Big Island Trip Part 5 - Black sand beach

July 20, 2012

After the morning drive around the northern portion of the island, the early afternoon helicopter tour of volcanoes and waterfalls and a wonderful dinner we continues our drive. We left Hilo and headed south around the southern tip of the island and then up the coast to Kona. I have already posted in the "scenic pics" post many of the lovely views and sights we saw.

Of special interest was our stop on a black sand beach. This was Punaluu Black Sand Beach and is a beautiful place. Sea turtles often can be seen here though we didn't see any on our trip. Punaluu (here is a Wikipedia link that tells a bit more about the history) is a sacred place and is protected, you are not allowed to remove the black sand or do anything to damage or destroy the natural look of this place. The black sand is caused by the waves wearing away at the black lava rock over time and turning it to sand.

You can see it is getting later and there are rain sprinkles. I thought the sky was lovely regardless.

 Punaluu black sand beach. This is the left side of the beach.

 My foot (ankle brace and all) sinking into the black sand on the beach.

 Dark clouds are rolling in. Still a lovely view.

 The restrooms, picnic tables and shower house at Punaluu.

 A lovely view of the right side of the beach and the dark clouds.

 The black rock you see is lava rock.

You can watch Romi and I laughing ourselves silly as we sink into the sand in the surf. Remember I have a broken ankle so walking in sand is challenging, walking in sand as my whole foot sinks into the sand is just hilarious. We had so much fun. The videos are on YouTube if you cannot get them to work here.

We were there right about twilight so we got to walk in the surf and enjoy the sunset. I got some interesting photos and video of the beach as it got dark. It isn't the typical beautiful sunny daytime shots but I thought you might enjoy seeing them anyway. Not everything is bright and sunny, I like these because they remind me that watching the sun go down in a quiet beautiful and peaceful place can be wonderful.

We left Punaluu and headed on to our hotel in Kona. We had more adventures there. I already posted about swimming in the pool, the waterslides, hot tubs and the wonderful beds and pillows. There is a lot more though so stay tuned for more updates. This added to the other posts finished Friday July 20th, but we still had 2 more days!

To be continued...

Aloha!
~Melissa