I find writing super easy, and photo editing and organizing difficult so I have a ton of photos to deal with, but instead you get more writing. 😛

We didn’t have much of a plan this morning, but started with breakfast made in our kitchen. We talked a bit and decided to go Stand-Up Paddleboarding up the river in Hale’iwa bay. A quick drive, and an illegal parking spot (which we didn’t notice until we got back), a conversation with a dude who’s job it was solely to rent us boards and we were paddling our way up the river.

The river was brown and murky, and I didn’t really want to fall in it. Which is rough, since SUPing is a very balancey activity. We paddled about a half hour up the river, saw a giant turtle with a barnacle on his back and then paddled back.

I suggested that we drive back to Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck (about a half hour away) and then try to find one of the Lost beaches nearby. The shrimp wasn’t as good the second time, it felt less like it was assaulting my mouth with garlic and more like it was a good heavy helping of garlic. When all you want is to be slapped in the face with garlic…

The beach was called Papa’iloa Beach and it’s the location of most of the beach filming on Lost after half way through the first season. They started filming on Moke’leia Beach, but apparently the winter storms threatened to flood the set (which is actually outlined in an episode) and filming moved. We found the beach and walked down to it and started hiking. It was apparently about a 15-20 walk down the beach.

We walked about 5 minutes before we came upon 3 girls throwing green stuff into the water. Miranda cried out and at the edge of the rocks in the waves were 8 turtles all swimming around trying to get at the green stuff. 8 large turtles. In one area. Miranda quickly stripped down to her bathing suit, and convinced me to do likewise and we were in with our snorkel camera. The waves were kind of rough so we had to be very careful to stay out of their way, and keep our footing. But ho-man, 8 turtles.

As we walked along the beach, we found another turtle sunning himself on the beach. And a few more in the water. We’d found the Kingdom of Turtles!

After 15 minutes Miranda decided she wasn’t interested in continuing to walk. I was in the middle of a good, solid, obsession, and wanted to keep going. We compromised, with her stopping to photograph some more turtles and we continuing on along the beach. I walked for another 20-25 minutes and came around the corner to find Hale’iwa Beach Park. If the film set had been near that park, my directions would have said to come from that direction…I turned around, having failed, and took a bunch of photos in case Miranda recognized the locations at all.

When we got back I asked her to drive. I’d been hiking for near 1.5 hours, in bare feet along the sand. My feet are throbbing right now, and telling me that they didn’t like what I did, but that they’ll forgive. Eventually.

We came back and had a shower. And moisturizer.

Dinner was at Breakwater, which got good reviews in our Big Blue Book but mediocre reviews in our book. The garlic fries were a $3 addon where the cook seemed to sprinkle garlic powder on them. (in truth, they were tossed with olive oil, garlic and garlic powder, but compared to Giovanni’s where they practically give you an entire garlic bulb with your order, it was lackluster. Miranda’s fish and chips arrived and she wondered about tartar sauce. I pointed at a sauce in a bottle on the table, and we both tried it and were sure it was either chipolte mayo or thousand island… we were told it was the tartar. It was no tartar I’d ever tried. My own meal was pleasant and unremarkable. Although I did end up eating my fries with the “tartar” instead. 😛

Back at the home I walked the slackline a bit and Miranda lay in a hammock and read. We watched the sun go down while I wrote the last blog post and she continued to read.

Tomorrow we have a few options, but they depend on when we have to be out of this place. And also how various muscles stand up…