First light on the Kona coast, mid-October, and I am standing on the jetty at Kaʻawaloa with Old Faithful (my mask, held together by habit and one replacement strap) pressed to my face. The bay is flat. Not calm-flat, but mirror-flat, the kind of surface that makes the cliff behind me look doubled. I get…
The “Kona Is Always Calm” Myth, and What It Costs People Seven o’clock in the morning and Kaʻawaloa Cove (kah-AH-wah-LOH-ah) is doing its best impression of a swimming pool. No wind, no chop, the basalt shelf dropping away into water so clear it feels like looking through gin. Old Faithful, my ten-year-old snorkel mask with…
The Road That Smells of Coffee and Hot Asphalt Route 11 climbs south out of Kailua-Kona and within ten minutes the air changes. Somewhere around the 1,000-foot mark you get that sweet, slightly burnt-toast smell drifting off the drying sheds, and the temperature drops enough that you finally stop regretting the car’s broken air conditioning….