|
Hauula Beach Park has become our halfway rest stop. Behind
us and across Kamahamaha Highway is a 7-11 convenience store staffed by native
Hawaiians who great you with a "Good Morning" or "Aloha" when you enter.
We'll load up on locally grown and roasted fresh brewed coffee as well as
local favorites like Spam Musubi or Egg and Sausage Manapua if we get there
early enough. I'll usually grab a pastry as well. Once back in the park we
choose an empty picnic table and gaze out to the east, watching the rising
sun light the white fluffies that are constantly drifting overhead.
I can't think of a time of year when there are not people
camping in the park. Children are up and playing, usually in the water or on
the short beach. The adults are often preparing breakfast that a family member
retrieved from the water. At low tide there will be a line of people at the
reefs edge for sea urchins for sushi and octopus (Tako) that are often eaten
raw, made into a local snack called Poki or dried the be eaten watching TV
with a beer. When the tides are higher the area inside the protected
reef you'll see someone honing their spear fishing skills either by wading
in the shallows or snorkeling.
If the human activity isn't interesting there is always my
favorite, watching the little sand crabs cautiously darting about the beach
looking for their breakfast or rebuilding their burrow that was filled in at
high tide. With a pair of binoculars I can get a close up view of their
humorous habits as they run down to a receding water line, picking and
poking at the particles of former living things that were just
deposited. Then reversing back towards their burrow as the next gentle wave
rolls in. |