We decided to spend awhile in Hawaii after a short visit to Honolulu and a 7-day cruise last winter. We settled on Kapoho partly because we wanted the Big Island and partly because the Puna area is more affordable than some others. Hilo of course is the rainiest city in the U.S. with 130 inches a year but Kapoho is in a "Banana Belt" and gets about half that. We did have a memorable superbowl weekend when 47.6 inches of rain fell in one part of Hilo in 2 days. That said, we also, as is evident from the pictures, had some sunshine.

Kapoho Bay is between 2 recent lava flows, the town of Kapoho itself was overtaken and buried by the 1960 lava flow. The Bay is fortunate to have a reef at its mouth providing relatively tranquil water within. The Ocean Pools, the Champagne Pool is probably the most notable, are heated to a comfortable 90 degrees by residual volcanic heat...and what the heck, you can snorkel in the rain...no rivers, no red soil, guaranteed comfortable snorkeling every day no matter what the weather.

Puna is hardly even on the tourist maps and will never support intensive development because of the risk of eruption. Puna has a million acres devoted to growing orchids. I like that.