Hawaii Vacation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

My wife and I plan our vacations with long lead times. Sometimes we have plans for a vacation more than a year from now. This helps us get good travel deals and allows us to give our employers plenty of notice. We planned a trip to Hawaii before we had ever heard of COVID-19. We had also planned a July vacation in Iceland. And I had planned to cycle across Iowa in RAGBRAI 2020. We cancelled both of those trips. Or, more accurately, they were cancelled for us. Back to Hawaii... 

As the date of our trip approached, we considered cancelling. The COVID infection rates seemed to decrease over the summer, only to worsen as winter approached. Should we stay? Should we go? 

 The state of Hawaii imposed strict testing/quarantine requirements as the government allowed businesses to reopen. It was possible to make the trip, but should we? I study things that interest me. A lot. I don't want to get sick. I don't want my family to get sick. Whether staying home or travelling, I wanted to know what to do to improve my chances of staying healthy. How does one get sick with COVID? How can we protect ourselves? 

Bottom line: To get sick, one has to stay in close proximity to an infected person who is talking, singing, coughing, or breathing heavily (perhaps while exercising) for some number of minutes. Keep your distance, and you're safe. Can't keep your distance? Like passing someone in a store aisle or on a sidewalk or in a hallway? Make it very brief, and you're safe. How about masks? As far as I can tell, and this is based on a lot of reading and talking with health professionals, a mask won't protect you. Why wear one? A mask wearer's mask will trap a large fraction of the droplets that are expelled when coughing, talking etc. In short, a mask protects everyone EXCEPT the wearer. And while wearing a mask, you are less likely to touch your own face. If an infected person contaminates a surface, and you touch that surface, you are less likely to then touch your own face when you have a mask, so there is a small benefit to yourself when you wear a mask. 

In light of that analysis, what is the best course of action? We have to continue our lives and work. We have to go to the store, job site, doctor's office. We have to exercise and maintain the house. Life does not stop during a pandemic. The pandemic imposes a requirement to be careful, to be smart about what we do, but it does not mean we have to shut ourselves up inside. At least COVID-19 does not impose a requirement to cower at home. In my judgment, the most dangerous part of a trip to Hawaii is the time in the airport and on the airplane. We took our COVID tests, got our (negative) results, and flew to Hawaii. We wore masks in the airport and on the planes. We social-distanced as much as possible in transit. We got off the plane, showed our negative COVID test results, then promptly got tested again. Then to rent a car, we had to show our negative COVID tests. Then when we checked in to the hotel, we had to show our negative COVID tests. 

As I write this, I'm on the balcony watching the surf crashing. There are surfers playing in the waves. I saw a pod of dolphins swim by earlier. What's it like on the island during the pandemic? Lots of stores are closed. Traffic is lighter than I've seen in my four trips to this town. Everyone wears a mask in the stores. The tourist sites are still popular, but not crowded. We've travelled a lot around the island; we are NOT required to quarantine. We wear masks and keep our distance. And we're having a peaceful vacation. 

The last time we came, the Kilauea volcano had just gone through an increased phase of eruption that destroyed 700+ homes. But by the time we arrived, there was no eruption any more. That pause lasted two years. Hours after we arrived on this trip, a new eruption started. We were able to visit the Kilauea summit to see the beginning phase of the eruption as the summit caldera has a new lava lake forming. Along with several hundred other people, we went to the edge of the caldera as night fell and watched the cloud of gases rising as the glowing lava illuminated the crater walls and the cloud.

Kilauea/Halema'uma'u Eruption

The Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park is near Kona. I went there several times last trip because it's a good spot for turtles and sunsets. On my first trip there this week, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of turtles AND an extremely rare monk seal. In fact, the monk seal was playing in the surf with a green sea turtle.

Monk Seal and Green Sea Turtle

I had so much fun watching the seal, I went back the next day. Unfortunately the seal wasn't there. But the sunset was wonderful and a surfer passed right in front of the sun at sunset.

Surfer at Sunset

Stay safe; stay healthy; Aloha!

Green Sea Turtles

I'm on a trip to Hawaii's Big Island. I've been here before, but was disappointed by my bad luck finding the famous Green Sea Turtles. I'm having much better luck this time. Punalu'u Beach, famous for its black sand, is a spot for frequent turtle basking. We stopped for a side trip while driving past. When we arrived, there were dozens of people on the nearby beach, standing near a pair of turtles.

Basking on Punalu'u Beach

There's not a lot of action when they're basking. I spent a few minutes photographing and watching and moved along, happy to have finally seen them.

Later during this trip I visited a beach near Kailua-Kona. There were four turtles swimming in tidal pools. Their shells were easy to spot in the shallow water. Occasionally one of them would raise a head to breathe. But it wasn't possible to get good photographs because all I'd see was a bit of the shell. I wish I had brought a polarizing filter. Farther along on the sandy beach, I found a pair of turtles on the sand.

Basking on the beach at Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park

One of the turtles had the number 14 painted on its shell; there was no number on the other one. Again, not much action, other than the man in a ridiculously colorful and tight Speedo who came hustling up to us as my son and I approached the turtles. I think he was about to berate us for turtle harassment until he realized that we were keeping a respectful distance from the turtles. He stood there silently, pretending to watch the turtles when in fact he was watching us, and finally after a few minutes he went back the way he had come, having never said a word to us. Maybe we disappointed him by giving him no reason to scold us.

Green Sea Turtle

My son and I sat on the sand about 20 feet away from the turtles and just enjoyed the setting sun and the breeze. The turtles would occasionally move their heads and flippers and eyelids. One of them finally opened its eyes long enough for me to get a shot.

Eyeing Us

There are warning signs on every sandy beach that I've visited here informing people of the requirement to stay away from these large, endangered animals. I was able to get some very tight shots of them using my 300mm lens from a respectful distance.

On the Rocks

I returned to the same beach near Kailua-Kona for a total of three sunset visits. I saw turtle number 14 on all three trips. Each time, there were several turtles in shallow water, in pools in the lava rock. On my last trip, the tide was out, revealing much more rock and much more sand. There were at least six turtles swimming in the shallow pools, including number 89 and number 101, as well as several that were not numbered.

Green Shell? Or Green Slime on the Shell?

They mostly just rested motionless, with only occasional eyelid opening or head movements. Even in the water there wasn't much movement, just slow movement looking for and eating plants. I could see them feeding in the clear water in the shallow pools.

Fleeting Eye Openings

 This turtle below was resting on the rocks, unlike all the previous times when I'd seen turtles on the sand. This was also a cloudy evening; they weren't soaking any heat in.

On the Rocks

Green Sea Turtles ingest a lot of salt water. Their bodies have the ability to remove the excess salt through glands near their eyes. When they've been out of the seawater for a while, the salt dries and cakes below their eyes, making for a messy mixture of salt and sand on their faces.

Salty Sandy Face