Sunset and Raving

Tuesday Evening, October 8, 2024. Waikoloa Beach, HI

The layout of the resort is passive-aggressive towards pedestrians. The different centers are about ten minutes apart from each other by foot. One can walk, but I think they want you to take shuttles or drive. Or golf.

Since Mark slept through Monday night’s sunset, he offered to walk to the beach to watch tonight’s.

We walked along a golf course and then down some steps to Waikōloa Anchialine Pond Preservation Area, a lava flow filled with brackish ponds. Feral cats live here and we saw ten (at least): tabby, Siamese, calico, white, tuxedo, and black cats. There were very likely more hiding in the underbrush. The Sun was about ten degrees off of the horizon and the Moon was a waxing almost quarter. We got to the shore, which was a collection of dark lava, white stones (coral), and coral chunks. The sky shifted to purple and rose hues. I spotted Venus about a third of the way fro the Sun to the crescent Moon.

The rocky short was spiky and offered few comfortable places to sit. Some sandpiper-like birds took a bath in the shallow water around the rocks. The sun sank some more and I watched for the green flash (didn’t see it). About this time we realized the Marriott Luau must be happening across the bay because lilting guitar and a tenor’s voice echoed over the waters and strings of cantina lights lit up on the far shore. What appeared to be a sunset “booze cruise” sailed into the bay. We looked but didn’t see any fire dancers. About halfway between Venus and the Moon, Antares appeared. The clouds around the sun continued to put on a ruddy show.

About this time we heard someone, apparently on the path behind us, channel his inner Gollum and start to rave in an wrathful and frenzied manner. I think it was one person, but it sounded like a sad person was having a screaming match with an angry person, possibly about tourists and the environment. By this time the sun had completely set and it was dark enough that Mark started using the flashlight on his mobile. I wasn’t quite sure if Gollum was coming any closer or not, but Mark and I agreed it was time to move along.

After some stumbling off of and back onto the path, we made it to Lava Lava Beach, which was lightly populated. As we watched, a skiff, presumably from the Booze Cruise, discharged a gaggle of bridesmaids onto the beach. By this time Scorpio was bright and undulating through the sky.

We navigated around a large zooey Hilton pool, around a pickle-ball court, through a parking lot, and back onto the main pedestrian loop. Mark wanted to see the milky way, so we sidetracked back through the feral cat sanctuary at Waikōloa Anchialine Pond Preservation Area. Mark found a patch of unbroken pavement between the lava flows that was on a dark part of the path and we traced the Milky Way fro Cassiopeia through the Summer Triangle and Delphinus. Scorpio was still up, so Orion wasn’t.

We made it back to our unit and contemplated spas and day-trips for the overmorrow.