The Cats of Waikoloa Canoe Club at Anaeho’omalu Bay

Published December 6, 2015 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

Cat haven for cats at Waikoloa Canoe Club

One of the good things that can come from wandering about with my iPad to search for Ingress portals at foreign places in the world is the discovery of new things I might not otherwise find like the cats of Waikoloa Canoe Club at Anaeho’omalu Bay. If you ask Jenny, my housekeeper at the Marriott, she doesn’t much care for the cats of Waikoloa Canoe Club because they jump on her car in the parking lot and leave little kitty footprints all over her windshield.

The cats of Waikoloa Canoe Club are not to be fed, according to the sign: Do Not Feed Cats, yet there is a raised wooden platform with tin plates and bowls filled with water. Some kind people are caring for these cats. They are nestled down the hill and in the trees, difficult to see from the road. A meandering sprinkler hose waters the vegetation around the clearing. The cats are aloof and keep their distance, although a few don’t seem to care that I’m there hovering and shoving an iPad in their faces at all.

Jenny drives to the Marriott from a town about 25 miles south of Hilo. Taking the saddleback road, it’s an hour and 45 minutes each way. There is a bus that transports workers, but it used to be free, back when Jenny started at the Marriott some 8 years ago. Then the fare imposed later was $1.00 each way and now it’s been raised to $2.00 each way. Jenny saves money, she says, by driving with her boyfriend, who is in construction.

It’s cheaper to live on the Hilo side than the Kona side. Still, that’s a long way to drive for work, bus or no bus. I think about that when I leave her a $2.00 tip every day. Perhaps I should be more generous, but I’ve already established a pattern. Yet, her birthday is this week, so that gives me an excuse to help. There is decorum. Below are more photos of the cats of Waikoloa Canoe Club.