For some reason February 15, 2010 is clear in my mind today. It might not be sometime in the future, so here is my account in detail:

We wake up early. The tent provided minimal comforts again, but it is warm on our perch above Kealakekua Bay. Our tent sits 20 feet atop the rocky shore, on the flat ground the crooked tree made at its roots. We've hiked in only a few times since finding it the night before, and somehow we take a different path each time, getting a new scrape from the dry logs that line the path each journey. I should have dropped bread crumbs. Although our tent is green, nobody can see us. There is a little arguing during the night, open the door, close the door, this blanket here, that blanket there. We've been on the road for 3 days or so, and still haven't perfected the intricacies of being two people in a one person tent. We say "this would be luxurious for one person," often, as if the tent was marketed for two people and doesn't have the "one person" marking right on it. We laugh, because we know that if there were only one of us, it would be lonely, the journey would be entirely different, and we both prefer that both of us are in there. Still we readjust every 20 seconds for what seems like hours. Thus, we wake up early.

Usually I am the first one out of bed, telling Nico it's time for breakfast, time for our walk across the meadow, down the lane lined with thimble berries, onto the porch for breakfast. While we camp, however, Nico excites at the thought of morning, when he can break through the tent (which has been zipped fully by me as soon as he falls asleep. A few nights from now a rodent will traipse across my legs, changing this rule to having the door closed before we go to sleep, not in the middle of the night once Nico doesn't notice anymore). Anyway, I wake to Nico telling me to come outside, enjoy our morning view. I do, we start to clean up last night's dinner utensils until I hear Nico squeal. "A whale, Em, just 50 feet out!" I look up and see a beautifully large whale surfacing directly out from our perch. I had never seen anything so monumental, especially when an actual monument, Captain Cook's monument, was in my periphery as well. Nico decides we have to go out there...immediately. We hurry to get our gear, hide our belongings under the branches Nico machete'd last night and without reservation, jump into the cool water. I had never snorkeled before, much less entered or exited the water on rocky shores with waves crashing in. Wait for the calm set of 6, Nico encourages.

We had been talking about why people take photos earlier in the trip, and had concluded that it was many times to show other people. "I've been here, I've done that." I protested that I took photos so I could remember what I've done, what I've seen. However, on this morning, jumping into that water, knowing we'd swim a good mile before reaching the Monument as planned. My swimming ventures have never included a mile swim. Trusting Nico, I went in, convincing myself of all the reasons this was a good idea, which now included just to say "I've been here, I've done that." How shallow of me.

The water deepened as I got past the break and Nico had now joined me. We made sure our snorkel gear was in working condition and off we went to find our whale, but it was gone. I imagined it watching us, keeping us safe, while out of sight, but it wasn't probably. The ocean floor dropped and rose below me. I heard the snapping of fishies eating coral. My body flowed with the water up and down. Somehow my arms and legs propelled me through the power of the ocean's dance. I look to my left, Nico reaches out his hand; we swim together as if we're in one of those sappy, romantic, resort advertisements. Still I hold his hand. I look up often to see how much further we have to go. The monument fails to get larger in our sights. "It's tiny," I tell Nico. "It must be tiny because it's not getting any bigger and we're really close to it."

We make it to the monument. It is tiny: an obelisk about 10 feet tall, which upon close inspection, appears to have been painted white many times and peeling. The inscription reads: "In Memory of the great circumnavigator Captain James Cook RN who discovered these islands on the 18th of January AD 1778 and fell near this spot on the 14th of February AD 1779..." We swam all that way, to see this monument, and then read the word "discovered." Although he was a smart man, he didn't discover the islands of Hawaii. Period.

We sat on the shore a bit, marveling at the sun, our journey there. We watched boats spew out tourists into the bay which was acclaimed the best snorkeling in the entire state of Hawaii. We're unsure if this is true or if it's just a good way to market the boat tours. One boat has slides that the tourists could go down, dropping them in the water with a splash, then they'd snorkel around the reefs, then climb back in the boat. We could hear their squeals. The boat would leave finally, the bay was calm again. We took this time to explore without many human distractions, then swam or way back to our campsite.

Even though I cannot see well in the water, what I did see that day, the experience of being one with the salty water, learning to trust myself and my body's abilities, to trust Nico and his snorkeling "expertise," were undoubtedly some of the most important things I learned while in Hawaii.