Ocean Journeys: Beginnings. Brandon Southall
before disappearing under a ridge above. Smoking trees in the hillside path occasionally exploded, the heat boiling the sap to the point of combustion until a trigger from the bark set it dramatically off. Splattering spurts of lava, flame, and steam flared science-fiction-like into the night sky. Dumbfounded, I realized the magma was flowing through underground tubes directly below me to the new point where it spilled into the sea.
It is obvious why native Hawaiians revered the volcano’s creative and destructive powers, each gorgeous and frighteningly incomprehensible. Air pockets, lava tubes, and fissures between flows are inherent weak points that fail over geological time, creating regular earthquakes and rare, though massive tsunami. For the island and its myriad ecosystems, these processes are normal and essential.
We dropped onto two-day-old rock and headed out to the conflict. The glowing ridge faded and the night became again as black as Kentucky coal. Our senses soon became intoxicated with the ocean heartbeat pulsing rhythmically ashore to face still-hot earth.
This newest excursion of the Big Island hissed fierce warnings with each rushing wave and glared ember eyes over receding water shrouded in steam. The battle raged progressively into the oceanic realm, the ancient metronome of advance and retreat mirrored on an unintelligible scale by the entire Hawaiian chain. Fledgling terra firma was announced to the heavens with a thousand-foot column of swirling steam and smoke. Subtle explosions shuddered on the sea surface as lava from underwater tubes entered the frigid aquatic realm, creating a haunting, intermittent glow along the advancing shore.
Night melted like paint down the side of the abandoned sugarcane barn, revealing a soft gray dawn as a towering pillar of steam and smoke intertwined with clouds swirled by the trades. The sea continued its steady assault on the fresh edge. The continuing spectacle was less dramatic in daylight, but dawn revealed a hundred yards of new coastline to those fortunate enough to see the night through.
~~~
I saw as much of the ocean around the growing island as I could manage with no money and no boat. I was on an exchange from the University of Montana to the University of Hawai’i, Hilo. I would like to say I was there because I anticipated that my time on the island would be pivotal in my career, coaxing me from freshwater ecology to the ocean journeys that would define my life. That was the ultimate outcome, but the real reason I went was because of a girl.
Elizabeth and I met at the University of Tulsa and transferred together to Missoula. After two years on the dusty plains of “tornado alley,” I fell in love with the mountains, as I had with her. Western Montana is one of the most remarkable, wild places I’ve ever been. I would spend the rest of my life there, were it on the ocean. I didn’t want to leave those gorgeous peaks, fluffy powder, and trout-heavy streams, even to go to Hawai’i. But she wanted to see the world, which I could understand having spent some time in her home town of Batesville, Arkansas. I was young and didn’t require that much coaxing, so I tagged along and it changed my life. After a few weeks of hitchhiking to the sea, we acquired our own vehicle one interesting day near Hāpuna State Beach on the leeward western coast of the Big Island.
We were climbing over mounded lava rocks, blistering hot even at mid-morning. Seeking a private cove someone at a produce stand told us about, we ignored large signs that said “Keep Out.” Our advance was shortly interrupted by the nearby sound of shattering glass.
Startled, I called out, “H-h-hello?”
“Oh, man! I thought you were some ferrets, man!” came a surfer response, seasoned with a hillbilly twang. We noticed a little hut poking out of the sharp rocks 75 feet from us that we hadn’t seen before.
“No. We’re…just…new here,” I said, slightly concerned. “We were just looking for a beach somebody told us about.”
“Man, the rich dude that owns that place pays me to sit down here on weekends and keep people off his spot. Its bullshit considering he never goes there, but that’s my job. Want a drink?”
We hesitated, but not having anywhere in particular to go now that our secluded beach plans had been shattered, we joined him. He said his name was something plain like Brad or Ben that I don’t remember, but his nickname “Grant” stuck with me.
“One time we were fishin’ and I dropped 50 beers in 24 hours so my buddies started calling me that after that dude on the money,” he explained, his earrings dangling in unison with the giant wad of keys hooked on his cut-off jeans. He fumbled through a tattered cooler full of lukewarm water and handed us several cans of light beer.
“Dude also pays me to shoot the ferrets and feral cats that come over on his land from the…state…beach,” he said, coughing out smoke. “I get three bucks for each cat and five for a ferret. I never actually pull the trigger unless I’m pretty sure of what I’m shooting at. That’s why I chuck bottles first – to flush ‘em out so’s I can see ‘em.”
While his firearm safety procedures seemed reasonably sound, I made a mental note to pay more attention to “Keep Out” signs in unfamiliar places.
We told him our story and listened wide-eyed to his sordid tales of shark attacks and bar-room knife fights. Even scaled down to account for the beer they were pretty impressive. He backed one of them up by waving a 9-inch blade around for effect. We tried to change the subject and asked him about the island. He turned out to be a really nice, if completely unambitious, guy who told us about the local places and even made some notes with crayons on a McDonald’s napkin.
He offered to sell us one his beater trucks for a hundred dollars, but said I’d have to drive us in one of the other ones to get it because he was too loaded. I agreed. The three of us piled into a shabby little compact pickup that was about five feet tall with rusted-out holes in the bed wide enough that you could see the drive shaft turn when you were moving. Elizabeth and I exchanged half-smiles as she straddled the rickety stick shift, non-verbally acknowledging the realization that this was the vehicle he intended to keep.
After buying him a mounded platter of shredded pork, rice, and fried eggs smothered in gravy, he took us to his favorite locals bar. Being white and new to the island, this kind of place was generally advisable to avoid. But you never really see a new place unless you make it into a few dives and everybody there knew him well so we were fine. Four rounds of shots for Grant, the bartender, and a pirate-looking friend later, we had more than half paid for our new ride before we ever saw it.
We finally got him to walk across the road to show us the truck. Somehow, it was even smaller than the other one and the holes in the bed were even more gaping. It fired right up, though, and had a peppy little personality. We figured we might as well keep it, considering there was no way we were getting back the money we had already spent. We quickly named it “Tonka” because it was so toy-like and pretended that it spoke in low-pitched Asian grumblings. He gave us the key and tried to sign the title over to me in crayon. I dug a pen out from under the front seat amongst spent .22 casings. We completed the transaction and walked back across the road to finish paying the thing off.
As we left the bar later that afternoon we contemplated going back down to the private beach, knowing it would be unguarded, but decided to stretch Tonka’s legs back to Hilo. He shook vigorously whenever you accelerated and really didn’t like anything more than a gradual incline. Braking was generally questionable, to the point where we actually discussed which ditch to bail into on several occasions. He was pretty smooth between about 30 and 40 mph, unless it was raining, which was often on the windward side, but he never crashed or failed to start.
Soon after our indoctrination to the rougher edges of Hawaiian lifestyle, Elizabeth and I began exploring the Big Island in earnest. Those were some of the happiest times of my young life – times that would become impossible to forget later no matter how hard I tried. Tonka took us 3,000 miles around the Big Island before we ultimately parted with him, a fan, and two pillows for thirty bucks and a ride to the airport. The only difference was that Tonka’s new owner paid us in cash.
~~~
We bumped south from Hilo to Kehena, as breaks in the dense vegetation afforded distant views of the steam and smoke marking new land along the volatile coast.