Finding history and serenity on Hawaii's Big Island

HONAUNAU BAY, Hawaii — It doesn't get much better than this. Sunny and 80 degrees. Wind rustling the palms. Sea turtles bobbing in a tiny cove.

And that's just the natural backdrop of Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park in Hawaii.

The park, on the west coast of the Big Island, is also a cultural treasure, a tranquil place to get the history and feel of ancient Hawaiian life.

For centuries, into the early 1800s, when traditional Hawaiian life began to crumble as the outside world encroached, this was a place of refuge. Islanders who broke one of their society's many strict laws could be spared punishment — usually death — if they could reach this walled sanctuary on a rocky seafront point where royal chiefs lived and temples clustered by the shore. It was recognized as a place of asylum, an enclave of power and gods where wrong-doers or vanquished warriors were protected after frantically fleeing on foot or swimming across the bay.

Such places of safety were found throughout the Hawaiian islands; Pu'uhonua o Honaunau is one of the largest and best preserved.

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Where

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park is about 25 miles from Kailua Kona. Go south on Highway 11, then follow Route 160 toward the ocean and watch for signs to the park (www.nps.gov/puho/ or 808-328-2326). A smaller road also leads along the shore from the Captain Cook area to the park, crossing a desolate lava field. Admission to the park is $5 per vehicle.

Cultural festival

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau hosts its annual cultural festival June 30-July 1, with demonstrations and hands-on activities of ancient Hawaii, from weaving and food preparation/tasting to canoe rides and lei-making.

Two Step snorkeling

The turnoff to the Two Step snorkeling area is on the right just before the parking-lot kiosk at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. If you're visiting the park, pay the $5 per vehicle entrance fee, see the park and then walk to Two Step, just a few hundred yards away. There also is some parking opposite Two Step, including a locals-run dirt lot that costs a few dollars. Two Step can be busy with snorkelers and divers on weekends, and there's also a boat-launch ramp there. Weekdays are a better time to go.

A few buildings have been reconstructed in the 420-acre park, which is run by the National Park Service (and is sometimes called the City of Refuge or Place of Refuge). They include canoe huts, where boats were stored and fishing nets mended, and Hale O Keawe, an oceanfront temple originally built in 1650, with a traditional thatched roof of ti plant fronds. The temple, reconstructed in the 1960s, is watched over by ki'i, stern-faced wood statues that stare out to the Pacific.

But it's not the buildings that make Pu'uhonua o Honaunau so remarkable; it's the feeling of serenity and peace that still permeates it.

Palm-shaded paths wind past the reconstructed temple and a scattering of other buildings, past imposing 10-foot-high rock walls and a teardrop cove where royal canoes would land centuries ago. Now sea turtles loll in its protected waters, drifting in the lapping waves of the tiny, shallow cove. Visitors stare, entranced, as the 2-foot-long turtles occasionally lumber out onto the sand.

There's hands-on learning, too. Ask a park ranger for the brochure on how to play the ancient Hawaiian board game of "konane." At a lava-rock table by the seashore, park visitors can sit and play the checkers-like game with pieces of white coral and black lava pebbles.

A trail leads to a wilder stretch of land that was added to the park last summer, more than doubling its size. An ancient fishing village, believed to be almost 1,000 years old, was inhabited here into the 1930s, said park ranger Blossom Sapp. Now it's overgrown, like the agricultural plots that surrounded it; excavation will start soon, and interpretive signs will highlight its history.

Underwater sights

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau (roughly pronounced as Poo-ooh ho knew ah oh Ho now now) is just 25 miles from Kailua-Kona, the main visitor town of the Big Island, making it an easy day trip. Bring a picnic; there's no food service at the park, which is on an empty stretch of coast where lava flows from Mauna Loa volcano left a rugged, arid landscape.

Bring snorkeling gear, too. Some of the island's best snorkeling is just outside the park entrance at what's called Two Step.

A shelf of dark lava stretches 100 feet into Honaunau Bay; follow the other snorkelers or ask where the steps are, two small natural-rock ledges that let snorkelers easily descend into a rich world of tropical fish.

Yellow tang flit around like underwater butterflies. The aptly named needlefish, skinny and sharp-headed, skitter past. Parrotfish, wrasse and dozens of other species cruise through the clear water or amid clusters of coral.

Go early on a weekday morning before most other snorkelers, divers and boats arrive; you may be rewarded by a close look at spinner dolphins cavorting in the bay.

Almost anytime you may see sea turtles, slowly and majestically swimming toward the little cove at the park. Don't get too close — green sea turtles are in decline and are federally protected. Let them find their refuge at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau.

Kristin Jackson: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com