More of what we're looking for

Thomas wants to get back into diving. He used to dive when living in CA quite a bit. I think that for anyone who lives near the water and likes to dive it's a no brainer. Me... well... I guess I like to snorkel. I'm a little scared of the ocean with it's strong currents. I don't swim enough to be really confident. When I snorkel it always takes me a while to get used to breathing through a small tube and yikes!! god forbid I bump into something big out there - freaks me out. Oh, not to mention I always get foot cramps from the darn big flippers. I'd like to find some type of small flipper that is made of a really pliable moldable gell-like something... I can't do the large, long, stiff flippers. Anyway, I'm sure there's something out there like that I just don't know where to look yet. Plus maybe I need more calcium or vitamins regarding foot cramps :-)

The picture of the green sea turtle came from a cool blog website called http://www.therightblue.com/ I am told there are many sea turtles around the island. When we were visiting we were watching surfers and I caught a glimpse of a large turtle, more like it was his silhouette on the shoulder of a wave. I saw it twice as it swam across the mouth of the bay. We are told to snorkel near City of Refuge and Honaunau Bay for seeing many kinds of sea life especially turtles. That will have to be on another trip. We did drive through there to look around, yet sooooo crowded when we were there we chose to not even try to park. That will probably be a very early morning jaunt some day.

What I'm looking for in Hawaii

Well... this has been a long time coming. I couldn't really act upon it prior as there has always been the kids to think about. So, kids to think about now, hmmm let me think, I'm not gonna think about it anymore. By the time we are spending significant amount of time in Hawaii the last of these kiddos will be out the door.

So, the current plan as it stands (today) is to purchase a place that we can be at during these long, long, long, cold, cold, cold, winters. We know we need to purchase this year as the prices over there are nearing, if not already, rock bottom. At first we thought we'd build, but are now some what reconsidering as there are so many homes for sale, many foreclosed upon, and vacant. I know we have to be careful of older homes, heck even new ones, with mold problems and lack of maintenance problems as this can be significant in HI. But I also can't help but think why build yet another home on this fragile island when there are so many available? Further, with some of the prices over there, one can hardly build for the same price.

When I think about what's important to me in purchasing a home, it's not even the home that's really important, it's the surroundings. I want a small home, around 1000 sq ft or less, with two bedrooms, but one is still ok too. I want a covered lanai or open carport. I want a nice size yard, but can still make do with a small one as long as we can maintain some sense of privacy. I want to landscape with tropical fruits, flowers and plants. I want to feel like I'm in paradise and have a pleasant view, this can be of flowers or trees, doesn't have to be of the ocean. I want to be in a safe neighborhood, with a sense of community and aloha. I do not want to have sketchy neighbors, loud or obnoxious, or a trashy neighborhood. I do not want to be overwhelmed by the frogs, or vog, or damn barking dogs, or other island smells that I find offensive (garbage dump). I do not want to be on a heavily trafficked street. I'm sure there's more to the list, but I'm getting bored with it. I am also very confident that we will find such a place.

Oh wait a minute - I want sun, that's important, so I have to be careful where I look as much of the area has cloudy rainy weather much of the time.

I'm posting some pics of some homes we're considering. The top three are in cool rainy Volcano area, the bottom two are in sunny seaview, both areas are very nice.

Random favorite things about the island

Can't remember when exactly we did some of these things, but found the pics.

Island fruit! Couldn't get enough... well, actually got too much and had to feed some of it to Liz and Mike's chickens - but they were happy! The island fruit is so plentiful and inexpensive that we just kept picking it up. We tried to eat it all, white pineapple, yellow pineapple, guava, papaya, lilikoi (passion fruit), coconut, rambutan (spelling?) bananas, and other stuff that I can't remember at the moment because I've had a glass of wine. :-)

We toured Lava Tree State Park and that was cool. I guess that when lava goes through an area sometimes it goes up, over and around trees and forms a cylinder cone that the tree often either burns up inside or rots away. This state park was beautiful and had a short nature hike, it was cool.

Then Thomas found some large flower heads and he was well... rather... hmmm... funny.

Took some pics of Liz and Mike's first bananas and papayas - so exciting, can't wait until we are taking pics of our own.

The flowers absolutely everywhere - smells so good.

And... the beach and the ocean... intoxicating.

We love it there, we are going to live there. By the way, our 5 year plan, just became a 3 year plan.

Thursday - last day on the island :-(

Where does all the time go eh? We had planned to save this day to drive over to the Kona side to visit with one of Tom's old school buddies, instead we jumped in the squirrel and headed out to explore Volcanoes National Park.

VNP was pretty interesting, lots to look at, read about, experience and explore, from mountain top down to the sea. Some of the highlights were the Visitor center, the trails, the calderas, the lava tube and the beautiful black lava making the ocean appear such a stunning color of blue.

While we were down at the sea arch area we actually saw two whales breach up out of the water - very cool! These apparently are some of the first returning whales to the islands. They return each year to calf and mate, one usually sees them over near Maui as they tend to hang around within the more protected waters there. We felt very fortunate to see them.

Wednesday

Oh, so much more to do, yet running out of time...

We stopped by the home of our new friend Frankie and shared gardening and bee keeping stories. It was a pleasant visit.

Then we headed back down to Kalapana area as we were to look closer at real estate listings. We decided to explore the lava and black sand beach located across from the cafe, can't remember the name something like Kaimu Beach, but it used to be very popular beach for swimming and surfing, but then the lava took it. Now there is a trail out there, steep lava cliffs, a small black sand beach and a bunch of newly sprouted/planted coconut palm trees that will someday be the future palm tree grove at this beach.

We met Wes (our realtor) to look at a house and some lots in Seaview at noon that day. We had it narrowed down to 5 lots and after looking with Wes, we have it narrowed down to 3 now. One of the lots we wanted to look closer at was in the upper section of Seaview. We rounded the corner and pulled up to park and stared out at two women apparently cleaning something roadside clothed only in what appeared to be loin cloths. They were completely tanned over every portion of their body, so we figured this must be the normal attire. They were friendly and talkative and pointed out a HUGE Abezia tree on this particular lot, which we had not even noticed as we didn't look up that far, we had only looked into the lot and couldn't see much because it was so heavily jungled. At any rate, the lots was a mess and too much to deal with for my liking, especially when the other lots would cost a lot less to clear. We said our goodbyes and are sure we will meet again.

The three lots we liked were located in the lower area of Seaview, and darn it if I didn't just get an email from Wes saying that one of them just had a price reduction. Shoot! We can't act upon anything just yet, but we can hope!

That evening as it got dark we headed back down to Seaview for one last tour, we wanted to hear the coqui frogs and to get a look at the neighborhoods at night. Seaview is a relatively quiet place, with frogs. Some of the neighborhoods had large frog infestations than others and were thus louder, especially on one of the streets that we liked a lot on.... After that we decided to stop stalking the residents of Seaview and left the area.

As we drove back down the road we decided to pick up some beer to take home, as we rounded the corner we discovered a small lit up tikki hut with torches and string lights... and an open sign... we of course pulled in. We were greeted with welcomes and told this was a little local gathering spot, with potluck and often music. There was a fellow playing guitar and singing, some small plate offerings, kava and wine or beer for a "donation". It was cool. We stayed for a little over an hour and visited and learned a lot about the area and met some of the residents... again, it can be a funky area, but we liked it. Thomas finally went home and drank his kava he had purchased at the hilo farmer's market earlier in the week. He pretty much just went to sleep. The end :-)

Tuesday - still on vacation!

Tuesday seems like a blur, one of those days where there wasn't anything too exciting going on, yet still full of exploration and new experiences.

We started our day with another swim in the hot pond, then home for a shower and breakfast of white pineapple, papaya and small sweet bananas

We visited the Mauna Loa mac nut factory. This was kinda fun yet crowded with tourist. There is a little tour and you can see them processing the nuts. You also drive to the factory through one of their large orchards and that was interesting as well. Then, you get to taste and purchase their yummy products. I always get my fill of mac nuts while on the islands, it was nice to get these right from the factory as they were fresh!

We went back down to drive the "Red Road" some and explore that area more. This road is one of the most scenic on the island and was our favorite area of the island, just also happens to be in the area that we are looking at land. We pulled off at a small overlook right across from the Seaview subdivision and had a beer, just sat back and relaxed and wondered to each other if we could really put this whole plan into reality... well, we think so.

We went and had a burger at the yummy, funky, local Kalapana Cafe - good food, coffee, ice cream, etc. Not much by the way of amenities in Kalapana anymore since the lava came, but new things popping up all over. Hey! This place could use a peddle-powered smoothie stand!

Tuesday night we created an island feast back at our home away from home. We had purchased some island poke' and some kind of beef. We cooked these briefly in the wok as I wasn't into the raw poke'. We also had a lovely salad of greens that were grown up in Volcano area. I washed the salad extensively as I'm paranoid about the slugs around the island. We topped that with a delicious island made papaya dressing and drank our "Volcano Red" from the local winery. Soooo good it all was.

Monday

Monday morning we headed down to the hot ponds after getting the local tip to go early, we were told they opened the gates at 7am, yet when we arrived, there were already folks leaving from it. Mostly it was early birds down there doing a morning exercise swim. The pond is lovely!!! We swam for about an hour. This pond was originally a cold pond with seawater washing in, then after the Kapoho lava flow it started to be heated by thermal vents, it also has some salt water waves breaking in, at any rate, it’s cool.

We then went to look in the subdivision we’ve been interested in called Sea View, known for it’s eclectic neighborhood and overall funk. We like Sea view as it’s very close to the ocean and seems to be brimming with new building projects. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still funk, but not as much as in the past.

That evening we asked our hosts Mike and Liz to go along with us to view the ocean entry of the volcano. This was pretty neat. We drove down and parked at the "end of the road" you can't drive any further as lava has taken it over. Then you walk about 1/4 mile, not sure, out over lava while it's still light. You can view the lava pouring out into the ocean, it sputters and explodes, pretty cool. We stayed a little after dark and navigated our way back.

Then home for a night cap rummy drink, or another beer, can't remember which it was.