A trip to the Big Island, July 2006.

To see the Hawai'i and more of my photos go to Flickr.

Kailua and North Kona

We stayed right in town at the Kona Reef just off Ali'i Drive. Great setup in front of the surf spot Hon'ls. Condo was basically oceanfront with a lanai right on the water. Didn't realize, however, that Ali'i Drive is the only way through downtown. Traffic not so hot. In fact traffic in and out of the whole Kailua-Kona area is terrible. They call it the "Kona Crawl." Besides that minor setback, Kailua was going to be home base.

Kailua is a pretty nice town that is quaint in some ways an then really tacky in bizarre ways. Just outside of the main drag there is strip malls and fried food shacks and even Wal-Mart. It's like suburbia was plopped down into paradise. You think southern Californians are slaves to our cars, you'd be up shit creek without a car here for sure.

Our condo was right on the water in town next to Hon'l Beach which is just a little coral sand scoop of beach in a land of lava. The surf break is somewhat decent but real shallow and ledgy that the sponge crew favors. I surfed it decent on high tide evening but never after that saw it good. Sunsets from our porch were a spectacular orange and purplish in hue from the vog (the ever present volcano smog) that reminded me of smoggy sunsets at home.

Our first adventure in the area was checking the surf. Caught the peak of a small southern hemi at Lyman's. Lyman's is one of the rare point break in Hawai'i.