Black & Green Sand Beaches

We ventured to a black and green sand beach while on the Big Island. Being from Florida we're used to powder white sand beaches. The sand on Oahu is grainier than we're used to. We spent our honeymoon on a beach with pink sand.  We needed to be able to add that we've seen black and green sand to our list. 

The Black Sand beach we went to was Punalu'u Beach. It was extremely easy to get to and you could tell it was frequented by the tour buses. It was beautiful though. The sand was so grainy. I almost didn't expect it to be pure black (the green and pink sand beaches weren't pure green or pink) so it took me a little by surprise.  They had an area roped off for turtles sunbathing.  Quintessential Hawaii beach experience. 

Unlike Punalu'u, we had to put a bit of effort to get to the green sand beach, Papakōlea.  You can either walk the 2.5 miles each way to get to the beach, or catch a ride with a local.  After some advice from friends we decided to catch a ride and I'm glad we did.  That's a long walk in the hot sun and we just didn't have the time or patience (or a packed lunch) for that to be fun.  While it looks relatively brown in the pictures, the green sand was actually green.  Promise.  It gets its green hue from the breaking down of the olivine crystals found in the cinder cone that surrounds the beach.