Turtles

Wednesday, Dec 28
Today was the best day so far, the kind of day you dream about when you book a trip to Hawaii.
We started the day with another hotel breakfast, which we are getting realy sick of and starting to think about skipping and heading to Denny's. But we're too cheap to go to Denny's. Then we went to a snorkel place which is supposed to be a close second to Kealakekua (where we went on Sunday). We got lost on the way, since the directions clearly say "go past the entry gate for Pu'uhonua O Honaunau State Park, then take the one way road on your right." (Also known as "Place of Refuge") What they should have said was "go through the first gate to the state park, and take the one way road on the right before the second gate to the state park." About 5 miles down a deserted road, we decided the instructions would have mentioned a distance if it was more than a few feet.
I now figure that the directions are vague in order to keep the place a secret. Definitely better snorkelling than at the Captain Cook monument. We parked about 30 meters from the spot where we get into the water. A second name for the spot is "two step" because you climb down 2 steps and you're in the water. It's deep enough to not have to worry about running into coral, too. There is a lot more variety of coral and fish there. Probably not as many fish as Captain Cook, but a lot more variety of fish. We also saw a few eel, an octupus (which are almost impossible to see because they camoflage so well), and a turtle! I spotted the turtle first (well, maybe at the same time as the 2 scuba divers, but definitely the first of the surface dwellers) so we had a good 5 minutes of following the turtle by ourselves before someone from the snorkel tour spotted him and shouted to everyone else. Once the others got in, it was a lot of bumping and fins in faces. Eventually, he came to the surface for air, and a couple of the snorkellers moved in and started grabbing him. I yelled at them and they backed off, otherwise it might have gotten ugly.
After well over an hour, I decided to get out of the water. Rob was already waiting on shore. Getting out is much harder than getting in, since you don't realize the rocks you are sitting on are filled with sea urchins until you are looking into the water through a snorkel mask. They hide in holes and are harmless as long as you keep your appendages out of the holes. But that's easier to do when you are standing on the rocks than when you are putting your hands on the rocks and pulling yourself up. But we both escaped unscathed.
Next to the snorkelling area, there's a small, muddy beach and boat launch (much easier than the one at Kealakekua Bay) and a sea turtle was resting over there while I was snorkelling. But he was hard to see with sand on his back.
Oh, and because it’s been a few days without abuse of the rental car, we used the center console as a cooler. We filled the hotel room ice bag with ice and put it in the console, then placed a couple drinks on top to drink after snorkelling. It turns out the bag was not water proof. Hopefully the console dries out before we return the car.
Next we headed for a beach so Rob could do some boogie boarding. We stopped on the way at a bakery/cafe and had some banana bread with macadamia nuts and banana bread with coconut. Not as good as mine. I also finally tried some Kona coffee. Not as good as Costa Rican. I found it a bit strong and bitter. I prefer lighter, sweeter brews.
The beach we were looking for is called "White Sands", and also "Disappearing Sands", as the surf sometimes pulls the sand out to sea and then brings it back later. When there's sand, it's supposed to have good waves for boogie boarding. When we found it, there was sand, but it was a small and very crowded beach. And the surf was minimal. But given that the next possible option was Hapuna Beach, about 40 miles north (since Kua Bay is closed to cars on Wednesdays) Rob decided to give it a try.
I was hanging out on the beach under my shiny new beach umbrella when Rob came up and told me that a sea turtle was sharing his waves while I was sitting there looking clueless. I ran out to where he had last seen the turtle, and within a few minutes, he was back. He was calmly swimming from person to person, sneaking up and scaring the crap out of unsuspecting children and women with small nudges. He was bumping into Rob several times, but it wasn't as frightening to him. At one point, I was standing with my back to the waves, about 3 feet away from the turtle when a wave knocked me forward and almost right on top of the turtle. He managed to escape. But he wasn't alone. At one point, I could see 3 of them while Rob could see a fourth. Fortunately, the people on the beach were much more respectful, nobody went out of their way to touch them. I finally decided I had enough of trying not to step on turtles when jumping in the waves, and headed back to the protection of my umbrella. After I left, Rob was trying to catch a wave and got tripped by a turtle. He ended up ass over tea-kettle in the wave and came up with a lung full of sea water Those suckers are pretty daring with those big shells! A few people mentioned that these turtles visit the beach every day.
After a few hours at the beach, we came back to the hotel and had a late lunch of leftover poke and crab salad. Rob then had a nap, and I did some reading on our balcony with a cold drink. We then made the obligatory trip to Hilo Hattie's, the original tacky Hawaiian souvenir shop. At the store, they had a pearl jewellery counter where you could buy oysters for $15 and keep whatever you find in it. A woman was trying her hand, she tried 2 oysters and got 2 matching pairs of pearls, which she made into earrings. I then tried, since Rob's mom's birthday is coming up and she asked for pearls, and I got 2 singles, one pink and one black. I didn't like any of the settings for single pearls, so I now have to get them mounted some other way.
After shopping, we went for a late dinner at a place called Splashers. The place was very popular, so we had to wait at the bar for a table. We ended up sitting next to the same woman who was buying pearls and her friend. We chatted with them for a while, and we now have new friends in Portland and San Francisco. The food was excellent. Rob had seared Ahi tuna, I had macadamia nut crusted Mahi Mahi with a pineapple sauce. And they had mango cheesecake for dessert (which is something I fell in love with in Australia, and have to get as much as possible.)
Rob is now doing laundry in the hotel laundromat. We are heading out the volcano tomorrow, and on to another island after that.