Big Island

The journey around Big Island (Hawaii) in Google Maps (Webbrowser) and in Google Earth

Having recovered from our last passage in Hilo for three weeks, we are ready to explore more of Big Island (as the island of Hawaii is often called to avoid confusion with the archipelago of the same name). We are sailing around the Southern end to see en route Kilauea’s lava flow. It flows directly into the sea and we can see the plume from far. We arrive right in time for the nightfall and after sun-set we can see the lava flow red-golden into the sea. At times, we are no fifty meters from the lava flow, can smell the sulfur and for a brief moment the water temperature increases by a degree – high time to turn around and get some distance! We have a prime location and can be seen on many pictures of tourists, which have to take their pictures from much further away!

Sailing around the Big Island’s south cape, we are getting the best sailing in a long time: The wind is reinforced by the high mountains to 25kn; the waves are cut by the cape and Blue Bie flies over the flat water. It’s much too beautiful to sleep and I am sitting on deck listening to the bow wave and watching the myriad stars above. Some moments are just magic.

We are spending a few days anchoring in different places along Big Island’s leeward coast. Generally, there are not too many good anchorages in Hawaii, but so far we can’t complain. It’s good to have a catamaran, since all the anchorages are a bit rolly. As I am learning over the next weeks, it can get much more uncomfortable and even outright dangerously. After a few days, we pull into Kailua-Kona, the main tourism center of Big Island. Big Island is the least developed and most relaxed island of all Hawaiian Islands. Upon arrival, the bay of Kailua-Kona is very busy for a day, a cruise ship is anchored and numerous local excursion boats and stand-up paddlers and outrigger canoes in the water. Even the dolphins join in and cruise around Blue Bie. In the evening the cruise ship leaves and all is quite until the circus repeats a week later.

We are the only cruisers and are anchoring no hundred meters from shore. Within a week every local seems to know Blue Bie and approaches us. We are soon adopted into some families. We are spending some wonderful time with Kalani, the Polynesian captain of a local sailing canoe, Carlton and his wife Peg, who have retired here and work as guide in the local museum and Edna and Jim, who have inherited the house with the best location in Kailua – right on the pier. We feel really welcome and just enjoy our time here. With the surfboard on the bike, we go surfing to the beginner’s beach at Kahalu'u (in the Polynesian language every letter is pronounced) and hang out with the local crowd at the Kona Surf Company, where Moni trades in a dive lesson against a surf lesson. We make slow but sure progress surfing and once more I realize that my life is fulfilled with (kite-) surfing, hanging out with friends and reading a good book and the Economist on the beach!

In contrast to the information in the Cruising Guide, we can haul out a catamaran in the nearby Marina Honokonau. While the travel lift is indeed too narrow for Blue Bie, we can haul out on a big trailer owned by Ron. He owns a big charter catamaran and runs a small boat repair shop. Since we feel so good here and the prices are considerably lower than in Honolulu, we decide to pull ahead the pending maintenance work on Blue Bie.

It takes Ron and his crew work a good week to get everything done. As always, it starts with one project and ends up with ten. But who would have guessed that the fishing nets of Ecuador have left more than a centimeter deep marks in Blue Bie’s dagger boards or that we have to replace the cutlass bearing after two years? We get a great deal: While Ron and his team are working on Blue Bie, we can borrow his surf board and go surfing! It seems like everybody is surfing on this island and everybody would like to sail around the world on their own.

The highlight of our time in Kailua-Kona is a night dive with manta rays. The Manta Pacific Research Foundation catalogues over 160 residential manta rays, which roam the oceans solitary during the day, but convene at night. We can see twenty of these beautiful animals feeding together during our dive and performing their ballet. Manta rays have no teeth or other weapons and filter plankton through their huge gills. When these up to 4m wide animals glide mere centimeters above our heads, it seems as if they consist only of throat and fins. It can’t get much more beautiful and I can fulfill another dream during my journey.

Ron can arrange with the manager of the boat to store Blue Bie in the boatyard during the Christmas Season: They are inspecting every square meter of the yard to create a space by finally moving a mobile crane. The office co-operates by letting us jump the waiting list to occupy this newly created spot…

We are flying home for Christmas tomorrow. Having left Columbia 8 months ago, Moni would have loved to fly with me in Switzerland, but we are unable to organize a visa at short notice and we will fly to our respective families.