We are now at the Kona Airport waiting for our flight back to San
Francisco, which departs in about an hour and a half. Of course, the
airport we get to the earliest is the hottest, and also an open air
facility with no air conditioning!!

Well, it’s time to leave the islands and head back to reality. This is our last sunrise as we are getting things packed up and getting ready to head to Breakfast with our friends the birds .

Our flight departs Kona at 12:30, so we have time for a relaxing breakfast and drive to the airport this morning, at least.

We walked out to "Buddha Point" at the Resort, which is right at the ocean side of the Ocean Tower where we were staying to view the sunset on our last night on the islands.

Someone was sailing their catamaran out to view the sunset as well.

It is still about 10 minutes to actual sunset.

This is the point on the other side of the "bay" for the resort, and if you look closely, you can see the torches are lit along the walkway along the shore. There was a torch bearer lighting the torches all over the resort for the evening.

Just moments before sunset now….

Almost there…..

Contact!!!

Hey, what is happening to the bottom of the sun??

Hey look, it’s a ship on the ocean in front of the sun!!! If we had been down at the other point, we would never have had this perspective, just lucky, I guess!!!

As the sun sets, the ship gets a bright halo… As we watched the sunset, I think the ship was a cruise ship that turned sideways to the sunset to give the passengers a better view of the sunset, as the outline of the ship changed as the sun disappeared below the horizon. Based on the fact that the "Pride of America" was in the Kailua-Kona port this afternoon, and they sail between ports at night, I think this was our last view of your cruise ship, Steve!!!

It was a very interesting effect getting this complete halo around the ship as the sun dropped below the horizon. It was almost like a total eclipse of the sun!

Sun is now gone below the horizon, the ship is no longer visible, and within 40-45 minutes, it will be totally dark….

As we left Kailua-Kona for the resort, we decided to take the "high road" along the side of Mauna Kea back to the community of Waikoloa Village. The road is narrower, more hilly and curvy than the main highway, but it does give some nice views down to the coast. Unfortunately, it began to rain when we reached the lava fields and the best views, so we couldn’t take many good pictures.

Another old vent on the side of Mauna Kea, near Waikoloa Village.

You can see the edge of the rain clouds coming down off Mauna Kea, and the sun shining over on the Kahola Ridge near Waimea.

On our way down to the Kona Coffee Plantations, we took a tour through the resort areas of Kailua-Kona. As we were passing the port area, we came across another "friend" during our island visit:

That’s right, it is the "Pride of America" at one more port of call… Steve, we visited at least 4 ports of call you will visit on your trip in November!

This is a Kona Coffee Bush at Kona Joe’s Coffee Plantation. This is just one of about 25 Kona Coffee plantations found on the Kona side of the island. Most are located to the south of Kailua-Kona by about 5-10 miles.

A view down to the coast from the patio at Kona Joe’s We are at about 900 foot elevation.

A look down at the coffee bushes themselves from the patio. The large tree to the back left is the same as the tree in the center right of the previous picture.