Living in Paradise

During the summer of 2020, I became extremely envious of my friends living in big homes with backyards and hot summer weather because I was stuck in confined spaces in cold, gloomy San Francisco. If you don’t know, San Francisco is unlike most of California. Mark Twain supposedly once said, “The coldest winter I’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” So even if I’d had a backyard that summer of 2020, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to use it. San Francisco was losing its appeal day by day. Then, as if it couldn’t be more dreary, fire season came early and hard. When one of my friends proposed the idea of moving to Hawaii, I initially thought it was too crazy. The more I thought about it; I realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Soon after, my significant other, myself and a few other friends had signed a lease in Holualoa, Hawaii. It’s a town up in the hills near Kailua-Kona (“Kona”) on the Big Island, which is officially the island of Hawai’i.

Hawaii is known for surfing 🏄🏼‍♀️, snorkeling 🤿 , volcanoes 🌋, manta rays, rainbows🌈, 🐬cool marine wildlife 🦈 like sea turtles🐢, coffee ☕️and macadamia nuts. I loved being on the Big Island because it had all of these things.🌎

Moving to an island was an adjustment for me. I am the type of person who walks fast even if I have nowhere to go. When people run on island time (or aloha time), they stroll more than walk. I eventually learned the beauty of taking a stroll.

Surf’s up almost everyday 🏄🏽‍♀.

I heard someone say, “it’s a beautiful day today,” or caught myself saying it every day. Needless to say, living in Hawaii for six months was really cool.

I will share my top recommendations for when visiting the Big Island in Hawaii based on my experience living in paradise. It wasn’t a smooth transition into Hawaiian culture. Their “w”s are pronounced as “v”s in Hawaiian. This was easy to get used to when saying “Ha-vai-ee,” but it sometimes made communicating difficult. The first difficulty was my first weekend out of the 14-day quarantine. My significant other, Justin, and I grabbed our boogie boards (aka body boards) and went to Honl Beach in Kona. The tide was low, and the seafloor was covered with lava rocks. This kid told me I needed to watch out for the “vana,” which I thought was something different than the “wana” (aka sea urchin). Suddenly, I thought I was in danger from multiple different creatures that could sting and really hurt me. That’s when I started crying. That evening, Justin got 16 stitches at the local urgent care after running back into the ocean to save me from being a damsel in distress. The next time the V for W pronunciation miscommunication got me was when my golf pro told me to go golf in “Hauvey” (or so I thought). It took me a couple of weeks of asking him about it & multiple searches to find “Hawi” on the map. I enjoyed golfing on a par 3 course for $10.

#1: Rent a Jeep!

Many of the best beaches on the Big Island are hard to get to because they are only accessible by a 4X4 vehicle or a long hike. I had so much fun off-roading all over the island. The first time I drove off-road, I felt adrenaline rush through me. I had a blast getting out there in the wilderness, driving over anything, including lots of lava rocks.

#2 Snorkel, snorkel, snorkel

You can tell I just got out of my 14-day quarantine in this photo because I am quite pale. I was so excited to adventure out and explore new places, especially since seeing dolphins was a possibility. This snorkel adventure was at Kapahukapu Manini Beach. I was nervous entering the water because the waves kept crashing up onto the lava rocks. Since this was my first time snorkeling with my own gear, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It didn’t feel very safe, and ultimately I did end up stumbling into the water.

P.S. I purchased a full-face snorkel mask and can’t recommend it enough. My germaphobic side doesn’t like all the dirt and fish poop in the water getting on my face. My snorkeling gear made me feel comfortable in the water. Plus, I didn’t have to worry about it fogging up or getting water in my nose.

I always kept my eye out for the state fish of Hawaii, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa (aka reef triggerfish). It’s relatively easy to pronounce once you get the hang of it. I even saw baby humuhumunukunukuapua’a once at Hapuna Beach.

I learned quickly to keep my snorkel gear with me at all times because one can pretty much snorkel anywhere on the Big Island.

#3 Surf

Here are the surf spots in Kona/Big Island:

*Pine Trees Surfing Beach

We went to Pine Trees Surfing Beach nearly every day after work to catch some surf, often finding ourselves enjoying the sunset on the beach. Pine Trees Beach is great for BBQ-ing as well! Although we went plenty, we never really managed to gain any real surfing skill, and I have a new appreciation for those who make it look so effortless.

*Kahalu’u Bay Beach Park

Kahalul’u Bay is the other beginner surf spot on the Kona side. This beach varies in conditions from no waves at all to 5+ feet waves during the winter swell. The first time we went out, there were no waves, and we legit just sat there in the ocean for like 30 minutes. One of my friends somehow managed to get seasick because we were sitting there for so long. I was scared when I went out once when powerful currents pushed me towards the rocky shore. We learned quickly to check the forecast and the surf cams.

The Hilo side of the Big Island has more advanced surf if you are up for it! It’s not for me… yet!

# 4: Boogie/Body Board

If you are looking to go out there and have some fun, I highly recommend boogie boarding. Green Sands Beach and Magic Sands Beach are great for boogie boarding. Since I lived in Hawaii during the winter, the swell was massive at times. It’s so crazy to see how some of the locals ride the waves. The kids seemed to have no fear as they flew up the waves into the air twisting and turning.

#5 Golf

Hawaii is a great place to golf with nice weather and ocean views. I purchased my first set of clubs (plastic still on in this ^ photo) and lessons here in Kona. I thought it was so cool seeing wild peacocks at Makalei Golf Course. Unfortunately, it rained a lot up at Makalei, and eventually, we started to play elsewhere as we got sick of playing in the rain. I enjoyed golfing at the Kona Country Club as well because the rain was less likely.

#6: Volcanos

*Crater Rim Trail @ Volcano National Park

I may be as bold as to rank this Crater Rim Hike trail at Volcano National Park in my top 5 hikes to date. I’ve explored craters in South America in the past, but unlike those craters, this one we could walkthrough. The crater was made from a volcanic eruption in the 1950s and has been dormant ever since. It felt like we were walking on Mars – quite the surreal feeling.

I thought it was really cool to see all the hot air billowing out of the steam vents. This happens when the heat from the lava below the ground causes water to evaporate and come to the surface. My excitement never lasts long here because it is usually pretty cold by the time you get here.

~ Muana Kea

Mauna Kea is located approximately an hour and a half from Kona. We went to watch the sunset and stargaze a couple of times, and we wished we could have gone more.

I mentioned some of this above already. Mauna Kea stands at over 14,000 square feet, but if you measure the distance from the seafloor, it is over 30,000 feet! This is taller than Mt. Everest and technically makes it the tallest mountain in the world! Another crazy fact is it took the earth over 40 years to form Mt. Everest while it took less than 4 years to form Mauna Kea.

It even snows at the top of Mauna Kea! Snow in Hawaii? Who would have thought? So don’t forget to bring warm clothes and blankets to stargaze.

Want more adventure?

You can find it on the Big Island. Kayaking, scuba diving, hoover boards, tennis, volleyball, hikes, cliff jumping, bird watching, and more are available for your pleasure.

I’ll close this out with some other facts about living in Hawaii.

It rains a lot in Hawaii, which is no surprise given its tropical nature, but it’s actually a fluke of nature. Hawaii is the same latitude as the Saharan desert. Yet, it rains over 800 gallons of water here a year. This is because of the weather that comes down from the Pacific West Coast. One thing that surprised me is the rain would often be warm and not last for long. That said, I experienced some massive dumps of rainfall living up in the hills of Kona. I have never heard it rain so hard like that, especially since the rain bounces off all the tropical plants in our yard.

My house in Holualoa was at 1,000 feet of elevation. Up there, there are a ton of Coquí frogs. Once the sun went down, this invasive species of frogs came to life, making these whistle noises. There was one main road to my Hawaii house. I was always so excited when we made it to the top of the main road because you could immediately hear the frogs pretty much like clockwork. These frogs lay 10,000 eggs per frog! Crazy thing, I never actually saw one.

There was so much other wildlife to appreciate on the island. Several birds chirped throughout the day and little green geckos scurried around our house. I was really concerned when this pack of wild turkeys that used to roam around every day seemed to disappear the day after Thanksgiving. Thankfully, some of them reappeared by the end of my lease, so I knew they weren’t eaten for a Thanksgiving meal.