Day 14

Another early morning today, we had a trip to Nualolo Kai. Nualolo Kai is officially a state park on the northwest part of the island. According to Dr. Burney this was one of the last areas populated by native Hawaiians, they were forced out in the 70’s when the area was designated a state park. Preserving the native culture by evicting the natives, sometimes common sense loses out to logic (logic would dictate that the best way to preserve the artifacts of the site is to stop people from living there since habitation disturbs the artifacts).

We left the docks at 6am in two boats; the boats were about 20ft long and had a pair of engines. Those two factors combined to make the boats skim across the water seeming to jump from wave to wave. We would be sitting around the edge of the boat on an inflatable seat/ring. If you google “Zodiac Boat” you can see some examples of what I am describing. Armed with a little anti-nausea medicine (I learned from my last time on a small boat) I was ready for the bumpy ride.

On the trip out I sat near the middle of the boat with my back to the coast. I got some spectacular views of the coastline and some awesome sea caves, but had little opportunity to snap any photos. Every time I considered pulling out my camera we would hit some rough waves. The cool morning air and exiting ride did a good job of waking me up.

We arrived at Nualolo Kai around 7am and soon had our basecamp set up for the day. Dr. Burney took the undergraduates on a tour of several of the archeological features of the area including another Heiau, this one with a freshwater well in the center, the only reliable source of freshwater in the area. After the tour was completed we broke into 3 general teams, one team went to watch/help with the aerial photography, another to begin setting up for some archeological investigation, and the third acted mostly as a wild card/free day. I spent the majority of the day resting in the shade, swimming in the ocean between lava rocks, and helping a little with the ground-penetrating radar. When not engaged with such activity I napped, it was glorious. The only negative part of the day was when my camera broke, I am not certain when it happened but based on the last photo I snapped I believe it stopped working when it slipped out of my hands to the ground. Shock proof my bottom.

About 5pm our time on Nualolo Kai was coming to an end, we packed up and headed for the docks to wait for our return trip. Since this trip was in the afternoon winds had shifted making parts of the ride rougher than they had been this morning. Still, I knew I wanted to have a memorable return so I chose to sit in the very front of the boat, the area that experiences the greatest bumpiness during the ride. These two factors combined with having a captain that had a more aggressive style to create a truly exciting ride back home. On more than one occasion I got a face full of sea-spray as we crashed into one wave after leaping off the previous.

The exciting ride did have one downside; it left my arms and shoulders tired from gripping the safety ropes, and my knuckles on my right hand a tad sore from being repeatedly driven into my seat.