The Pathway of the Gods
Thursday, Lahaina, Maui to Kona, Big Island:
I walked out on to the tarmac of the tiny West Maui Airport with ten minutes to spare. All nine passengers were already seated in the Cessna 208ex Grand Caravan waiting for me to take the final seat. It had been a long night and I was feeling exceptionally haggard. The West Maui Airport sits high up on a hill overlooking all of Kaanapali, Kapalua, and Napili and is only one small building. Just a couple check in desks and a waiting room.
The view of Maui as we passed Lanai was stunning. You could see the summit of Haleakala poking its head through the clouds and the waters along the Lahaina coast were a beautiful mixture of turquoise and deep blues. As Maui sinked away in the distance and we approached the Big Island I realized this was the first time I had left Maui in over a year. We hit a patch of heavy turbulence and the plane bounced up and down as we made our descent. The Kona airport is built right into a wasteland of ancient lava flows. I landed around noon and my bag was waiting outside the plane on the tarmac. I picked it up and started walking towards the main terminal. I was going to the sacred harbor of Lono to seek shelter from the madness that is living and working in Lahaina.
Saturday, Dolphin Bay House, Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii:
The sun was going down when I made my way to the Hikiau Heiau on the shore of Kealakekua Bay. It is an ancient luakini (human sacrifice) temple site built from carefully stacked lava rocks for Lono by King Kalani’opu’u. Captain Cook performed the first Christian ceremony in the Hawaiian islands there in 1778 when they had a funeral service for a crew member. The sun was turning an electric red as it set into the haze of the vog. I stood atop the altar and watched. I could see Cook’s monument across the bay where they say he was killed by the Hawaiians.
I stepped out onto the lanai and looked up at the moon peeking through the clouds. The City of refuge was only 4 miles down the road. ‘Keep that in mind’, I thought. Then I thought about what I had read Twain say about where I was staying:
“Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail shell, winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from shore to shore. It is bounded on one side – where the murder was done – by a little flat plain, on which stands a cocoanut grove and some ruined houses; a steep wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end and three or four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and bounds the inner extremity of it. From this wall the place takes its name, Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signifies “The Pathway of the Gods.” They say (and still believe, in spite of their liberal education in Christianity), that the great god Lono, who used to live upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway when urgent business connected with heavenly affairs called him down to the seashore in a hurry.” -Mark Twain 1866
So there I was on Lono’s home turf and his spirit was angry and he was using me to shine a light on the mysteries of his world. It was after all “The Pathway of the Gods” and the least I could do as a haole spending all day drinking beer on their ancient stomping grounds was to indulge them and let them show me whatever the hell they wanted to.
Sunday, Kona Shore, Kealakekua Bay, HI:
The sun was brutal that day when I made my way down Lono’s runway to the sea. The trail runs down the crest of the 1,000 foot wall of lava for 1.9 miles and ends on the shore where Captain Cook was killed. The cliff named Pali Kapu O Keōua was the burial place of Hawaiian royalty. The trail cuts through elephant grass that is as a tall as a man and then lets out along ancient lava fields. As you get down to sea level it turns into Kiawe forest with ancient lava rock walls scattered throughout. When you make it to the shore there is a monument on the innermost edge of the bay that marks the spot where Captain Cook was killed. It is a white stone obelisk about 27 feet tall. On the base there is a plaque that reads:
The Australians built a jetty in Cook’s memory directly in front of the monument that is used as a jumping off point for snorkelers. When I arrived I was drenched in sweat and ready to jump in the water. There were only a few people that had made the long trek down through the heat. The spot is widely considered one of the best snorkel spots on the island of Hawaii and so I slipped into the water to see for myself. It is a beautiful spot with huge underwater mountains of coral, vana the size of basketballs, neon psychedelic parrotfish, graceful honu, and a steep drop off that goes from about 4 feet deep to 100 feet within 50 yards of the jetty.
As I sat on Cook’s monument to dry off two oversized snorkel boats began to pull in and drop anchor. The boats were packed to the brim with sunburned tourists of all sizes. There was at least 150 people on each boat. They all began lining up on the back where they had dropped a small slide off the side into the water. The deckhands began shoving them one by one down the slide. One deckhand with a drink in hand appeared to just kick one of them in the ass down the slide. Once in the water they flapped around and struggled for awhile and then swam off in different directions along the reef. Within 30 minutes both boats had unloaded all of them in the water and the cove was packed. Huge plumes of smoke started billowing up into the air as they prepared for the mass feeding. The deckhands dropped handfuls of Costco frozen patties onto the BBQ and scanned the water to make sure nobody was drowning.
I had noticed when I was snorkeling that for the size of the reef and the clarity of water there was a lack of reef fish and marine life in abundance that I see in Maui. No doubt after all these years of boats bringing boatloads of tourists to this spot the fish have adapted and when the sun is straight above them they move to the reef around the point to avoid all the people and avoid swimming through clouds of human piss. I could see very clearly now, as I sat at Cook’s monument in this sacred bay of kings and gods, why Lono had watched idly as his people crushed Cook’s skull and stabbed him to death on the rocks here. Not only did Cook deal Lono the ultimate insult of falsely impersonating him, but Lono in all his wisdom must have seen that their landing on this bay also signified the first strike on the nail that would eventually seal his coffin for good. His story and likeness would be relegated to cheap gift shop books and poorly crafted Tiki dolls made in sweatshops in China. It was in futile anger that he had Cook killed as he also knew in his heart it was too late and that his islands would never be the same. He was right they never were.
I am able to sit here drinking a beer at a picnic table punching keys on a laptop right now where only kings and gods were able to roam free because Cook dropped anchor and made contact. Just like the weasels that have taken over the Big Island, we haole’s don’t belong here.
E. Semak is a San Francisco native who quit his job, sold everything, and moved to Maui. He now lives in a rundown cinder block cell in the middle of Lahaina town where he chases away the island fever with cold beers and rum. A longer version of this piece can be found at his blog, The Scum Also Rises. He can also be found on Twitter and Instagram.
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