May 27th

Sunday, May 27th, 2018

Only day two on the island, and we’ve learned that if there’s something you want to do, a beach you want to go to, you have to get there early.

That, my friends, is the key.

Being five hours behind here in Hawaii, that luckily isn’t an issue for us. We’ve been up by 5:30 every morning, feeling like we slept in until 10:30.

So this morning, we got up, packed our snorkeling gear, and hit the road for Pupukea Beach. All of the tourism information has said that that is the best spot for novice snorkelers, so that’s where we wanted to start.

We started in a really rocky area that was sheltered from incoming waves, but it was shallow and I got cut up by the rocks, and it honestly wasn’t all that fun so we came back to shore.

Turns out we weren’t in the right spot at the beach, because we hiked out on the lava rocks further out to a pool, and that was the jackpot.

The water was so calm, deep, and there were fish EVERYWHERE!

Paul telling me to put the camera down and get in the water to look at all of the fish.

And we were the only ones there – just us and the fish. Phenomenal is the word that comes to mind. It was cool temperature-wise, however, and that’s what ultimately drove us back out of the water.

On our hike back out, we passed at least 10-15 people on their way out there, so our timing was perfect.

We stopped for breakfast at Ted’s roadside cafe (Food trucks are a huge thing on the north shore), and it was delicious.

The rest of the morning we drove all the way around the island. The complete circumference. And it only took three hours. Totally crazy.

May 26th

Saturday, May 26th, 2018

This magical place has made me say “wow” so many times today.

I mean, when your day starts out by swimming with sea turtles, it’s hard not to be in awe of God’s creation.

Yep, sea turtles.

Before we left yesterday, I had been thinking about the animals that would be here to photograph. Sea Turtles were at the top of my wish list, but honestly didn’t expect to see any. Not only did we see them, but they came in so close!

By law you must stay at least ten feet away from them, but they were so curious! I was giggling with glee, folks. An experience I will never forget that is for sure.

But let’s rewind.

Hawaii is five hours behind central time, so Paul and I woke up at 5am, bright eyed and ready to go. We showered up, packed up for the day and went into town in search of coffee. Right across from Jerry’s Pizza was a local shop, so we stopped there.

Remember how I mentioned the chickens that were in the median in our drive last night?

Evidently feral chickens is a thing on the north shore. They are EVERYWHERE. Including the parking lot where we stopped for coffee this morning. We were the only people in the parking lot, and as we got out of the Jeep, they came out from under bushes, parked cars, everywhere and came toward us like we were going to feed them.

I quite enjoyed it.

So then we hit the road, found a pull off where we went down to the beach and met the sea turtles.

Pure magic.

Then we basically beach hopped the rest of the day. We drove along the entire north shore to see what each beach looked like, how wavy it was, what was around for food, parking, etc. It’s amazing how the beaches, weather, and the surf change depending on where you are on the island.
It was so so lovely. No agenda, no rush, no expectations.

And then driving home from Pounders Beach (BIG waves there, hence the name), there was an amazing burst of color as the sun set.

Top: Beach view of Pounders
Middle: Locals body boarding on waves for scale
Bottom: Paul enjoying the waves with the busted body board he found (ha!).

We’re hoping to beat the crowds and go to a popular snorkeling spot tomorrow morning. We’ll see what the morning brings!