Wai'anapanapa

We stopped at Wai’napanapa State Park, which was one of those adventures we had not planned on. I love when the spirit says, “No, you can’t do what you think you want to do—do this instead.” Dee took one look at the tourists and headed in the opposite direction. Since he had dug the sites on the Hana Ranch land, he knew exactly where he was going. He led us down an empty trail that ran through the a’a along the rugged shoreline. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the ocean exactly that color of blue. If I were to name the color, I’d call it ‘get-lost-in-it’ blue. Down the trail we went, rounding bays and headlands until we were far from the sight of anyone. Allison and I stopped to point out faces and animals in the stone—sea monsters (certainly mo’o) and spirits whose eyes stared back at us from the holes in the rock. It was as if we were the only three people on the island. Since Wai’anapana was an old village site (and the only beach to land a canoe for miles and miles) I imagined us as being old souls walking a path from one village to another. In and out of the forest we went, Dee pointing up into the trees and saying, “There is a heiau up there” or “We found some graves.” Suddenly, it being the windward side, a squall blew up and in less than a minute, we were soaked. Allison scrambled up some rocks and said, “Up here!” I saw her sitting at the mouth of a cave, dry as a bone. I climbed up and sat beside her while Dee, who had already lowered himself down some very steep steps, continued on. Soon we heard him coming back to join us. “I just wanted to see if I could still find that petroglyph,” he said. Again, we felt like villagers taking refuge from the rain, as so many had obviously done before. What amazed me was that the timing was precisely right—the cave appeared just when we needed it. The squall blew by, we crawled down from the cave, and headed back the way we came.