By Cynthia Oi, Star-Bulletin
Ioane Kaluhiokalani, kneeling, and John Akina Dempster
watch the ocean near Ohikilolo Beach hoping for
"onlys" -- waves all to themselves.

Solitude proves
joyous, isle beauty
majestic at Makua

A 10-mile trek's high point
is knowing when to stop
and drink it all in

By Cynthia Oi
Star-Bulletin

THE thing about walking is knowing when to stop, that what is important is the experience rather than the distance.

That realization came about a mile into yesterday's 10-mile trek. The sun was just breaking over the Waianae Range, its light bringing definition and color to the shelf of coral that guarded the sandy shoreline from the surge of ocean.

Behind me, Makua Valley, scarred by fire and cut by roads, swayed down to the sea. Despite the wounds, it maintains an undulating beauty, like an elderly hula dancer who still holds her grace.

For the past two weeks, the need to cover ground was my overwhelming goal. When my fellow walker, Tim Ryan, hiked Kaena Point the other day, he stopped before reaching the planned end of his segment because he felt it would "dilute the experience." That bothered me.

But yesterday, I was captured in the same way. What's the rush, the glittering ocean asked.

I had no answer. So I pulled off my boots and socks, dumped the backpack and unstrapped my watch. The waves sent lacy foam into the air, seabirds skimmed the sea surface, tiny fish darted in the tidepools. With bare feet, I picked my way across the coral to get closer to the shore and let the ocean spray wash the heat from my body.

The beauty of the island can be counted in the majesty of big things: the roll of the mountains, the vastness of the sky, the power of the ocean. But it is also in the details: the vulnerability of a crab as it sheds its old shell, the thin striations of gray in the black of a limpet, a cool haven formed by branches of a hau tree, and the pattern of a bird's footprints in the sand.

I did make it to the end of my scheduled leg, an hour or so later than I had planned. Along the way, I encountered subsistence fishermen, surfers Ioane Kaluhiokalani and John Akina Dempster hoping for "onlys" (no other surfers in their chosen spot), and a working woman who thinks the rural west side is getting too crowded.

The conversations, however, though interesting and lively, fade next to the solitary moments of just stopping.