A Glimpse

April 3, 2016        

“I wanted to get going early today, so we could get into the Mauna Kea Beach because there are a limited amount of parking spots and it fills up fast,” B said as AJ came from the bathroom, still-pajamaed and un-showered. 

“I didn’t know,” AJ said, bleary-eyed from sleeping in longer than usual. She shifted into rush-gear, getting ready, urging the boys to hurry. When they finally drove up to the Mauna Kea guard station, they were turned away, disappointed, so they settled on Hapuna Beach. 

After lugging towels, boogie boards and beach necessities out to the white shining sand, they camped in front of the blue-green, whitecapped water and collectively sighed. B shooed the boys off into the water for boogie boarding. Exhausted from her morning rush, AJ lay back, covered herself with a towel, put a hat over her face and tried to rest. 

Prone to chill even in the summer, she lay graciously soaking up the heat, trying to get her mind to calm down, but it wanted to fight. Her thoughts, troubled and exhausted for no discernible reason, climbed and struggled, bustled and pushed their way over a mountain of tangled obstructions blocking visual and thoughtful connections to the lush environment around her. 

After half an hour of still body and turbulent thoughts, she sat up to see the boys fighting with weak currents and boogie boards. The scene seemed brighter than before she lay down, the colors hit her eyes in an almost electric intensity, the sweet blue sky and clouds making a surreal picture. Maybe it was her polarizing sunglasses, maybe it was glimpse of what she'd been searching for. 

After some time, the boys trudged back from the ocean, dripping water on the blankets and inadvertently kicking sand on her and B. 

“Are you done?” B asked the boys. 

“For a little,” TwoSon said. 

“Let’s go over there,” B blurted, pointing to a spot at one end of the beach where an outcropping of rocks jutted into the ocean. While AJ had been “resting,” he had been looking for photographic opportunities.

The family picked up and trudged past the group of young men who had built a tarp-covered water slide, past sunning bodies, sand-eating babies, and people-watching people relaxing in beach chairs, over to a sight near the rocks.  

B waded out, shielding his dear Camera from the assaulting ocean, to get shots of waves against a background of black lava rock. He was careful, as if shielding meat from ravenous dogs, but the risk was greater than he calculated, the ocean hungrier for destruction than he thought. 

The family left Hapuna Beach content and tired, all sporting new red streaks and patches where the sunscreen failed. They drove to a more commercial area of shops, stores and people. At Whale of a Crepe, a food truck parked near a series of farmer’s market-type booths, AJ had an espresso which helped lift spirits. Then Miss GPS guided them to a Target, where AJ bought aloe for sunburns, Cheerios and apples before visiting their next ocean-side adventure.

Kiholo Bay sat at the end of a very rough, car-bottom-scraping road. In the parking lot, high sitting 4WD trucks showed off their prowess by parking on impossibly rocky spots. On the other side of a shallow woods, the beach, more rock than sand, sat pummeled with waves splashing over to fill pools with little skittering aquatic creatures. 

There’s not much to do here, so I don’t know what we’ll find,” B warned. 

AJ looked up and down the stretch of rocky beach, curiosity mumbling indefinite directions. 

“Let’s just walk, see what we can find,” she said. 

Before getting too far, B gasped, disappointment frozen on his face. 

“I might have broken the camera,” he said in a strangely calm voice considering the event. “All the screen says is ‘camera error.’”

“What happened?”

“Water happened.”

“I need a bag of rice, and may need to buy a beater-camera. I don’t have the lenses I need for my back-up camera.”

While B and the boys walked on the sandy part of the beach, AJ wandered out onto the rocks, preferring the solid, though wet surface. Further inland, tents and campsites sat under shady trees. In the ocean near the beach, a turtle bobbed up to the surface of the water. 

On the way to the other side of the beach, they stopped at the parking lot so B could get his back-up camera, and walked on in the other direction. 

A strange geologic anomaly, a hole in the rocks filled with ocean water, where a few intrepid souls were taking a dip caught there attention for a while. They walked on, to an expensive-looking house, complete with security. The stringent rules posted about walking only on the shoreline discouraged TwoSon from wanting to explore further. 

The next beach, Kua Bay, had a nicer road to it, but the high trucks still showed off by parking with one or more wheels propped up on boulders. 

“I win 5$!” AJ exclaimed as they were walking toward the beach. She pointed enthusiastically at a California license plate on one of the vehicles.

It was high tide, the sandy part of the beach was under water, people clung to the rocks, spreading their blankets like sea birds making nests in the cliffs. The family found a spot in the rocks and sat watching people against a back-drop of surreal blue ocean. 

Mommas with babies braved what looked to the land-lubber family as an aggressive surf, of aqua blue, almost glowing water. Groups of young men conspicuously watched young women as they lay tanning. Unfazed by his ruined camera, B climbed down close to the water with his back-up camera. 

Patricio’s Taquiera provided water, nachos and tacos for dinner a decent price. They scooped and munched in silence. The family was tired and sunburned and OneSon was getting a very sore throat. But there was one more stop, worth pushing through the fatigue to experience.

The last beach on the list was Wowaoli Beach, for the obligatory sunset pictures. At high tide the beach was non-existent, the water rushed up, crashing violently against a cliff of lava rock. As B and Tripod and Camera did their best to record the experience, the boys and AJ wandered around the rocks, eyes on the ground for footing and on the lookout for wildlife, like sea cucumbers and crabs. 

On the way home they stopped for a bag of rice. Although most groceries were two to three times more expensive than on the mainland, rice was actually cheaper. AJ picked up five pounds, which B poured over the water-injured camera into a gallon bag.