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 A shack on the beach.  Or near the beach.  Or just in a tropical setting close to a beach.  That has been the goal.  For over ten years, closer to fifteen, my wife and I have been searching for that perfect little spot for our retirement home.  

We went to Cabo San Lucas a few times, but it is too much desert.  We looked at a town north of Cabo on both sides of the Baja – Todos Santos on the Pacific side, and Cabo Pulmo on the Gulf side.  Even though the Mexico attitude and atmosphere is fantastic, I could not get past the thought that is still in Mexico.  We will always be the Norte Americanos who have lots of money and therefore have a target on our backs for all kinds of unpleasant activities.  We looked over at the area around Cancun, and the Playa Maya – with the same result.

We tried Australia, Too expensive.  Bahamas – probably too expensive as well.  Fiji and Aruba were interesting, but just not right.  We looked into Florida – too cliché’.

We went to Puerto Rico twice – once before hurricane Maria in 2017, and then a few months after to see if all the media talk about the devastation was true or not.  That is a subject for a different time and place.

While in Puerto Rico, we looked at property on the southeast side near Humacao, the northwest corner near Loquillo, Fajardo, and Luiza.  We thought very strongly about a house in Arroyo across the street from the ocean.  We met with a realtor not once, but three times about a property in Arecibo a block away from the beach.  The process of getting anything accomplished in Puerto Rico proved too much, too laborious, too anti Americano.  

We tried Hawaii.  Oahu is too crowded and too touristy.  Also, way too expensive.  We went to Kauai, and loved the island.  The waterfalls, the beaches, the jungles, all just fantastic, but with a huge price.  Every morning around 9 am, a little rain cloud came onto shore and gave a slight shower for five or ten minutes.  Nothing heavy, like what was constantly happening at the mountain peaks in the center of the island, just a light refreshing shower.  Then the rain cloud drifted off shore and out over the ocean to return again in the mid afternoon for a repeat.  I thought about this for a while and then it hit me.  Things are so expensive on Kauai, that not even Mother Nature can afford to stay for very long!

I can’t remember why we went to the Big Island – the one called Hawai’i – but our first trip there was to the Kona side.  We also drove out to the Volcanoes National Park.  Too much lava.  Too dry.  No tropical feel to it.  On our next trip, we went to the north side of the island and found tropical paradise.  We were back on Kauai.  And so were the prices.  

Then we went around to Hilo.  Tropical jungles, laid back atmosphere, and the land prices were tolerable  We looked at property in a few areas south of Hilo near Pahoa.  The problem we found here was that the way the land laid out, there was no way to see the ocean from any of these parcels.  

We stopped off at South Point – the southernmost point of the United States.  We had been to Key West and stopped at the southernmost point of the continental US with the striped bell shape concrete marker that is said to be 90 miles from Cuba.  But Ka Lae is further south.  Here, there are cliffs that are 30 to 40 foot straight up from the ocean  Crazy teenagers jump off these cliffs into the waters below.  There is a rickety metal ladder attached to the outside of the cliffs to climb back up, or there is a way to climb up through a vertical cavern. I used the ladder.

A few months later, Kilauea volcano erupted – but not in the caldera inside the park. Lava started oozing out in the forest area east of the park and started flowing slowly towards the town of Pahoa.  A few outlying structures were consumed, and many people were worried that the highway – the only southern route to Hilo – would be overcome and become unpassable, and the lava would consume the town of Pahoa on its march to the ocean some fifteen or twenty miles away.  Then it quit.  Pele subsided and the volcano became quiet, but not dormant.

We went back.  We once again, looked at land south of Hilo.  But again, there was no ocean view.  We decided that if we could not afford ocean front, it should at least be ocean view.  And away from the traffic.  Even in Hilo and Pahoa, there is a traffic problem.

Towards Kona about ten miles away from the South Point road, is an old lava field that stretches from the top of Mauna Loa to the ocean.  It is a good five miles wide.  The community of Ocean View straddles the highway as it traverses at about 1200 feet above sea level.  The wide open area gives fantastic unobstructed views of the ocean, the cliffs at South Point, and quite a way up the coast towards Kona.  Below the highway (the makai side), there are three acre lots in what they call the Ranchos; above the highway (the mauka side) there are over a thousand one acre lots.  All with paved roads, and most with power poles at the roads.

We made an offer on a three acre lot down at the bottom of the Ranchos.  The offer fell through.  We looked at other lots in the same area when my wife said, “It is so ugly here.  Soo much lava!”  HUH?? What?  Why are we looking here if you don’t like it?  So, back to the mainland.

A few months later, Kilauea volcano erupted again, outside the park boundaries.  In fact it erupted right in the middle of Leilani Estates – a subdivision of three acre lots where we had contemplated purchasing – but there was no ocean view, unless you were a few hundred feet off the ground.  Over 20 different fissures opened and lava poured out.  Fissure 8 became the most prolific and the lava poured out from the middle of Leilani Estates and marched in a snake like direction down to the ocean five to ten miles away.

We decided that we may never get another opportunity such as this to actually see an active volcano erupting and went back.  We booked a helicopter tour over the fissure, and the lava river, and the ocean entry.  What a sight.  The sheer power of nature is awesome!

A small bay with million dollar homes was filled in and buried some twenty feet deep as the volcano added over 500 new acres to the south east corner of the island.  Over 700 homes were destroyed.

After the helicopter tour, we stopped in at a little town named Na’alehu, near South Point.  We looked at two half acre lots side by side that were for sale.  Dirt roads but with power lines at the road.  Almost impassable jungle twenty feet tall.  We made an offer and closed a month later.

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