Fun Facts
• From its base on the sea floor, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world.
• You could fit most of Colorado’s Indian Peaks mountain range inside Mauna Kea.
• If the oceans were drained, the most conspicuous landform on earth, seen from space would not be the Himalayas, the Andes, or the Mariana Trench, but the Hawaiin chain.
• The Big Island is the youngest and the most isolated land mass on earth, 2400 miles from the nearest continental coast.
• Puako gets 7 to 10 inches of rain a year while, ten miles away as the crow flies, Pu’u o Omi, the summit of the Kohala mountains, gets over 300 inches.
• The majority of the birds, plants, and insects listed as endangered by the Fish and Wildlife Service are endemic to Hawaii.
• Hawaiian species have had the highest extinction rate in the world over the last 100 years.
• The Big Island and Connecticutt are about the same size. Connecticut’s population density is 25 times that of the Big Island’s.
• Title to a beachfront lot in Puako in the 1950s cost $500 so long as the homesteader built a dwelling that cost $1000 or more within two years.
• When Puako was homesteaded in the 1950s the only access was by sea.
• The Puako kiawe forest originated from two seedlings brought from Mexico by French priest Father Bachelot in the 1830s.
• Puako has been a continuously populated village for at least 700 years.
• The Hokuloa church in Puako was completed by famed missionary Lorenzo Lyons in 1859.
• The Puako petroglyph field, with over 3000 characters, is the third largest in all Polynesia, from Hawaii to New Zealand.
• One third of Puako’s reef fish are endemic to Hawaii—found nowhere else.
• The feral goat herd that cycles through Puako descended from stock brought in the 1790s by Captain Vancouver.
• Only male humpback whales sing and no one’s sure why.
• Pu’eo, the Hawaiian owl that frequents Puako, hunts by day as well as night.
• Two beaches within three miles of the Reef House have been honored as #1 beach in America—Hapuna, many times, and Kauna’oa (Mauna Kea Beach) in 2000. Coney Island consistently comes in last at #600.
• Neil Young lives in the Puako community of Wailea Bay. James Taylor’s manager lives a few houses from the Reef House. The creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, has been an enthusiastic guest of the Reef House as has famed nature photographer John Fielder, a repeat guest.
• During filming of the most expensive movie ever (at the time), Waterworld, Puako and environs were rented out for several months to Hollywoooders like Dennis Hopper and Kevin Costner.
• In October Puako fills up with Kona Ironman triathletes. The bicycle leg runs up the highway past the Puako turn-off.
• There has been only one successful solo swim ever from the Big Island to Maui, across the treacherous Alenuihaha Channel.
• The Mo’okini Heiau, or temple—The House of Night—is over a thousand years old, the oldest in the state. It was built with water-rounded stones passed hand to hand from the bottom of Polulu Valley in a 20 mile human chain. For centuries a center for human sacrifice, it is a little visited, and haunted, but beautiful place.
• Much of the land you can see looking mauka, away from the sea, is owned by the Parker Ranch, which has been at times the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the country. Even more impressive is the number of cattle that graze its lush pastures—over 40,000 head, and over 300 horses.