Hawaiian Life

Sea Turtle

When I went to the Big Island of Hawaii, one of the coolest things about my visit was seeing so many different creatures there. The coolest being the sea turtles. I first met them while I was snorkeling in a little bay, with a lot of other people. It was on the Kona side of the island, near the resort that I stayed at. I was bobbing around, looking at fish, when I felt something bump against my leg. I assumed that it was another snorkeler, so I moved away a little bit, angling out toward a reef, so I could see more fish. However, I kept feeling the bumping, and with a somewhat annoyed glance, looked over to see who was crowding my space. It was a sea turtle! It was calmly munching on sea grass, which was growing around the rocks and the reef. I was amazed! It didn't really seem to be too aware of my presence, choosing to feast on it's wild grasses rather than swim away. As I looked around, I noticed other people's reactions were similar to mine, as several sea turtles had come around us and were all munching on sea grass in our midst! How lucky we were!! So many photographs were taken of sea turtles that day! It was so cool.... everyone was being nice around the turtles, which made me really happy. All the kids there were pointing and exclaiming, and no one was doing anything ridiculous. It was a great day!

Mongoose family

 The other interesting animal I saw were the mongoose. Originally brought to the islands to take down the rat populations, it turned out that rats are more nocturnal, and mongooses eat more than rats. In fact, they pretty much eat everything that they can reach. They devastated populations of birds, insects, and other native species, causing extinctions and endangerment of many of the native creatures. So sad! They at least ate SOME of the rats... but unfortunately, not enough to justify the reason that they were brought to the islands. Currently, all islands but Lana'i and Kaua'i have mongooses. The thing about them, though, from a tourist point of view, is that they're actually really cute at a distance! And the mothers travel about with their pups, taking care of them. It's cuter if you don't know the whole story! It's really just never a good idea to introduce a foreign species to a land. You'd think that people (especially native people) would know that by now. Natives have been pushed out of all their lands by foreigners for millenia!

Gecko

Another of my favorite creatures on the island is the gecko! They have a reputation for good luck, which I think is because of their bug eating proficiency. You won't have too many mosquitoes buzzing around you if you have lots of geckos in the house! They are adorable, too. Their toes look like little flowers, and they come in the smallest of sizes. I saw a gecko in the condo that was about 3/4" long! So minuscule! The biggest one I saw was maybe around 3" long. Every time I saw them, though, they made me so happy! I've only seen geckos in Hawaii and Mexico. I don't know if we have them in the states, but if we imported them, we'd probably run out of some cool butterflies or something! No importing! Ha ha. Anyway, the geckos were all over the island, and thriving so far, despite the mongoose.

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Determined mouse

The day I went to Green Sand Beach, I had a package of Nutter Butters in my pack. It wasn't the smartest of foods to bring for snacking when it was hot and I had limited water, but it was better than nothing. I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye, and not until the little rascal actually grabbed one of my cookies out of the pack did I see what it was: a little mouse! He had grabbed a cookie and was taking off when I snapped the photo. It's blurry, as he was a quick little guy! But it was kind of funny, too. He was the only creature I saw at the beach, other than a couple people who left before I got there. It was totally worth the 3 hours it took to get there, although had I known it would take so long, I would've brought more water and maybe a lunch or something! It was quite a weird hike, but the ocean was off to the right the whole time so I couldn't get lost, and I was determined to get there and back before the sun went down, so I trekked on. This is what I saw once I got there....

Green Sand Beach

Talk about hidden treasures, right? It was gorgeous. And the few dots representing people on the beach were gone by the time I got down there, so it was like being on a private beach. That's the great thing about the Big Island... it's so big that you're never crowded! I love it. By the way, those waves down there are MUCH bigger than they seem in this photo. They were huge and scary, and I got pommeled before I wised up and got away from the surf. I had to walk back the whole 3 hours with sand in my suit and it taught me a big lesson: always have a towel if you think you might go into the water. It's too humid in Hawaii to dry naturally. It just doesn't happen!

Pallid Ghost Crab

  On the very last day I spent in Hawaii, I saw several of these ghost crabs. They were very elusive, and this photo is zoomed in quite a bit. It's very small, the body being around an inch or so wide. But they were so cute! They live by burrowing in the sand and running about to catch their food, and running back into their burrows. It was right around dusk when I saw them, but apparently they run about during the day a lot. It was the only time I saw them, however. That was the night of the most amazing sunset I've ever seen. I'll close with a photo of it, completely unmodified. It was the most gorgeous sunset... completely awe-inspiring! Hawaii is a magnificent place. My favorite island is the Big Island. There's just so much diversity and it's so much bigger, so you have more to see. If you can choose one of the islands, I know everyone says Maui is best, but I have to disagree and say that the Big Island towers above them all!

Kona sunset