Friday Finale
The fabled Ironman Kona triathlon happens in October (almost) every year, serving as the sport’s championship. The 2.4 mile out-and-back swim portion is iconic, and starts at the town pier. We like to hit this spot a couple of times during our SwimVacation week, but Friday is the day we make an attempt to swim the entire course. It takes a bit of planning, with swimmers of different speeds. We formed 3 groups, with Ryan on SUP leading the way. Robin and Ann had opted for a morning of snorkeling and swimming at our home Beach 69, and were met with a calm and quiet home pool and the hale all to themselves.
The first ¼ of the course is well marked with buoys year-round, and serves as a training, snorkeling, and recreational swim spot for hundreds of swimmers every day. The “King’s buoy” marks this 1.2 mile (mearuring out and back) turnaround spot. The “Ironman buoy” sits another .6 miles from that, with no buoys in-between.
As we jumped in, one of the guests ripped her swim cap, and forgetting I had an extra, I asked a group of swimmers standing on the pier if anyone had one. Someone (Mike?) from the Kona Endurance group offered up a new, orange silicone cap. Shout out to him for getting us out of a little jam.
We formed 3 groups and charged through the course. Kyle zipped along next to Ryan on the SUP, I swam with Genna, Celine, and Miriam, while Heather and Bill made the caboose.
Above, starting at top left: A splashy start to the IronMan course swim, Kyle is the first and fastest to the turn around buoy (Pic by Ryan), Miriam did backstroke the entire way!! Middle row: Hopper lead Miriam, Genna and Celine to the turn around buoy in tough current - these fantastic pics all by Ryan! Bottom row: Bill made steady progress in a current that was pushing against us almost as fast as he was swimming! The last 10 feet were the hardest!
Celebration at the turn around buoy! Fantastic shot by Ryan!
As we approached the King’s Buoy, I could see waves breaking on the course in front of me as the swell picked up, and I also realized I could no longer see Ryan, who was my directional beacon to find the Ironman buoy. Hmmmm. I plotted a new course, heading out to sea a tad more. We swam another 10 minutes. I still couldn’t see Ryan or the turnaround buoy. I’d been keeping an eye on our progress by watching landmarks on the shore, and noticed we hadn’t made much progress in those 10 minutes. I suspected a head current. We battled for another 20 minutes, stopping once to re-group. I caught a glimpse of Heather and Bill behind us, but then they faded back. Look, it’s Ryan! He was on his way back from the Ironman buoy with Kyle, and reported a strong current the whole way. We dug in and made it, covering ½ mile in almost an hour. We clung to the Ironman buoy as the current swept our legs up.
It took us less than half the time to get back to the King’s buoy, even with a stop to give Bill encouragement along the way. We had to navigate more swell and current at the end of the swim, but finished triumphantly. Bill and Heather wrapped up well behind us, and we cheered as they came ashore. The ocean threw a lot at us today, but everyone made it back to shore with smiles and a hankering for shave ice. Next stop, Ululani’s! No pics of the shave ice - we ate it too fast.
Kyle took Ryan’s GoPro to photograph the huge resident school circling at the finish, and we all hit Ululani’s for the BEST and hard earned shave ice before heading home.
A splashy, bumpy fun afternoon swim at Beach 69.
I grilled up some burgers back at the Hale, and I believe 90% of us took a nap. Later we had a little splash around recovery swim at Beach 69, ran some rocks, did a photo session on the beach during sunset, and I served a cocktail I had invented a few years ago, the Green Flash, named after the phenomenon that sometimes happens as the sun sets into the ocean on the horizon. Here’s the recipe:
The Green Flash
3 oz Honeydew melon juice
2 oz light rum
.5 oz Cointreau
Juice from ½ lime
Shake and strain over ice
Garnish with a melon wedge or a strawberry
More Purple Sweet Potato awesomeness, this time, in a pie topped with coconut cream.
Marlin dip appeared with some parmesan crisps. This led to a local salad, followed by seared Ono (yes the one we caught) with side dishes that I don’t remember because the Ono was so good. Desert was a Hawaiian sweet potato pie type dish that was bright purple and layered and stupid delicious.
We closed the evening out with Heather’s fantastic slideshow of our incredible week here.
We woke Saturday morning for an early swim, and found our little bay glassy calm and gin clear, with sea turtles swimming lazily in the shallows. Clare stopped in for a splash, which has become a tradition we always love.
An early morning swim before departure, Beach 69 and Waialea Bay gave us glassy, crystal clear waters. We welcomed Clare and a turtle and said our Mahalos on exit.
Goodbyes are difficult when you’re in Hawaii. We dropped guests at the airport and in Kona for those who were extending their stay. Bill opted to ride his bike back to town, and we cheered him as we passed. In a perfect Hawaiian bit of synchronicity, a woman called me while I was bringing most of our guests to the airport. She wanted to know about availability for our Hawaii trip next year. I had her on speaker phone through the van and she got to hear everyone exclaim what a fantastic week they just had. She had registered herself and her sister for the trip by the time I dropped everyone off. The pull of Hawaii. Lucky we swim.
Thank you, Thank you, to our swimmers for being brave and trusting us with their first foray back into open water, Mahalo Hawaii, we can’t imagine having returned to SwimVacation anywhere else. Until next time.
At the beginning of this trip’s blog, I posed the questions “What is Important?” and “What do I Need?” as it relates to travel in the late/post pandemic period. It’s still complicated, and I don’t have all the answers, but watching our guests become immersed in this Island in so many ways makes me retain my belief that travel IS good and that we should do it responsibly. At SwimVacation, we’ve done a lot of the little things: reducing plastic waste, use of reef-safe sunblocks, avoiding already crowded tourist spots, enhancing awareness of local customs and culture, use of local labor. In the future, I hope to rent electric vehicles and fly in carbon neutral jets, and have all travel be more sustainable for the planet and the communities we visit. I believe that travel IS important, and that we NEED to travel in order to gain understanding of other people and places and to spread and absorb knowledge and ideas. And in addition to open water swimming being one unique way to grow awareness and care for the state of our important marine ecosystems, I believe it is good for the body and soul. That when we spend this kind of time in the ocean, we really do come back better.
We’ll take a short break for the summer, then kick off a series of trips this fall beginning with our Greece/Sporades offering in September. Demand has never been higher, and our trips are selling out almost as fast as we can add them. A good sign that others feel that travel and open water swimming are important too.
We are looking forward to starting our 14th year of SwimVacation having had a successful return from these strange days. Hawaii, with its dynamic waters, sea loving culture and most importantly, our O’hana - family on the Big Island, was the perfect place to re-emerge to. We were nervous going into this trip, but quickly fell into the rhythm that comes from faith in a calling and knowing you’re in the right place at the right time.
Mahalo, Hawaii. Thank you for catching us. We will be back next year.
Love,
Hopper & Heather
