Hawaii: Hapuna Beach, Waimea, Departure (Day 11)

Our last morning in Hawaii, I snorkeled a little and caught this big pufferfish (over 1 foot long) on camera:

Also there were some white fish that blended with the sand and some other fish that just hung out in a cove near the hotel:

At the end of the week, we returned our snorkel gear. We ended up buying masks, rather than renting, and bought a set of fins for me because it was only $10 more than we'd paid for the rental. Now I can snorkel here at home! I just need Alisha to drop some tropical fish into the bathtub and get out of the way.

Our only sad moment for the entire vacation was after we'd checked out and were enjoying the cool ocean breeze in the open-air lobby of the hotel with this view:

It was one of the most picturesque views I'd ever seen in person, but a part of me spoke up and wished I could instantly be transported back to the hospital NICU. Not many people would be sitting on a tropical beach and wishing they were in the depths of a hospital, surrounded by chaos and artificial lighting, but I did. I told Alisha and both of our eyes got a little watery.

We take Roscoe with us everywhere we go. We set his picture on the center console in our rental car so that we'd feel like he was coming with us through all of these adventures. We even celebrated his 11-month birthday on the beach that morning by writing our names and the date into the sand, then decorating it with Plumeria flowers from a nearby tree:

After checking out of our last hotel, we drove up the hill from the beach for 10 minutes to Waimea at 2500ft elevation. That's right: 10 minutes to climb 2500 feet. It was a quaint little town with this old church that was pretty neat looking:

That night we watched the sun set as the waves rolled in, then boarded the plane from the outdoor airport in Kona. We flew overnight back to California to be back just in time for church the next morning.

Hawaii: Rainbow Falls, Caves, and Hapuna Beach (Day 10)

After we woke up in Hilo, we got our day started with some crepes:

Then we went to Banyan Drive in Hilo, which is a street lined with banyan trees. For those who have never seen a banyan tree, it's a tree that looks like this (this is a single tree):

The roots grow down from the branches to the ground, and then grow back up again into more branches. What results is a big nest of vertical, thick roots that form one large tree. What's neat about Banyan Drive is that all of the banyan trees there were planted by famous people. We got to see trees planted by Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, Louis Armstrong, Cecil B. Demille, and presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

After we leaving Hilo, we visited the last Lost-related location on our trip, called Kaumana Cave. The cave was used as the setting where John saved Eko from the bear. Here's what the entrance looked like:

The cave is an underground lava tube, so the walls were glassy smooth in spots and the floor was rippled like a river.

We brought flashlights, so we were able to explore about 1/4 mile of the cave. It continued for a total of 2 miles underground, but we chose not to walk the full distance because we were the only ones anywhere in the cave and we kept walking over chunks of lava that had fallen from the ceiling (probably years earlier). We didn't want to be there when another chunk fell. Here's a video where I walk toward Alisha with my flashlight:

On the trip back to the other side of the island (Kona) we visited Rainbow Falls and made an impromptu stop at a local cookie store:

We were excited to check into our final hotel, the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. We'd actually organized our trip to Hawaii around having this place be our grand finale before heading home. Luckily Alisha found a 50% off deal for the room to make it much more reasonable. We checked in a little early and prolonged our checkout as long as possible, because it was so pleasant being there. It was the nicest place I have ever stayed and was a great way to end the trip. The rest of our day was spent enjoying the beach, pool, room, and atmosphere of what is the nicest man-made place I've ever been:

View from our balcony

View from underneath a beach umbrella

View of the beachside pool

View from the beach chairs

That night we watched the sun set from our private balcony:

Hawaii: Captain Cook monument, Black sand beach, Hilo (Day 9)

We started our 9th day in Hawaii with a 3rd visit to the Honaunau snorkeling spot. We hoped to see spinner dolphins, which we'd heard had been seen the day before early in the morning. We got there at 7am, but no dolphins showed up. We returned to the coffee resort and spoke with the owner when we checked out. He pointed us to another snorkel site that we had on our list: the Captain Cook monument. While we chatted, we noticed these coffee beans drying:

We hiked down the hill to the Captain Cook monument. It was a 2-mile hike each way, with a 1500ft elevation drop over lava rocks. We did it in our water shoes. Here's a few video clips, showing the trail progressing through different stages:

The Captain Cook monument and snorkel spot (Kealakekua Bay) were at the shore to the left of that last video. The site is rated as one of the top 10 snorkel sites in the world. Once we got to the bottom, there was snorkeling but also these large cliffs to look at. Along the surface of the cliffs there are holes dug into the walls where natives' bones were placed as a burial. The coffee estate owner told us that they'd attach a lower-class young boy to a rope, lower him down, and have him dig the hole and place the bones of an upper-class man in it. Then they'd cut the rope and the boy would fall to his death, with the promise that he'd reincarnate in a higher class. Not sure if that's really how the bones were buried, but it makes for a good story:

Once in the water, I immediately saw this Bluefin Trevally and eel together. I swam off because I assumed there would be lots more like it (nope).

It was neat for us to see the comparison of how the water looked from above with how the water looked once you were underneath:

And here's an action shot of me diving into the water:

When I finished snorkeling, we watched the waves roll in for a little bit and then hiked back up the hill (2 miles, again) to our car and headed for Hilo. Along the way there, we stopped at the black sand beach, which is a beach made of lava that's been reduced over time to the size of grains of sand. It was pretty neat!

In Hilo, we stayed one night at the Hilltop Legacy Vacation Rental in the Hilo Bay room. The room was small, but very comfortable with a great view of the town of Hilo and the ocean. It was here that Alisha and I saw our first-ever sunrise over the ocean, as we'd never been on an eastern coast at sunrise.

That night we got Vietnamese soup (pho), soft-serve ice cream, and then took this video of the tremendous number of frogs yelling at each other outside our hotel before we went to sleep:

LOTS of frogs

Hawaii: Hilo Farmer's Market, Botanical Gardens, Akaka Falls (Day 8)

Our 8th day in Hawaii we decided to visit the eastern side of the island. When we went to leave, we noticed a baby gecko on the door of our white rental car. We shooed him safely off before we got going:

We started out the day snorkeling at Honaunau (again). Here are more of the videos that we shot there:

The find of the day was this larger fish, called a Bluefin Trevally. It looks like a smaller tuna, with a florescent blue glow along its back:

After snorkeling we drove across the middle of the island to reach Hilo. The western side alternated between lush green and blackened lava flows. The eastern side was much greener and more consistently livable than the western side. Lava fields were nowhere in sight. However, as soon as we crossed over to the eastern side we ran into a thick wall of fog that lasted for several miles:

We started at the Hilo farmers market, which we'd heard lots of great things about.

I mostly looked forward to seeing how inexpensive pineapples would be, but surprisingly they were still more ($3.50) than they cost in California. We bought a bunch of apple bananas, 3 jumbo avocados, and a coconut which we drank out of and then later ate:

The seed was almost as big as a racquetball

After the farmers market, we drove up the coast to the botanical gardens. There were some very complex and amazing flowers, but there wasn't nearly as much variety as at the San Francisco botanical gardens. Mostly the unique things we saw at the botanical gardens were over-sized leaves and things that otherwise wouldn't grow in a hotter climate. Some of the pictures that Alisha took are shown below:

After walking through the gardens, we drove a little further up the coast to Akaka Falls. This is 440-foot waterfall which formed a basin at the bottom. It was neat to just sit and watch the water hit and slowly carve away at the stone mountain. It was a lesson in persistence.