At 4:30 AM a chicken began crowing. Every couple of minutes he would crow. We all wanted to wring its neck and have it for dinner. Nonetheless we went to bed early the night before and a 5 AM wake up call…being on Utah time (9 AM) is not that bad I suppose. Maybe tonight it will catch up more to us.
We were up early and just visited a while trying to solve the worlds problems. We had a ‘bagel and yoghurt’ type breakfast as we visited. At around 8:30 AM we set out to please me…find Tunnels Beach and snorkel. I had read to go early and it was a good thing that we did. The drive is slow, windy and narrow. We passed many beautiful beaches and could see many waterfalls in the beautiful green mountains all around us. Upon arrive at Tunnels Beach there was 1 parking spot in the small parking area and we grabbed it. To get to the best snorkeling area, we had to walk about 10 minutes. There were a few people already there but relatively few compared to when we left. I immediately headed out. To get to the edge of the first reef was a bit challenging as the water is shallow and you don’t want to step on the reef. But man, the reef is cool here. My first time out it was still a bit cloudy and the fish were not as abundant. I followed the shelf of the reef and the drop off at points had to be over 60 feet. And as you go over the reef you could peer into crevices and look down deep into cave like areas. This would be a really cool scuba spot to be able to go in these canyons under water. The reef was cool. The 2nd time out my anti-fog stuff worked better and it was so much clearer to me. Plus it was sunnier and I believe that brought the fish out. Ohh…in my first trip out I was floating along and then a sea turtle joined me. He went along side of me. Silly me….I had to tell others this turtle was hanging out with me. Unfortunately they did not come quietly and quickly the turtle dove into one of the caves out of site.
After spending 2 or so hours there, we jumped in the car and headed back towards our condo. We stopped at busy little strip mall like place in Hanalei to get a quick bite and some shaved ice. We got some loaded fries at a BBQ place called Chicken in a Barrel with cheese and port on them. They were fantastic. We shared them. We then grabbed a shaved ice at Jo Jo’s. This was even better. We will be going back there for more of that shaved ice stuff.
After doing some shopping at some of the little shops, we headed to a place called Queen’s Bath. This was interesting. Once we got a parking spot, some kids told us not to take the normal trail down to this as the standard way was muddy. So we followed their directions and they were right. Others coming in were all muddy. We got down the steep and slippery trail to the lava rock that butted up to the sea. It was beautiful. After walking about 10 minutes on the lava rock, you come to a ‘swimming hole’ in the lava rock. That is Queen’s Bath I suppose. We all got in. The water was really salty and you floated easily. Some young, barely clothed, young people were jumping off the rocks into the pool. Nearby, in the open ocean, 3 or 4 sea turtles were playing in the rough sea. That was cool to see them.
We returned back to our condo around 3 pm to get cleaned up and rest. That felt quite good.
At around 4:30 we started looking for a place to eat dinner and settled in on ‘Taste of Asia LLC’ as the menu looked good. It turned out that it was a food truck near building 5 in our condo area…a 3 minute walk from our condo. We just laughed….but went to it and it was really good food. Denise had Moco Loco and I had a chicken stir fry. It was great.
I’ll conclude this post by saying we are now playing some cards, as we love to do. We had a very full day and are now excited to enjoy some down time in our condo here. The island is beautiful and we are excited for the adventures ahead!
The following photos are from Queen’s Bath. The pictures will show the pools of water and the one that we all swam in. You will also see multiple pictures of turtles swimming in the open ocean close to us on the lava rocks.
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