For the first time in more than sixty years, the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament is not on the August calendar. Organizers announced in May that HIBT would not move forward in 2026, citing shifts in travel, rising costs and global uncertainty. If you have lived on Ali'i Drive for any stretch of time, you know what that usually means for the first week of August: fewer chartered rigs stacked at Honokōhau, less foot traffic outside the weigh-in tent, quieter mornings at Kona Inn.
That is not what is happening this year. The calendar is filling back in from other directions, and it is filling in around the people who actually live here.
The Working Harbor, Rearranged
The Pacific Cup, a revived big-game tournament, has slotted into the gap. It is set for August 9-15 in Kailua-Kona, a throwback with a maximum 50-pound line class that shifts the focus from brute strength to angling precision, and a traditional rotating-boat format where anglers fish aboard a different vessel each day. That last detail matters. A rotating fleet means charter captains you already know are cycling international crews through their boats all week rather than defending a single team.
Two weeks later, the Big Island Marlin Tournament runs August 24-28 out of the same harbor. Between those two brackets is a stretch of weekday harbor mornings that will look more like the Kona of ten years ago than the Kona of last summer.
If you have ever wanted to walk down to the seawall with a coffee and watch a rotating international field come in for a weigh-in without fighting for a curb spot, this is the year.
The Pacific Cup will not draw HIBT's historic crowd. That is the point. It brings back the format, the international field, and the harbor rhythm without the surrounding festival footprint that made the first week of August feel borrowed from someone else.
A Rough Calendar For The Month
| When | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 1-9 | Pacific Cup week begins, fishing Aug 9-15 | Honokōhau Small Boat Harbor |
| Aug 9-15 | Pacific Cup competition days | Kailua-Kona charter fleet |
| Aug 24-28 | Big Island Marlin Tournament | Honokōhau Small Boat Harbor |
| Wed-Sun, all month | Kona Farmers Market, 7 a.m.-4 p.m. | Hualalai Rd. & Ali'i Dr. |
| Wed & Fri | Hoʻoulu Community Market, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. | Outrigger Kona Resort lawn, Keauhou |
| Saturdays | Keauhou Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-noon | Keauhou Shopping Center |
| Late Aug into Sept 3 | Kai 'Opua practice sessions build | Kamakahonu Beach |
The Paddlers Are Already In The Water
Kai 'Opua Canoe Club has been quietly rebuilding toward Labor Day since June. The 52nd Annual Queen Liliʻuokalani Long Distance Outrigger Canoe Race is confirmed for September 3-7, 2026, marking over half a century of continuous annual racing. The club has hosted the race every year since 1972 in honor of Queen Liliʻuokalani, whose birthday falls on September 2.
For residents, the useful thing to know about August is not the race itself but the practice window that precedes it. The local club hosts regattas through the summer, and iron OC-1 and OC-6 races spread across the calendar, so watching a Saturday-morning regatta at Kamakahonu Beach is a good consolation if your September is already booked out. The Ali'i Drive oceanfront promenade, lined with restaurants, dive operators, surf shops, and outdoor tables, is the social center of Kona's community and visitor life, and it is where you will see crews staging trailers by mid-month.
The scale of what is coming is worth naming. The waters of Kailua Bay transform into the most competitive outrigger canoe racing venue on the planet, with the 52nd Annual Queen Liliʻuokalani Long Distance Outrigger Canoe Race officially confirmed for September 3-7, 2026 as the world's largest outrigger canoe race. If you live within walking distance of the pier, plan the last week of August as if Labor Day has already started.
Where To Actually Go
The weekday farmers markets are the part of this month most residents underuse.
- Kona Farmers Market, at the corner of Hualalai Road and Ali'i Drive, is open Wednesdays through Sundays 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., located across from Hale Halawai. It leans toward crafts, but the produce vendors on the Hualalai Road side are worth the walk.
- Keauhou Farmers Market is the one to plan a Saturday around. The Kona County Farm Bureau runs it, every vendor grows or makes what they sell on the Big Island, so there is no resold mainland fruit here, with produce, Kona coffee, sourdough, honey, eggs, and Friday-caught fish, plus live music most Saturdays. It fills the lot in front of Ace Hardware from 8 a.m. to noon.
- Hoʻoulu Community Farmers Market, on the Outrigger Kona Resort lawn at Keauhou Bay Wednesdays and Fridays, has one of the more distinct openings on the island: running for over a decade on the front lawn of the Outrigger Kona resort at Keauhou Bay as a 100% Big Island market with 20 to 40 vendors, the market opens and closes with the blowing of a conch shell.
For dinner after a harbor walk, the older Ali'i Drive rooms are still the anchors. Part of the original 1928 Kona Inn, designed by Charles Dickey and once a celebrity hideaway for Duke Kahanamoku, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Shah of Iran, the restaurant offers 8,000 square feet of open-air oceanfront dining on Kailua Bay, anchored by a mammoth horseshoe all-Koa bar. Kona Canoe Club, a Kailua Bay classic that locals have claimed as their own since 1972, sits right on Ali'i Drive above the shoreline. Umeke's, up the hill, was the back-to-back Sam Choy's Poke Contest grand champion in 2013 and 2014, Best Poke in Hawaii in 2016 and 2017. If you want to see the Pacific Cup fleet come in without leaving your table, Harbor House sits right on the docks at Honokohau Small Boat Harbor, home of the famous ice-cold 18-ounce schooners.
The Small Things Worth Circling
A few dates are hiding in plain sight this month and next.
Willie's Hot Chicken has been running weekend blocks off Luhia Street through summer. Community events in the Luhia industrial pocket, including line dance nights and country-western taco parties at 74-5583 Luhia Street, have been drawing steady local turnout since June per public event listings.
The 17th Annual Mango Festival at Hale Halawai wraps the July side of the calendar on Saturday, July 18, from 10 a.m., and the tail end of the mango window at the Keauhou market usually holds into early August. If you have not made mango bread this summer, buy the fruit before Labor Day weekend gets in the way.
Then it is race season. All weekend, Ali'i Drive becomes a moving parade of canoes, trailers, paddlers, and onlookers. Parking near the pier disappears early. That is the point at which August-as-locals-know-it ends and the September rhythm begins.
What This Month Says About Kona
The pattern under all of this is easy to miss if you are inside it. A marquee international tournament went dark, and instead of a hole in the calendar the harbor produced a replacement, and instead of a quieter waterfront the club schedule filled the gap. That is a working town, not a resort town pretending to be one. The people booking the boats, running the markets, and paddling out from Kamakahonu on Saturday mornings are the same people who live above Palani Road and drop their kids at Kealakehe.
August is the month that shows you that most clearly. It is worth being here for it.
If you would like to talk story about life on this coast or the property side of it, Frank Schenk and Nicolaas are always glad to sit down. Contact Us anytime.
