Tues 4/26 - Learned about the hukilau!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukilau
As we were wandering through the Place of Refuge (National Historic Site) I was thinking (insert music here) "Oh we're going to a huklau" and wondering, "What's a hukilau?" Thanks to the cell phone tour now I know! A hukilau is a way of fishing where the village would take a rope with ti leaves hanging down and "corral" the fish. Then they could go through what they caught and keep what they needed and throw the rest back. Who knew? Very eco-friendly.
The Place of Refuge was where, basically, if you had been naughty (broke a kapu rule) the punishment was burning, spearing, strangling. Well, if you could get to the Place of Refuge before they caught you, you could do a cleansing ceremony and be forgiven. This Place of Refuge is the last one remaining in Hawaii. They did a nice job with small trail markers and the cell phone tour with narrative. At one stop, a Native Hawaiian was working on a canoe, refurbishing it. The completed one was beautiful wood and more than 200 years old. He was scraping off the weathered part using a rock adze. Hopefully, we have a few pictures.
Place of Refuge was our second stop this morning. We drove south to check out Adventures in Paradise where we're going tomorrow morning for our kayaking and snorkeling trip and wanted to know where we were going today so we weren't looking tomorrow. Found it and had a nice talk with one of the guys there.
They suggested the bay and Place of Refuge, which I had read about in "the book" but didn't realize we were that close.
Then we drove back up the coast and stopped for a special local treat, but I won't tell what it is until I get home. :-]
Then it was time for a stop at Safeway for dinner fixins. I had to have local fish at least once and found it at Safeway without a trek to find a fish market, so it was ono for dinner (YUM), 90-second Safeway Select rice packets (we discovered here that are really good side dishes) and a veggie. (Pictures to come) Safeway also has special local desserts, so I tried babingka, a Portugese coconut cake. (may have missed on the spelling there.) John went with the Pepperidge Farm Milano.
Afternoon included the pool, a John-led snorkeling lesson for me in the pool, reading and then a drive up to a cloud rainforest. There was supposed to be a hike up there, but we couldn't find it. Even so, the roadside ferns and fern-trees. (I think these are ohi, but not sure) were worth the drive up to about 5000 feet.
Then, back to the condo for dinner and getting read for tomorrow.
I bet there's a basketball game on, because the next door neighbors, who may live here close to yearround are whooping it up. Last night, I think they were watching Dancing with the Stars. (They added commentary.) I don't think they know about using their inside voices.