Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.

View of Kealakekua Bay from Hikiau Heiau. Thursday July 9, 2015

On Valentine’s Day 1779, Captain James Cook and a detachment of armed men landed on the northern shore of Kealakekua Bay on the (big) island of Hawai’i. One year prior, Cook’s little fleet consisting of the H.M.S. Resolution under Cook, and H.M.S. Discovery commanded by Charles Clerke had made landfall at Kauai. Like many indigenous first encounters with Europeans, Cook and his men were greeted with hospitality. Sailing north in search of a northwest passage around North America Cook spent a month anchored in Nootka Sound, trading with the locals, gathering intelligence, and planning to explore the northern Pacific.
His first voyage had won him celebrity for the discovery of Tahiti and Australia during his circumnavigation of the globe in H.M.S. Endeavor, between 1768 and 1771. His first voyage had included celebrated scientists Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. Men of learning and artist William Hodges accompanied Cook in his second voyage of 1772-1775, which crossed the Antarctic Circle, identified New Zealand and New Caledonia, exploring Polynesia as far east as Easter Island. By comparison his third voyage seems to have been less enchanting. Many had tried before, and failed to sail through the arctic between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Cook’s third expedition left England just eight days after thirteen of Britain’s North American colonies had declared their independence from the crown. Earlier that year, British military and civil authorities had been forced to evacuate Boston, following a siege directed by a rising star named George Washington. England was politically divided over the rebellion unfolding across the pond, requiring the conservative government to engage professional troop from German elector-states to augment British regulars, for a massive invasion of New York that would unfold in late summer. Despite his celebrity, a hidebound class system would never let Cook forget that he was the son of a common laborer. Few had risen so far as he, based alone on merit and performance. Further hopes for advancement would depend on his ability to pull another rabbit out of his hat. By the winter of 1778, Cook’s behavior had become moody and irascible. Returning to Hawai’I after New Year’s, during the tail end of the Mahakiki festival, Cook was welcomed to the big island as something like a deity. As the descendants of mariners, the Hawai’ians were impressed by Cook’s ships, and his own imposing presence. Standing well over six feet, his martial bearing and air of command was noted by his hosts. All had gone well until shortly after his departure Cook put back into Kealakekua Bay, to repair a broken mast.

The Death of Captain Cook. (Detail) John Webber (1751-1791) official expeditionary artist aboard H.M.S. Resolution. 1779.

This was to prove anticlimactic. Cook’s semi-divine status was shattered, like Daniel Dravot in Rudyard Kipling’s short story, The Man Who Would Be King. Friction developed between Cook’s men and the locals, some of whom made off with a cutter—one of the small boats from the Resolution. Without the leavening influence of learned men like Joseph Banks, who understood the difference between indigenous peoples and savages, Cook’s growing frustration and native racism fueled a contempt for his former hosts. In a gambit to retrieve the lost rowboat Cook went ashore with an armed detail to take hostage King Kalani’öpu’u, who put up no resistance at first. Seeing their ruler heading for Cook’s boats, a large crowd gathered around them to prevent his departure. Some say Cook turned toward his marines, to order them to hold fire. Others say he bent down to help push his boat off the rocks. It was over in an instant. Having kept their distance for as long as Cook faced them, when he turned his back one chief crushed his skull with a club. Another stabbed him in the back as he fell into the surf. Marines standing closest to him were killed or wounded. Only two got away. The Hawai’ians carried off the body. For many years a legend persisted that his killers had eaten Cook. His body was in fact prepared for royal burial according to local custom. The corpse was roasted and boned. The remaining flesh was wrapped in a bundle and sent to H.M.S. Resolution for burial at sea. This horrified Cook’s first officer John Gore, who was ignorant of the great honor being shown his former boss. The irony is that all could have been avoided had Cook sent the king a keg of iron nails. With plenty of boats of their own, the Hawai’ians had no interest in Cook’s cutter. All they wanted were its nails.

Dining-room, Manago Hotel Captain Cook, Hawai’i

On the Kona coast of the big island are many chain hotels and luxury B&Bs. On advice from former Yale classmate Michael Marshall, now professor of art at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. After giving a talk at Donkey Mill Art Center in nearby Holualoa, Kathie and I decided not to drive back across the island to Hilo. We a room at the Manago Hotel, in the town of Captain Cook. The restaurant was reminiscent of a summer-camp dining hall, with high ceilings and windows on two sides. Suppertime entrees were the price of a Starbuck’s Grande Latte with syrup. A shot of Jack Daniels was three-fifty. The Big Island is famous for its prize beef, which is served in various preparations, many of which might be considered barbecue on the mainland. Reflecting the large number of Japanese brought to the islands to work on sugar and coffee plantations, dishes like the teriyaki I ordered are also popular. Our room for the night bore a striking resemblance to those I recall from nineteen-fifties family vacations on the Jersey Shore; minimal amenities, no television, and an electric-fan cooling-system, and a stunning view of the vast Pacific Ocean. It was heaven on earth.

Kealakekua Bay and the Village of Kowroaa. John Webber (1751-1791) official expeditionary artist aboard H.M.S. Resolution. 1779.

I had wanted to hike down to the monument marking where Cook had fallen, but Kathie’s chariness of vertiginous trails ruled out that option. Instead after breakfast I drove down to the shoreline near, parking near Näpö’opo’o pier, next to Hikiau Heiau, a temple visited by Cook during happier times. A native woman and her daughter collected donations for a local church, while a couple of indigenous men stood around next to a pickup truck, discreetly asking visitors of they were looking for a snorkel-tour of the bay. Several shops on the Mamalahoa Highway were licensed as snorkel and kayak-guides. One of them told me that a heiau is kapu, a sacred place off-limits to all, especially foreign visitors. He explained that some heiau have been turned into tourist attractions, but ruined ones like Hikiau are hallowed ground—places where spirits linger with gods no longer worshipped. Christian missionaries came to the islands in 1820. Shortly after their conversion, Kamehameha II and his wife Queen Kaahumanu abolished the indigenous religion, which led to the destruction of many heiau. If specific religious ceremonies like human sacrifice were no longer practiced, I get the sense that indigenous Hawai’ians today still honor the old gods with a degree of reverence. Finding Webber’s view of the bay sometime after my visit it was clear that both he and I, separated by more than two centuries, had stood on the same spot to behold the same scene.

Hikiau Heinau. Engraving after a drawing by John Webber. 1779

Revisit April’s blogposts: 30 Dispatches from the Quaranteam Traveler

(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).

Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com