Punalu’u Black Sand Beach

Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, on the south-east corner of the Big Island, was a scheduled stop to camp for a night. If it were not for the Hawaii County web site not allowing me to make a payment I would have. Instead, I drove up a path across the street and slept in the car just fine although there were many weird noises coming out of the jungle beside me.

The beach itself is of course black sand (actually just very small lava rock bits) but the real feature of the beach was the Sea Turtles that regularly come up to sun bathe… not that the sun ever came out this day. As it turns out, it rarely does this side of the island. The lush rain forests on the East side of the island require lots and lots of rain, so the sun saves itself to shine on the West side. I doubt the turtles gave a sh…