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Captain Cook

Started: 2025-01-27 21:00:03

Submitted: 2025-01-28 22:49:54

Visibility: World-readable

A coffee farm, a hike to the ocean, a monument, spinner dolphins, Hawaiian history, and a bookstore

On the Big Island of Hawaii we stayed at a condo in Waikola Village, which gave us access to much of the island, but wasn't especially close to anything. On Friday, the 3rd of January, we headed to Captain Cook, an hour away, further south along the Kona coast than we'd visited on this trip.

Our first stop was the Kona Coffee Living History Farm, a five-acre plot of land on the hillside below the highway. It was one of many similar plots that had been carved out of the Kona coast for a Japanese farming family to grow coffee.

Kona Coffee Living History Farm
Kona Coffee Living History Farm

Our hour-long drive took us into a new microclimate on the Kona coast, where upslope winds wrapping around the island bring rain denied from much of the rest of the drier leeward (eastern) side of the mountain, supporting tropical vegetation in multiple shades of bright green. (I spotted a couple of monsterosa plants by the side of the road on the drive, and then all of sudden they were everywhere.) At 2000 feet on the side of the mountain there's a narrow band where Kona coffee grows, which the state of Hawaii treats as a protected origin term. It was sunny, warm, and humid as we walked into the farm, but wispy clouds above suggested the possibility of rain later. (Or it might have been volcanic fog blown downwind from the eruption at Kilauea.)

Honey bee polinates coffee flower
Honey bee polinates coffee flower

I immediately recognized the coffee trees lining the parking lot, some of which were blooming, with more flower buds anticipating winter rains that would trigger a mass bloom across the entire region, which multiple people called "Kona snow". We smelled the flowers, enjoying the delicate floral scent with notes of jasmine almost but not quite masking a bitter undercurrent. Each bloom only lasts twenty-four hours and then fades.

Donkeys at the Kona Coffee Living History Farm
Donkeys at the Kona Coffee Living History Farm

We followed the self-guided tour map into the grounds, past a pair of donkeys snacking on hay in the shade, representing the donkeys that the farm family used to deliver their coffee and visit the general store two miles away (which was also a historic site open to visit, but open on different days). The tour took us into the rows of coffee trees lining the hillside.

Hundred-year-old coffee tree
Hundred-year-old coffee tree

The coffee trees were all a hundred years old, planted by the farmers in the 1920s. The gnarled trunks were six or nine inches in diameter, but they had been aggressively cut back at a foot above the ground supporting trunks no more than an inch in diameter reaching six or eight feet above the ground. I asked about the pruning (for notes on how to manage my own coffee tree) and learned that when a branch or trunk was no longer producing it would get cut back, replaced by the most vigorous of the side branches the tree was growing. The upper branches looked out of reach but the farmers built hooked rods to pull the branches into reach to harvest the individual cherries, by hand, when they reached their peak.

Kona coffee trees
Kona coffee trees

We walked past tropical trees interspersed with the coffee, including macadamia and allspice, and saw the vegetable and herb gardens. The original farmhouse was set up as it would have been in the 1920s. (Multiple generations of the family lived and farmed here for decades, until their descendents transferred the farm to the local historical society.) A historic interpreter gave a talk in the kitchen demonstrating the work of the women on the farm, who had to take care of the entire household, including cooking over a wood fire and making bento box lunches for all of the kids to take to school.

Living history interpreter in a Kona coffee farmhouse kitchen
Living history interpreter in a Kona coffee farmhouse kitchen

Towards the end of the talk the interpreter talked about toys the kids would make for themselves and borrowed Calvin to demonstrate one toy: a piece of coffee branch, perfectly balanced with dried coffee cherries on each end, forming a large up-side-down "Y" with a point that she balanced on the bridge of Calvin's nose to everyone's amusement, then stacked two more smaller branches on top.

Living history guide balances coffee branches on Calvin's nose while Julian watches
Living history guide balances coffee branches on Calvin's nose while Julian watches

The rest of the farmhouse was decorated in the style of a Japanese farming family from the 1920s, which looked very much like a house in Japan would look at the same time.

Teapots lined up in front of an open window looking out on a coffee farm
Teapots lined up in front of an open window looking out on a coffee farm

On one of the walls was a picture of Mount Hood, covered in snow, with a sign telling us that it reminded the Japanese immigrants of Mount Fuji.

Japanese sleeping mats in a farmhouse
Japanese sleeping mats in a farmhouse

The last thing we saw at the coffee farm was the processing shed. This featured a small gasoline engine powering a mill that pulped the cherries, then sent the beans to dry.

Historic coffee processing mill
Historic coffee processing mill

After pulping the beans dried out on a large wooden deck elevated above the ground. To protect the beans from the weather while drying, the deck featured a long peaked roof of corrugated metal mounted on rollers on either side that could be pushed onto the deck or moved all the way off. While the beans were drying they would be raked to ensure they drying evenly. Finally the beans would be milled again to remove the tough inner skin and the dried beans (now green coffee) was ready to be sold.

Coffee drying during processing
Coffee drying during processing

We left the coffee farm and headed around the corner to the trailhead for the Captain Cook Monument Trail. The trail descended 1500 feet in two miles to the edge of Kealakekua Bay. We started walking through tall grass threatening to grow over the trail. The sky grew cloudy, shading us from what would otherwise have been the mid-day heat.

Trail leading to the Captain Cook monument
Trail leading to the Captain Cook monument

Before long the kids started lagging and Kiesa suggested that she could take the kids back to the car and I could complete the hike on my own. This seemed like the best available option so I continued down the trail by myself. The terrain changed as I descended: the tall grass gave way to low grass, then to scraggly trees with goats snacking on the scraggly grass. By the time the vegetation cleared enough for me to see the ocean ahead of me the ground was mostly volcanic rock with a thin cover of dirt.

Descending towards the ocean on the Captain Cook trail
Descending towards the ocean on the Captain Cook trail

The trail bypassed the cliff dominating the bay and approached the low peninsula at the western edge of the bay on a dusty ramp.

Trail descends to Kealakekua Bay
Trail descends to Kealakekua Bay

The trail led me through the surprisingly-dark forest on the peninsula to emerge at the edge of the water with a broad view of the bay, crowded with boats and kayaks and people swimming and snorkeling. Tristan and Jessica had separately decided to visit Captain Cook and had rented a kayak to paddle across the bay to snorkel. Jessica spotted me as soon as I emerged from the forest onto the shore.

Boats and snorkelers in Kealakekua Bay
Boats and snorkelers in Kealakekua Bay

While I was standing on the shore, looking out over the bay, I noticed a flurry of movement above the water followed by a sizable splash, somewhere in the middle of the bay. I watched the area and saw a dolphin leap out of the water, perform flips and other aerial acrobatics, and splash back into the water. I had my DSLR with my telephoto lens so I could get a few reasonable shots of the spinner dolphins in action, performing the tricks that give them their name.

Spinner dolphin leaps out of the water
Spinner dolphin leaps out of the water

I took off my shoes to dip my feet in the water at the edge of the bay, which proved tricky because of the occasional large waves that threatened to splash the rest of me and my shoes and backpack as I sat and ate my lunch.

Captain James Cook monument
Captain James Cook monument

The shore was dominated by a large white obelisk serving as a monument to Captain James Cook, who was killed near here in a skirmish with the Hawaiian people while he was trying to sail around the world. Nearby on the shore, hidden from view by the forest without an obvious trail to get there, was a second plaque, sitting in the water, that read "Near this spot Captain James Cook met his death, February 14, 1779".

Captain James Cook marker at the edge of Kealakekua Bay
Captain James Cook marker at the edge of Kealakekua Bay

I left the water and began the two-mile climb back to the trailhead. The ascent was not the easiest walk I've ever taken but was well within my capabilities (though possibly not within the capabilities of my children, which is probably something I should work on before the next time I try to take them on hikes on vacation).

Strangler fig along the Captain Cook monument trail
Strangler fig along the Captain Cook monument trail

I found my family waiting in the car, and after a quick refreshment, we drove further south to the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, a few minutes away. This park highlighted two important sites in Hawaiian society before European contact: royal grounds occupied by the ruling class, and Pu'uhonua (place of refuge). We watched an introductory video explaining the site through a dramatic recreation of a warrior swimming to refuge to escape punishment for an unspecified crime (and then when the video looped we watched the second half of the video again). If he could reach the refuge on his own he would be absolved and return to society.

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park

The rain that had been threatening all afternoon finally came as we watched the video in an open-air pavilion; then the rain subsided enough that we could walk out in the grounds and see the historic site. The park map led us on a self-guided tour through the grounds, past a recreation of the temple that stood on the edge of the place of refuge, which stood as a mausoleum holding the bones of 23 kings.

Hale o Keawe reconstruction
Hale o Keawe reconstruction

The temple was guarded by wooden statues of the Hawaiian gods, including two on shore and several more inside the fence next to the raised platform of dry-stacked lava rocks that served as the foundation for the temple.

Ki'i at Hale o Keawe
Ki'i at Hale o Keawe

Running down the middle of the site was a "great wall", dividing the place of refuge from the royal grounds. It was built of dry-stacked lava rocks and is (like the rest of the grounds) imbued with great significance. It wasn't clear how much of the wall was original, and how much was a reconstruction, or how the site inside the place of refuge was used.

Palm trees above the Great Wall
Palm trees above the Great Wall

Overall I found the site to be an interesting glimpse into Hawaiian culture, but it left me with more questions than answers. What happened to the site after the end of the kapu laws in 1819? How do the structures currently on the site compare to what was here before?

We left the historic park and dropped by Hikiau Heiau at the edge of Kealakekua Bay, across the bay from the monument I hiked to earlier in the afternoon. To get there we drove along a long straight road, Keala O Keawe Road, through flat scrubland just above the ocean. The road was covered in no-dumping signs, and these signs appeared to be entirely ignored. There were couches, appliances, a couple of cars, and various piles of trash, some more recognizable than others, dumped on both sides of the roadbed. It wasn't clear what this particular road did to deserve this fate (maybe it was the most remote road on this part of the island so people came here to dump their trash?) until I noticed a small transfer station, so maybe the dumping was people who didn't quite make it to the transfer station (or missed the turn, or didn't want to pay, or arrived after hours) but still needed to dump their trash.

Cliffs above Kealakekua Bay
Cliffs above Kealakekua Bay

Past the transfer station the road passed through a few small neighborhoods hiding behind walls of dry-stacked lava rock and tropical vegetation. The road shrunk further as the jungle closed in, and then the road ended abruptly at what looked like a tiny city park with a picnic structure, several parking spaces, and a concrete wharf built when this was the biggest port on this side of the island.

Julian looks out at Kealakekua Bay
Julian looks out at Kealakekua Bay

From the edge of the wharf I looked out onto the ocean, which looked more agitated than I had seen the ocean in Hawaii; waves splashed up two meters from the tiny boulder-strewn beach below to the edge of the concrete wharf. Above the water was Hikiau Heiau. This used to be a temple and would have had various buildings on top, but now it was just a large platform of dry-stacked lava rock, still imbued with its spiritual significance to the Hawaiian people but I could only guess what it used to be.

Hikiau Heiau and Kealakekua Bay
Hikiau Heiau and Kealakekua Bay

We drove north out of Hikiau Heiau, past Captain Cook, and stopped at Kona Stories Book Store, a local bookstore in Keauhou (between Kona and Captain Cook). I bought a couple of books about Hawaiian history. We headed around the corner to eat pizza then headed back to our condo for the night.

I took even more pictures than I could include above, they're all at Photos on 2025-01-03.