A slate pencil sea urchin clings onto the rocks at Keauhou Bay. I was at the bay covering the finish of a canoe race when this thing caught my eye. Every so often the wave trough would allow it to be exposed. I’m from Oahu and that place is pretty much devoid of marine life like this. Places I fished as a kid on Oahu are now barren, you can’t find natural marine animals along the shore unless you go to some sanctuary like Hanauma Bay. But here in Kona you can see stuff like this every day. Urchins clinging to rocks, yellow tang fish darting around close to shore, schools of akule shimmering in Kailua Bay, manta rays flying underwater just offshore, spinner dolphins leaping into the air, humpback whales breaching within easy viewing from the rocky coastline, sea turtles resting on the beach, starfish hiding under rocks in tide pools, it’s like the Discovery Channel in real life and that’s just the ocean. Inland there’s also lots to see but that’ll have to wait for a different blog post.
Folks ask me why I live on the Big Island, well, I grew up on Oahu. It’s a city, plenty to do, plenty of man-made things to entertain, lots of places to eat and shop. But the Big Island has it’s charm and it’s forté is nature. If you don’t like nature then you won’t like the Big Island, you’ll be bored. But hey, two years from now you’ll be able to drive to Oahu via the ferry and enjoy the best of it all.
Crap, that’s starting to look like a Cathy cartoon above with the writing. I told Karen that’s why I don’t always read Cathy, it looks too exhausting to read all those words. So if you just look at the photos on this page, I’ll understand :^)