Adventures on the Big Island

Adventures on the Big Island

Though the mantas disappointed us, the turtles didn’t. We saw them on dives, on snorkels and basking on the lava rocks. And no trip to the Big Island is complete without a trip to Kilauea!

When we decided to go to Kona, we decided to save a couple of bucks by using frequent flyer miles. Continental certainly makes you spend as many miles as they can make you. We decided to spend a couple extra miles to fly out first class. Unfortunately, we could only get it going out – coming back sucked! But that’s a story unto itself.

We flew into Honolulu direct from Newark. We spent the night in Honolulu so we could get over to Pearl Harbor. Last time in Hawaii we didn’t get that in and we couldn’t come back without going there. I can’t put into words the feeling I had when I was at the Arizona Memorial. It was a similar to the feeling I had the first time I went to downtown Manhattan after 9/11. It was profound sadness coupled with extreme pride. It’s a symbol of how great our nation can truly be. I’m really glad we made this side trip.

Later that afternoon it was back to Honolulu International for our island hopper to Kona. As the last time I flew this particular airline, one bag decided it wanted to see another island before joining us in Kona. Luckily enough, it wasn’t dive gear!!! We decided to stay in a condo for this trip. We really couldn’t beat the price. We stayed at the Kona Isle – our unit was oceanfront and we had killer sunsets from the lanai. There was also a family of Saffron Finches living in the awning on the lanai. We saw mom and dad quite a bit, but only heard the ‘kids’. They were quite cute! I’ll add this now as not to forget this highly important tidbit. When visiting the Big Island, do not even THINK about going without a copy of Hawaii – The Big Island Revealed. We consulted it for everything from what beaches to visit to where to eat. It NEVER steered us wrong!!!