Aloha|Kaʻena Point — The Far End of the Island, Where the Satellites Listen

The film's tracking-station material was shot out on the Kuaokala ridge above Oʻahu's northwestern tip, where the real Kaʻena Point Space Force Station has tracked satellites since 1959. The station itself sits behind a gate and is not open to visitors. The point below it is, and it is the better destination anyway.

The road simply ends — from Mokulēʻia on the north shore, or Keawaʻula on the leeward side — and becomes a four-kilometre track along a raised bench of lava with the ocean on one side and cliffs on the other. At the tip a predator-proof fence encloses a reserve where Laysan albatross nest in winter, monk seals haul out on the rocks, and naupaka and ʻakuʻaku hold the dunes together. In Hawaiian tradition this is a leina a ka ʻuhane, a leaping place where souls departed the island.

There is no shade and no water. Take both. Then sit at the end of the track, past the fence, where the swell wraps in from two directions and collides. A film about a man trying to find a signal in the Pacific could not have picked a more literal edge.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.