Photos from Makalawena Beach on Big Island

Words cannot truly convey the experience of traversing to Makalawena Beach. Well, they probably could but I would be up until midnight, and that is way past my bedtime. Besides, after a day in the sun, you have no idea what a toll it takes on your body unless you are a roofer, and then I have 4 words for you: find a better trade. Only desperate people get up there in the hot sun to play with asphalt shingles and tar.

I will say this is my defense of saying nothing. It is well worth the trip to Makalawena Beach. First, you enter Kekaha Kai State Park and you really need a four-wheel or SUV to drive that road. Otherwise you walk. But since I have a Subaru Forester, we were in luck. We could drive.

Then you walk a half mile or so to the beach, and we saw no monk seals. To get to Makalawena Beach, which is billed as the prettiest and most beautiful beach in West Hawaii, you then must walk down another half mile of lava. Some of it is sand, but going over the lava rocks, well, I seem to have not taken any photos of that. For a good reason.

It was a glorious day, high of 79, stiff breezes and magnificent surf. Hope you enjoy the pictorial journey. There is a close up of Mauna Kea with snow and a pufferfish at the end. Believe it or not, all shot with an iPhone XR.

I need to add that last photo is a pufferfish. It had washed ashore in the tide. Anita, my friend, was busy looking for a cowry shell for me when I pointed into the distance at this fish and said WHAT IS THAT? See, when you’re searching for something, you might find something else. I knew it was a pufferfish as I had actually caught a pufferfish in Florida.

Somehow it was tossed ashore by the strong surf at Makalawena. We assumed it was dead. It was not moving. I emptied out my lunch bag, and got mayonnaise all over my white shorts, but we packed up that pufferfish and headed back to Kailua Kona. Anita planned to make a blowfish lantern from it.

Weird twist, though. Anita texted that when she got home on Ali’i, she discovered the fish was alive. WTH? So she rushed to the ocean, dropped it into the water, and it regained consciousness. Swam away. How f-ing weird is that? Like suspended animation.