Kona Sea Salt Tour and Foot Soak

After leaving the farmers market we drove about 45 minutes for a tour of a salt farm which we had booked a couple weeks ago.  The Kona Sea Salt farm is a working Salt farm which uses deep water saltwater to make gourmet salts.  The 45 or so minute tour was pretty informative and is located in a beautiful setting right at the most western tip of the island.  And Sofia made a friend on the tour! 

Because the ocean quickly gets very deep off the shore of the island of Hawai'i, they are able to run a pipeline a little over a mile long out to sea to a depth of 2200 feet.  Onshore, the salt water is put into a solar evaporation system which uses the pretty much year-round sun to dry the salt.  In about 4 weeks' time, the seawater evaporates, leaving white salt crystals that are placed into covered wooden hoppers where any remaining moisture is drained out.  Then it is hand packaged and sold.  The moisture that was drained is used as a mineral supplement or as a spa soaking bath. 

We then had a foot bath using that mineral supplement and that beautifully called 47° deep sea water.  On a really hot day that felt nice, although it was difficult to keep your feet in the water more than a minute or two at a time.