Day Two: Monday

I woke up this morning about 4:30 a.m…body telling me it’s 9:30, so I couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I got up, made some coffee, took a shower, and headed to the beach for some pictures of sunrise. Unfortunately, I’ve been greeted by a “Garden Isle” rainstorm this morning. Oh well, maybe tomorrow morning. The walk on the beach was superb (after it quit raining on me for a while).

At one point I stopped, looking out into this vast ocean…thinking about how incredibly huge and powerful it is and thinking…my God is in control of all of this. Then I look down at the sand going through my toes and think…my God knows every grain of sand. I couldn’t think of a word to describe God. So I worshiped him. This is a GREAT way to start the day!!! I’m looking forward to many more of these!

Now I’m sitting on our balcony, watching it rain, listening to the %#$*%#@ roosters, waiting for breakfast. Christy is still sleeping off the jet-lag. After breakfast, I think we’re going to go snorkeling or swimming…who cares, we’re in Hawaii.

First morning!!

This was the most sun we saw all day!

More later…

So when we got here they told us there was a free breakfast on the first morning we were here…we went. Note to self…anything free here, they want something from you. It was a sales pitch for all different kinds of Luau’s and stuff. We ate, listened for a little, then left!

After renting snorkel and boogie board gear, we headed to the “Lighthouse”. It’s this bird sanctuary place on the East Shore. Pretty cool…very beautiful views….and red footed boobies. Yep…we came to Hawaii and saw boobies on the first day. We even took pictures. While the Lighthouse isn’t just crazy exciting, the views are absolutely gorgeous. Do you ever just get used to this and not pay attention to how gorgeous it is? Like we do with Amarillo!!!! They say from this point you see a lot of whales…in season…it’s not season so we saw a lot of water…and boobies!

See!

Those little white specs in the green are boobies.

After the lighthouse, we headed up to the north shore…grabbed some lunch and then went on up to “Tunnels beach”. To reach this beach…you drive north until you nearly run out of road, then park on this little dirt road…and walk up the beach what seems like forever to get to the place where the snorkeling is good. It was SO worth it. The snorkeling was awesome….fish of every color (doh! Forgot to take pictures!). You just swim around and notice new fish after new fish…no kiddin…awesome. Then back to the car and on to my favorite place of the day…”Queen’s Bath”.

This place was so cool. Again, it’s a little out of the way place that I don’t think a ton of people know about or go…but it was awesome. You drive through this cool resort then park and hike for about 15 minutes. Down a steep muddy trail to a cool little waterfall, then down further to another little waterfall…then…for about 300 yards you go along the waterfront (cliffs kinda) on lava rock…with the waves crashing. IT IS SO COOL. At then end you get to this pool of water…about the size of a backyard swimming pool. On the front edge the waves are crashing in over the rocks and you can swim and snorkel…oh my goodness it was amazing. Just so cool. We swam and snorkled here for a good while and then hiked back up (ok the trip back up was a little harder for these out of shape people but WELL worth it!).

Waterfall on the way to Queen’s Bath

Part of the hike to “Queen’s Bath”

“Queen’s Bath”... pictures don’t do it justice (at least not ours!) The pool was about 12 feet deep at the deepest points.

Cool huh! This is another place that you see on the hike to "Queens Bath"

After a little shopping, we headed back to get cleaned up and then had some supper…very good but pricey BBQ. When we got to the BBQ place (with a spectactular view of the beach) we realized that we were on the same beach (give or take 100 yards) where I popped the question. VERY COOL! Then we went and walked through the market in Kapa’a for a little while. This is the market that we walked through over 16 years ago the night before I proposed to Christy. I remember going by a jewelry store acting sad because I couldn’t buy her a ring when I had bought the ring months before!! It’s a cool little market.

Then back to the resort for bed and relaxing.

The sun hasn’t been out more than 10 minutes today but it has still been fantastic. I understand it’s supposed to be like this tomorrow too. I hope at some point we get to see the sun!!! Even if we don’t, this place is fantastic.

More tomorrow…