The Hike to `Apua Point (aka The Hike That Lacked Turtles)

Monday afternoon was surprisingly spontaneous, as I ended up leaving work early to pack for an overnight trip to `Apua Point. The 'Turtle People,' as we affectionately call the group who lives nearby and monitors turtles all summer, reported a recent Hawksbill turtle hatching at the beach. I wanted to see for myself, and another HVO volunteer wanted to hike out there, so we packed up sleeping bags and food to spend the night looking for turtles.

The hike was 6.6 miles one way, and since we started after work, we barely got to the beach before the sun set around 7:15 pm. I was exhausted after the hike - I'm still not quite acclimated to the intense heat and the lack of shade on the lava flow fields, so 6.6 miles on a flow field seems like a longer trek than 6.6 miles in a Minnesotan forest trail.

We met a pair of turtle people at the beach, so they showed us where the turtle nests were, and were generous enough to offer two of their cots for us to use. Here's the turtle nest (picture taken the next morning; no baby turtle tracks, unfortunately):

The horizontal lines are drawn in the sand by the Turtle People, to track the movement of the turtles. They woke up each hour until 2 am to check if the turtles hatched, and they stay on the beach for 6 nights in a row. The beach was very beautiful, but I don't think I could handle that much time sitting around. I think turtles are fascinating, especially because of their long nesting journeys. According to a reliable source, the chances of a baby Hawksbill sea turtle's survival is about 1 in 3,000. I wonder what the human population would be if we had that survival rate... What do you think?

After sunset, the sky was completely clear and the stars were glorious (I write about the night sky a lot, but it's so spectacular that it takes me by surprise every time). It stayed clear all night, so when I woke up at various moments I tried to pick out how the constellations moved throughout the night. There were also huge waves that crashed rhythmically all night - it was the ultimate soothing soundtrack. We slept under a palm tree, and asked the Turtle People to wake us up if they saw any turtles:

Hilina Pali is in the background, for a reference point. We had to be back at the HVO for work before noon, so we started hiking at 7:30 am. I knew it was going to be a rough hike when I was sweating before we even started. Apparently the wind is supposed to be strong along the coast, but on Monday the wind was taking a day off, and the heat intensified.

We reached the car at 10 am, after I consumed ~4 liters of water and thought I was never going to make it. My hikes in Israel, Italy, Haiti, Ireland (on a hot day) could not compare to this hike. Even after sitting in the car and cooling down, I could still feel the sweat dripping. I won't go into any more detail, but you get the picture - I was disgusting. Unfortunately, we didn't have a key to the house, so we went back to the HVO and back to work in our sweaty clothes for the rest of the day. Ewwww...

And we didn't see any turtles.