HAWAII DIARY--May 24

Jared & Suzy’s place is nearly an ideal location for a Hawaii vacation. It is a very short walk to the beach on the North Shore, and near lots of good surfing spots for Jared. It is surrounded by lush green vegetation and when you open the window (which you always do—no a/c) there is always a pleasant breeze. It is right across the street from the grocery store, which is very convenient, but also contributes to the one problem. For some reason there is a lot of noisy traffic along their street, at times, particularly early in the morning when delivery trucks try and back into the back side of the grocery store to make their deliveries. I had a rough time sleeping that first night, and a couple of times had to sit up and look out the window to make sure they were just trucks driving by and not planes flying so low that they were going to crash!

Still because of the time change, we were up and ready to go fairly early. We walked down to Waimea Beach to hang out and play. We got to watch the coast guard helicopters running drills not far away. The helicopter would get very close to the water and a diver would jump in. Later another would follow, then they would send down the metal basket and pull them back in. They did this again with the sling.
Barry and Jared jumped off of a big rock into the ocean. We tried snorkeling there. We saw some pretty fish but not a lot else. We walked over to the beach at Three Tables. The water here was a bit choppy so I wasn’t sure I wanted to snorkel, but I guess I missed out. This is where Barry got to swim with the sea turtles (see video in previous post).

On the beach, these tiny cardinal birds came to try and eat our snacks. They were fun to watch.

But our animal encounters weren’t over. For lunch we got an Acai bowl from a café right by their house. I guess the acai is some kind of rainforest berry. They make this yummy smoothie with the fruit of the acai and serve it in a bowl with granola, bananas and honey. It was really quite yummy, but we weren’t the only ones who thought so. The whole time we were eating, these brightly colored lizards that I have never seen before, kept coming for samples. At one point, I had about four with in striking distance of my bowl.

Next, we headed to the Dole Plantation where Barry had a second lunch of Pineapple chili (not bad) and we all sampled the delicious pineapple ice cream. We wandered around, but passed on the train tours, etc. there.

(have you ever seen a red pineapple?)

Then we went shopping (browsing mostly) at Haliewa a big (historic) surfing town. We were pretty beat by this point. Besides jet-lag and no sleep the previous night, Barry had a pretty good sunburn from the mornings activities (he is naturally rather neon) and a stiff neck. We took short naps, then walked to the Shark’s Cove Grill for dinner near the beach at sunset. We stopped by the grocery store on our way back to get some food for our stay and look at souveniers—yes, they are everywhere!