Old Kona Airport Beach at Low Tide

The last time I strolled along Old Kona Airport Beach Park was more than a year ago, when I shot photos of my last day in Kona. Not very many people seem to populate this area; it’s fairly quiet and secluded, featuring picnic tables under covered canopies.

But yesterday, my husband and I stopped at Old Kona Airport Beach at low tide to check out the sea life and vegetation. Above, is a close up photo of an intricate flower on the velvetleaf soldier bush. Must be a hardy plant to survive on the edge of the ocean.

Here we have sea urchin, with a few shells hanging on. If you step on one of these babies barefoot, you will live to regret that action. I’ve never done it on purpose nor by accident but I hear it stings and burns something terrible.

In this photo, I spied a sea urchin next to a red sea anemone, the beautiful tubular thing. This is where I almost slipped into the water on the wet rocks. Good thing I wore water shoes.

My husband says he thinks these are mussels, but there are so many types of mollusks it would take me forever to pin down this specific type. They could be bleached or a different variety all together.

One of the things I love about tide pools is the stuff you can find that is otherwise not visible to you. When I lived in an oceanfront on the Rincon in Ventura, California, I once caught a squid and put him into a jar with ocean water. He didn’t live, and I was very sad to return his dead body to the sea.

However, for years, I endured nightmares of waking up to giant tentacles attached to my windows, the mama of the squid returning to get revenge for killing her child. There is always karma in life.

This is just the two of us enjoying sitting on a large pahoehoe and watching the sea, wondering when the tide would begin to turn. Any new wave could have washed over us. As luck had it, we were an hour away from the end of low tide. Sometimes you can just sense these things. But never turn your back on the ocean, especially not at Old Kona Airport Beach.