January 27 - Hike down to the ocean to snorkel, or, Captain Cook Died for You Sins

    OK, I admit it: I have a thing for Captain James Cook.  Way more that Captain James Kirk, who was modeled after the 18th century British explorer.  He took three long journeys around the Pacific, discovering nearly everything out there: (at least for the Europeans.  The Polynesians got to all those places before he did) Australia, New Zealand, lots of little Islands, and Hawaii.  Ryan and I got to tour a replica of his ship The Endeavor in Sydney in 2012.
     On his second visit to Hawaii, for various reasons, he was viewed as a god.  But when he returned to fix a broken mast a month later, he was killed when an argument between some of his crew and Hawaiians broke out.  Now there is a white obelisk on the coast to mark his final resting place.
     To get there we had to hike down a two mile trail through lava fields, dropping 1300 feet to the ocean.

 The first third of the trail was through tall grasses and abundant acacia trees.  We read there were feral goats along the way, but we didn't see any.

 Further down we saw more lava.

 The Captain Cook Monument.  You can only get here by walking or floating in on a boat.

      The monument is in Kealakekua Bay State Park, known as a great snorkeling spot.  Which we did.  We don't have an underwater camera, but the water was so incredibly clear that I was able to take a couple of fish photos from above.

 A sea urchin and sea cucumber under two feet of water ... it's just that clear.

Yellow Tang.  Not a flying fish, although it looks like he's hovering in the air.

We had been floating around for about an hour watching all the pretty fishies when Amy removed her snorkel and called out "Manta Ray!"  This is what they look like, although of course this isn't our photo.  It's official name is Spotted Eagle Ray.  We followed him around for several minutes as he glided along the bottom of the cove snorfing up sand.

After snorkeling, we had our picnic of PB&J, ... 

 ... then watched Indian mongooses cavorting among the rocks.

They're very cute, and destructive, intruders.  I find it amusing that we consider any animal or plant species that humans have brought to some virgin territory invasive, as if they got there on their own.  No, they're not invaders, we took them there with us!  We're the invaders, they're just privates in our army.

     The hike back to the top was long and hot, and we were glad to finally get back to the hotel.  We showered, had cold beers on our decks, then went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner.