure they’re overcharging to begin with, but I was happy to learn today that we indeed got a good deal (for Hawaii standards)).

We paid thirty dollars for all our fish and at the local grocery store, Tamura’s, they want thirty dollars just for the one blueish one in the center. We got three times that.

We baked the first three in a stuffing mixture that Tim recommended, only substituting it for items we actually had, and they were ehh…so, so. We saved the big one for last, eating it the next day after baking in garlic butter and it was by far the best tasting fish we have ever had. From now on we will only be buying fish from Tim, where he can be found every other day strolling Farrington Hwy in front of Makaha Beach. We all agreed he has a pretty rough life, too. Spearfishing everyday (except Sunday) and hanging out on the beach a few mornings a week. (Heineken  was not for sale, that was Fish’s breakfast)

This was the one fish that scared me a little bit…look at it’s teeth……THEY’RE HUMAN!!

I’m still waiting for the day that we go to the beach and don’t learn or see something new or exciting.

Just your everyday walk on the beach

Instead of our usual morning walk up to the water tower this morning, we chose to drive down the hill to Makaha Beach and walk in the sand instead. What an adventure that turned out to be….. with some new knowledge, to boot. (insert plug for unschooling here)

Those are not our footprints in the sand.

They were dozens……if not hundreds….of potentially deadly, Hawaiian box jellyfish. And we almost stepped on the!…….repeatedly…… They left a trail along the high tide line almost half the shoreline long.

Then the next quarter of the shoreline  was dotted with large holes with large piles next to them. Some of the holes were almost as big as my foot! Normally , during the day, we see only the small crab holes… so I guess you have to get up pretty early to see the big boys.

Continuing south the sand is almost completely washed away, exposing rock that had been covered all winter.

You can see where the sand level was along the right side ridge

It also exposed some tide pools

Back to the north end of the beach, and back to the jellyfish.

I noticed that the milkier ones would occasionally bubble up, like it was gasping for air, but the clear ones never moved. These two had the tentacles entwined. Like two lovers that couldn’t bear to separate.

When we got back home we told the kids about them, and first, Jewel was sad we went without her, but then we were all interested to figure out why this happened. (enter unschooling activity plug here). With a quick search of the amazing, ingenious World Wide Web, we quickly learned, of all things…….the spawning habits of box jellyfish. Apparently this is a monthly thing, just most common on the windward and southern shores. About nine to ten days after a full moon thousands of jellyfish come near the shoreline to spawn, and it usually lasts three to four days. I checked the spawning calendar on 808jellyfish.com and sure enough, we are smack dab in the middle of their egg laying.

It made me sad to see all these helpless jellyfish just laying there, but then we watched crabs start to come out of their holes and check out the jelly’s. We hoped they would eat them, so it was nice to learn later that the jellyfish did not die in vain, and will in fact be scavenged up by the sand crabs.

And we thought we were just going for a walk.

Name that Succulent

We noticed this odd looking cactus along our trail in the morning about six weeks ago, almost hidden in the tall grass. If I had to guess I’d say they were about nine inches tall, and just stood out as an odd beautiful thing in the middle of the dry grass. Especially being the only plant of it’s kind anywhere, that I could see.

To add to it’s interestingness was this lone huge bulb.

And what an awesome surprise to walk by this plant that hadn’t changed a bit for almost two months, and see this gorgeous flower.

As it opened up it released seeds that looked exactly like the seed from the Tree of Life from the movie Avatar. (a few can be seen in the first photo, and one in the bottom left of the last photo…(*Droid photos)).

***The 3,245th thing that makes me happy to be in Hawaii***

Po’Kai Bay

Po’Kai Bay is a small bay on the Waianae Coast, smack dab in the center of town, and is a popular spot for the locals to bring their keiki’s (children) to play in the water. Even on the ocean’s roughest day, the bay will usually be a safe place for them to play. It’s also very popular for paddleboarding, kayaking, and outrigger canoeing.

I took this shot from the far north side of the bay in what the locals call, Rest Camp, and where we like to surf, but lately we haven’t gone without Jewel so I stay behind on the beach with her while Joey surfs solo, and that leaves us hours to explore the entire bay.

I used to be intimidated to walk down the large rock jetty’s afraid that we’d be yelled at to get off or something, but I’ve come to learn pretty much no place is off limits in Hawaii. Even if there’s a danger sign warning people to stay out….it’s just that, a warning.

When we walk out on these rocks, or any rocks near the ocean, we see handfuls of crabs scurrying away.

One day I remembered there was a geocache hidden on the southern tip of the bay so Jewel and I grabbed my Droid, armed with the C:Geo App and built in camera, and went in search of our second cache in Hawaii. (still haven’t found the first one I tried) Below is the view from the southern tip looking into the bay and up Waianae Valley (which also has some hidden geocaches we plan on hunting soon).

Below is the view from the southern tip of the bay to northern tip

We searched for the Ku’ilioloa Heiau Geocache for what felt like forever. It was also the first time I’d ever tried to use a GPS and I quickly learned I HAD NO CLUE HOW TO USE IT. We searched all over, gave up, circled back, and tried again to figure out the GPS. I did eventually figure out I was within 6 feet of the stupid thing so there was no way I was leaving without finding it. I already have a few failed caches under my belt and I don’t really want the World’s Worst Geocacher title, so we searched on.

 

And after an exhaustive search, in these boulders….we finally found our cache!

Once I stopped, looked around and thought like someone who would be looking for a good spot to hide something themselves, it was obvious. Since we didn’t plan on geocaching we didn’t have anything to leave ourselves so we just looked at the goodies inside, logged our visit, sealed it back up and re-hid it.

That was our first found cache here and since then have failed to find the one on our Maunalahilahi hike and completely intentionally passed up three more on our hike out to Kaena Point. I’ve realized now it’s not the treasure or the find I’m after, it’s all about the hike for me. I’ll continue to use geocaching.com for the trail information and the taking me to places I’d never go otherwise, but I doubt I’ll get too obsessive over finding the cache anymore.

Walking back out from the point we encounter one of those WARNING SIGNS 

I think we’ll be obeying the sign on this one!!

Waialua on Dwellable

Beal’s Pond

This is the popular surfing side of Makaha Beach, which ends at the block wall that begins the condo building. Beyond that rock wall are private residences and difficult to traverse, reef. Our friends told us there were pools over there in the reef though, so one morning Joey and I had to see these “pools” for ourselves.

Now THIS is a POOL!

We expected some small tidepools, but was happily surprised with the depth and width of this pool!

Like most places in Hawaii…there is a plaque:  DEDICATED TO LOVERS, MAMAS AND BABIES

This is by far the best dedication I’ve seen.

  As nice as it is to enjoy the peace and tranquility of this place by ourselves……it is best shared with friends!

 

Jewel would have to wear her shoes to get across the rock so she could jump over and over again into the pond, and crocs turned out to be perfect reef-jumping shoes. She’d throw them into the water before she jumped and then they would just float on top. Then after jumping in she’d gather up her shoes and rest them on the spiky rock ledge to wait for her to repeat the cycle. Needless to say, Jewel loves this place!

They almost look like they’re hanging in mid air, don’t they?

Beal’s Pond: Just another reason to love Hawaii

West Oahu on Dwellable

Ka’ena Point

Ka’ena Point is the westernmost tip on the island, and the only way to get there is to hoof it. So hoof it, we did….and we drug Jewel along for the journey.

You can barely see the point in this picture, but it’s the very last point you see jutting out in the center of the photo. It’s about three miles down a hot and dirty trail……just how we like ‘em.

Most of the trail is pretty easy going, and Joey and I just follow Jewel as she skips along.

Until we come to the point where the road disappears. We could go straight and balance across a six inch plank or take the “easier” route and go up the side of the mountain…. Umm..yeah, we chose the easy route.

We got a late start so we knew we’d be in the heat of the day, but at the start of our hike we were under cloud cover and even had a few sprinkles so thought we had it made in the shade for the rest of the hike. Then we busted past that grey cloud and it was nothing but sun the rest of the day, and we were HOT. Not a coincidence now that I find out Ka'ena means “the heat”! Not a coincidence either that not many people were on this hike while we were. It felt great, though! There was a spot that we considered hiking down to the water to cool off but it was so early on we figured we’d have another chance, but we never did.

The guidebooks all recommend taking the northern approach to the point, because it’s a nice flat path out the dunes, as you can see in the below photo.

Personally, I didn’t know what to think of these dunes. They were beautiful and unexpected, even though I’ve been here before (just forgot about them), but they were also a lot like the razor on top of barbed wire. THE LAST THING I WANTED TO TREDGE THROUGH AFTER DRIPPING WITH SWEAT AND WANTING NOTHING MORE THAN TO JUMP IN THE OCEAN.

Kaʻena Point is a spear-shaped protrusion into the Pacific Ocean. Some ancient Hawaiian folklore states that Kaʻena Point is the "jumping-off" point for souls leaving this world.

We fell into the biggest pool of that spear-shaped protusion and savored every super salty second of it………. And Jewel proclaimed: At the end of every trail there’s a treasure!!

After finally cooling off we started exploring the beach and noticed that the beach here is nothing but wave tumbled coral pieces, large pieces…..not something we’d seen before, but is now in my car to add to her collection. While they beach combed I jumped back in the water on the west side and just as Jewel came in the largish waves to join me I was quickly pushing her against the current back out. There was a Hawaiian Monk Seal about twenty feet away  heading straight for us, and I wasn’t so sure we were welcome in his cove!

I grabbed the Droid as fast as I could to snap a picture of him, but this was the best I could do. Ha! I did take this picture but it was off an informational sign out there explaining that the area is a protected natural habitat for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and to basically ……..stay away. The one I saw sure didn’t look this cute He looked like he was on a mission to get me out of his water…..quick! Man…..What a rush that was. Can I have an encore? (Jewel had me to take this picture so that I could show you all what it looked like)..aww

Next to the light tower is this knocked over bunker, or something. For us it was shade. Much needed shade.

 

Then of course, we had to climb that cement block.

We had some great views from up there!

Why do boys always have to scare girls? He thinks it’s funny to do push ups over an eight foot hole. Jewel and I, do not.

After getting fully rested up, and still having plenty of ice cold water left, we begrudgingly made our way back towards civilization. But before we could even leave the dunes we walk smack dab into an albatross nest.

I used that photo to show how large this chick is.

I didn’t want to get too close to him, and I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t try to come after me, but he remained perfectly calm. There was a large albatross circling overhead, I’m sure freaking out over us, but no dive bombs to our heads. We also were lucky enough to see some Nene birds, which are almost extinct!

The sun wasn’t near as intense on our trek back, and with it behind us instead of glaring in our faces, we got to enjoy the views much more. It was less a hike now and more like a stroll in the park. So naturally Joey had to turn it up a notch and take the less easy route back.

He’s taking the old road that washed away, while we take the new trail over the washed out mountainside.

There’s that six inch wide plank he has to lower himself down to in order to walk across.

That’s him with his metal road and screws in his leg…..doing it!

This was as close as I dared to get to it.

and whattya know?? there’s another cave. Caves are EVERYWHERE over here, it seems.

Back on the trail………….

What trail???????? Back on the boulders that you better cling to the walls so you don’t slide down them, trail.

If I ever find myself with the opportunity to climb across an arch, I’m going to take it.

I even got a group shot out of it!! (For the record: Most of the time I was walking with them, but occasionally I would run ahead or behind with my Moto Droid to capture the scene.)

After about mile four and a half Jewel did ask her Dad if he would carry her. Also at this point she says she’s never hiking this again. I asked, “What if there are monk seals at the end?”

She say’s…”I’m going!!”

Having her Dad carry her did not last long once she saw coconuts down by the water. You see……we’ve been collecting coconuts so we can try something out that we saw on Survivor that involves coconuts and blowholes. That’s all the info I can release at this time, but stay tuned for more details.

She went all the way down there to get her coconuts and then threw them up the hill as she hiked back up, until eventually she could pawn them off on her dad to carry.

Which of course means now I’m HOLDING EVERYTHING ELSE. But ahhhh…….I really could care less.

As we got closer to the end of the trail and towards the beach we came across a local fisherman who told us he had refreshments in the cooler in his truck and to please help ourselves. We thanked him, but walked right past his truck once we got to it to just have his friend that was sitting in the truck run after us bringing us two ice cold bottles of water! Amazing! Those two old timers are what the Aloha Spirit is all about and it felt great to be on their receiving end. What a perfect ending to an already awesome day. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again….Nature Has The Best Playgrounds!!

Mokuleia on Dwellable