The stars—usually silent—sang that night. And in my spirit I heard their ancient song because they were there at the very beginning when it all went down.
…their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
My towel “scarf” served me well on Mauna Kea—or maybe it was the sight of the velvet night with its sequins that stanched the chill. Our family huddled together anyway, our time and place in the cosmos falling away as I breathed in the firmament.
At last, we fumbled down the mountain in the dark and climbed back into the car. As we munched Clif Bars on the drive back to the hotel, our brush with eternity lingered in my thoughts.
They say the Big Island contains eight of the world’s thirteen climate zones—some say more—all in a place the size of New Jersey. In the span of two days, we had hit the tropical in Hilo with its black sand beaches, the dry in Puako where thousands of petroglyphs basked in the sun, and the tundra in the breathless heights of Mauna Kea. Now it was time to go beyond the terrain to frolic with the fishes.
After a lei-making class at the hotel, we headed out to the Keauhou Bay Boat Ramp, but no fancy vessels for us. We would canoe—in the company of two guides—ten minutes out for our manta ray night snorkel excursion. The mantas would be lovely, but I shivered. Exactly what else might happen in the ocean after dark?
We paddled our double-hull canoe, chasing the remains of the sun. An ahi tuna breached, and our female guide hooted. “Hey, that’s the first time I’ve seen that on one of these trips.”
“He dolphinitely did that on porpoise for you guys,” the male guide said. When we laughed, he kept on. “You’re gonna love the manta rays, but too bad you weren’t here last month. We sang ‘Manta Claus is Coming to Town.’ It was a-ray-zing.”
We found our parking spot in the ocean. Soon we’d see the gentle beings up close and personal. Other vacationers floated in nearby boats, their blue lights illuminating the now dark waters beneath them. From a neighboring watercraft arose intermittent man-screams; somebody was probably scared of sea creatures but too excited to stay back in his room.
The guides doled out ankle floaties, which were important, we learned, to keep us on the surface and out of the way of the mantas so we didn’t bump into their skin’s protective coating, causing them harm. We velcroed them around our ankles, tugged our goggles into place, and chomped onto our snorkels. The guides snapped on the boat’s underwater blue lights, and within minutes, the illumination attracted plankton.
“Jump in whenever you’re ready,” the lady guide said.
And we did.
Maybe it was the droplets of water in my snorkel or maybe it was the cool water that caught my breath, but when I came up, I sputtered and choked. I grabbed onto the bar that stretched between the canoes, per the instructions, hoping to slow my breathing. No luck. My feet popped up in front of me, instead of behind where they needed to be for my manta ray viewing. I struggled to poke them back. No luck there either.
Nearby, my snorkeled family fared nicely, each of them face-down on the water, enjoying the show below. I coughed, sucked air in double-time, and continued the La-Z-Boy position. What was wrong with me? And why was I hyperventilating? It was Hawaii, after all, and not like I had plunged into the iciness of Lake Michigan.
Ricka emerged and spoke through her mouthpiece. “You okay, Mom?”
“I don’t know.” More hacking, more huffing, feet still in front. What on earth?
“Everything okay down there?” the lady guide said from her seat up in the canoe.
“I think so.” But she eyed me for the next few minutes anyway.
Finally, normal breathing eased back, and I somehow shot my legs behind me where they belonged. The whole episode took about three minutes, but like those garish vacation shot glasses, embarrassment can be a lasting souvenir. I lowered my face into the ocean like everybody else.
And then came the magic.
One of the stars of our excursion flapped by underneath us. And five more undulated below the surface. Needle fish the length of bananas zipped by, competing with the docile creatures—that can be as long as fifteen feet between wing tips—for plankton.
Thank you for this gift, my heart said.
The mantas—six of them, in total—swished around us for thirty minutes, and the guides knew these six, calling them by name according to their markings and describing their varied personalities because we’re all unique like that.
At last the guides lowered ladders for us, and we climbed out of the water to paddle the ten minutes back to the dock. The mantas had hosted us well in their watery home, and near shore, a turtle greeted us in the shallows, giving us as warm a welcome back to land as we had ever known.
We punctuated our twelve-day trip to the Big Island with Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka’s adventure through UFO Parasailing. Husband and I kept our seats planted on the speed boat, our hair whipping in the wind while we watched the girls soar, ending our trip on a high note for everybody in every way. The two young ones running the parasailing operation promised to post the video of the girls’ flight over the ocean on YouTube in a couple of weeks. Nothing says indelible like a social media keepsake.
We flew back to Minnesota, our skin darker and our outlooks brighter, nothing eventful about our return trip to tag our memories. But every good story ties up its loose ends, and ours was no different.
“Mom,” Flicka said three weeks after our return home. “A lady messaged me through Facebook. She found my ID at the volcano and is sending it back.”
And so, in its spirit of generosity, the island kept giving.
Hawaii, mahalo. You were great, and we’ll see you again someday. In the meantime, we wish “warmth in your hale, fish in your net, and aloha in your heart” to you too.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.