Tag Archives: Hualalai

Better Days: Wreck remains

The scant remains of this shipwreck lie on the rocks of Kahuway Bay, just north of the Hualalai Beach Resort on the Kona coast. The keel is still clearly visible along with several keel bolts and the bottom part of the hull. I don’t know which wreck this is, but it’s been there a long time and will probably survive for many years to come.

Hualalai golf

Last week, I went down to Hualalai Resort while the 2020 Mitsubishi Electric Championship, the first event on this year’s PGA Tour Champions, was going on. I was going to spend time at the event but, on arrival, found that the PGA doesn’t allow cameras. Since I was mostly going to take photos I wasn’t sure how much time I wanted to spend watching golf without it.

Instead, I went for walk along the waterfront, which is public access. This path also happens to go by the 17th hole of the golf course, so I took some photos and returned later when the players reached that point.

The top photo shows the 17th green with Hualalai volcano in the background. The tee for this par 3 hole is on the slightly elevated area to the right of the photo. This was taken in the morning, before the tournament started. In the middle photo, staff rake the 17th hole bunker before the event. Below, Ken Tanigawa puts on the 17th green. He missed, though got close enough to make par. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to take this photo, so if this blog suddenly stops it’s probably because the PGA’s lawyers have bludgeoned me with five irons (the preferred club for that kind of activity) and buried me in a bunker on the 13th hole.

Hualalai and Pu’u Ahumoa

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Peace.’ See more offerings here.

I’ve always found looking down on clouds gives me a peaceful feeling. Those fluffy balls of cotton wool look like they would make a comfy resting place. The irony is that those clouds may actually conceal roiling, turbulent air currents that are anything but peaceful, but let’s not allow reality to spoil the image.

This cloud layer blanketed the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The two peaks poking above the clouds are, in the foreground, Pu’u Ahumoa, and in the background, Hualalai.

Sailboats in the harbor

These sailboats were moored in Kawaihae Harbor, with Hualalai volcano in the background.

There is a small boat harbor on the other side of that rock breakwater. It opened in 2014 built after 20-plus years of studies and considerations and general hand-wringing. But since it only has room for a limited number of boats, some still retain their moorages in the port’s main harbor.

Hualalai and clouds

Hualalai and clouds

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in my life looking up at clouds, often as they poured water in my direction, so it’s nice to look down on them once in a while. Airplanes are probably the most common place to enjoy this view, but here on the Big Island, the upper reaches of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa also offer this perspective.

In this case, the clouds were low enough that, when I was visiting the Palila Forest Discovery Trail at around 7,000 feet, the clouds blanketed the landscape below. Here, Hualalai pokes through the cloud layer in the late afternoon.

For more information about Palila Forest Discovery Trail, go to dlnr.hawaii.gov/restoremaunakea/palila-forest-discovery-trail/.