Captain Cook and the Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park

 Linda is interested in another snorkeling trip, but all the snorkeling boats seem to be on the Kona side of the island, particularly around Captain Cook.  Captain Cook is South of the city of Kona.  There are 3 primary ways to get from Hilo to the Kona side:  (a) go North along the coast, over and come down to Kona, (b) take the saddle road from Hilo to Kona, or (c) go South thru the Volcanoes National Park, down to South Point and then up the coast to Kona.  We have been doing (b), but if we want to end up South of Kona at Captain Cook, maybe (c) would be better.  Google maps suggests that since we don’t go up as high as the saddle road, it may be more efficient to go South.

So we figured we would try it.  We left about 9:30, and got there before Noon, so 2 and a half hours.  

There was one short non-standard incident.  The road, like most of them is a 2 lane road — one in each direction.  And since it is along the coast, some of the time there is a steep incline from the mountains on one side to the ocean on the other.  And it has a lot of curves.  We come around a bend and there in the road is a woman waving a small orange traffic cone.  Looking beyond her, we see another woman doing the same for the traffic in the other direction.  So we stop (and traffic starts to build up behind us).  We notice there is an 18-wheeler with a shipping container for a load apparently trying to back out of a small dirt road onto the highway.  Of course it takes up the whole road.  It extends across the road, but it still can’t get the cab off the small dirt road and onto the highway.  It pulls forward, tries to jack-knife the shipping container, but can’t seem to do it.  If it goes out more, it is going to either hit a power pole across from the small dirt road, or go over the edge of the road.  After a short time, it seems to give up, and pulls back into the small dirt road, clearing the highway, and the built-up line of cars from both directions continues on by.

But as we go by, I notice the milepost 95.5 by the side of the road, and when we return, I watch for the small dirt road.  The shipping container, still on wheels, is now parked parallel to the road, completely blocking the small dirt road, but the cab is just gone.  Maybe it was trying to deliver the shipping container and realized it would not be able to get out if it got onto the small dirt road and eventually gave up, parked the container and they will have to empty it and then call him back to pick up the empty shipping container later..

But then on to Captain Cook.  Which may not be a place.  I thought from the maps it was a town, but apparently it may just be a statue.  By the time we got to what I thought would be the shops and harbor for Captain Cook, everything was just being labeled “Kona” and maybe “South Kona”.

We ran into another Farmer’s Market.

 Our biggest problem was finding a place to park.  Both for the Farmer’s Market (we did find a place) and for the statue of Captain Cook (couldn’t find anything).

So after eating lunch at the Farmer’s Market, we headed on back home.  On our way, we stopped by the Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park.  The Honaunau part is the name of the bay that this spot is located on.  So this is the “Puuhonua” of Honaunau Bay.  A Puuhonua is a protected refuge where people who have committed kapu.  Kapu was violating any of the social norms of the time (which was back when the Hawaiian islands still had multiple chiefs and inter-island warfare, so around 1400 to 1800.  Kapu included many rules, like a woman could not eat with a man.  Or a commoner could not look at royalty.  The punishment for kapu was death.

But if you could get to a Puuhonua you were granted refuge and could rehabilitate yourself and erase the kapu.  The Puuhonua at Honaunau is out on a point of land and separated from the rest of the island by a big wall.  And we mean big.  Ten feet tall.  Seventeen feet thick.  About 1000 feet long.

I think this opening in the wall was added when it became a National Park because otherwise how would us mere tourists be able to see the Puuhonua?  To get a view of the entire wall, we have 

For some reason, this particular Puuhonua was just on the other side of the wall from the Royal Grounds.  Not quite sure what the Royal Grounds were, since there don’t seem to be any real structures.  So if it was a living area, the structures were all perishable and have disappeared since the 1800s or whenever it ceased to be used.   The park indicated it was a meeting ground for the various chiefs and a “center of power”.

And then on the other side of the wall was the Puuhonua.

There was one little structure which apparently had been a mausoleum for the bones of the chiefs.

It was protected by carved statues of various gods.

And then it was home.  These long trips to the other side of the island (and even some to this side) that end up getting us home after dark are less fun than driving during the day.  But at least this time, we missed most of the rush hour traffic.  You would think with so few people traffic would not be a problem, but with so few roads, and those that there are being two lane roads, it can get really backed up when everyone is going home.  Probably in the morning too, but I don’t think we get up early enough to hit that traffic.