I have 6 videos for you, all of which are either short or amazing.
I thought some video of circling around coral would be nice.
These fish are nibbling at the statue.
These fish accepted me as their brother.
When we found those 8 turtles on Papa’iloa Beach, we took some close up video.
The best video I’ve ever taken: TURTLE FIGHT! I came back later and the big dude was hanging out under the rock getting his shell cleaned by some fishies.
Typing this from my desk at home, so hopefully we’ll get some more photos and videos going shortly…we’ll see what the afternoon brings.
We woke up early and drove into town for another recommended breakfast place called Kono’s. Their logo is a pig riding a surfboard. We both had a breakfast burrito, which was excellent, although Miranda regretted not realizing that she’d gotten the kalua pork burrito instead of the bacon burrito.
We drove to a nearby beach that was said to have excellent snorkeling called Three Tables. When we arrived there were a ton of families swimming around, more than we’d seen anywhere yet. This was some pretty good snorkeling, better when you get closer to “the tables”, with lots of nooks to look into and lots of big fish to check out. The downside is that the surf was somewhat kinetic, and I didn’t want either of us swimming close enough to the wrong side of the rocks to be pushed around on them. We swam for a bit and then came in.
Back at our place, we packed our stuff up for the last time and said our goodbyes. This was a great place to stay. It had mediocre reviews on AirBnb, but the fact that it was right on the ocean made up for any perceived faults. Unless you needed A/C and restaurants right outside your door instead.
We drove back into Hale’iwa an had North Shore Tacos again, confirming their status as the best place to eat on the island.
Then we got started on a long drive. We’d showered and didn’t want to get wet and dirty again, so we planned to drive the rest of the island today. We drove along our little road until it ended in Ka’ena Point, the western most tip of O’ahu.
From there we drove down the middle of the island from Hale’iwa, and found our way on the H1 a massive highway of 4 lanes and a speed limit of 55. Considering every road I’d been on recently had been 25, this was a big deal. Unfortunately, there is no road connecting the island at Ka’ena Point, so we drove all the way down to Pearl City and then back up the western coast up to Ka’ena Point…from the other side. On this side the waves were pretty big, getting on 4-6 feet tall in some places, and we watched a few surfers who actually knew how to stand up and navigate a wave.
We drove back down the coast (with a pit stop or two in the middle) and ended up near ‘Ewa Beach and watched some more surfers as the sun went down.
Had dinner at Big Kahuna’s Pizza and Stuffs, there was no pizza. We had pizza sandwiches. And then had a frustrating drive around the airport area trying to find a gas station, with no luck and just returned the car as is. I think we lost $5 in the deal, which I consider just fine.
At the airport, it was empty. It took us 4 minutes to go through security, and we were first in line for baggage drop. We played a few games, rounding out Yahtzee out to 6 games with me being the overall winner for the weekend. Roll Through the Ages we played 7 games, but couldn’t find a sheet for one of them so only scored 6 and Miranda was the overall winner. Lastly we played Forbidden Island, which is a co-op game and I’m considering myself the winner for having convinced Miranda to play it with me. 😛
We got on the plane around 11:30, First Class. We’d upgraded our seats for $150 each, which was worthwhile for the leg room and extra recline. We both slept, but it was a horrible sleep. I woke several times and looked up to see the flight attendants having a conversation with a passenger right in front of me…like…I’m trying to sleep, shut up, sort of thing. The last time I woke up I decided to just leave it and read. I asked where we were in the flight, and she told me that we had just started to descend. O.O 5 hour flight, apparently I slept for it.
We landed in Bellingham, easily grabbed our stuff and got on a Quick Shuttle to Vancouver really quickly after getting some food. Fell asleep there, broken only by the border and the next thing I know we’re getting off at 12th and Cambie to grab a car2go home.
Now the cats are needy, I have a billion photos to process and a lot of other things that need doing and…hi!
After 2 days of not much going on, we firmed up in our minds that we were doing something. SOMETHING.
We started the day by making bacon and eggs in our kitchen. Mmmmm, breakfast. Then we drove down the highway around 20 minutes to Kualoa Ranch. This place has ATVing, horseback riding, jungle tours and a tour of a variety of movie locations. It’s gorgeous valley is the filming location of movies like Jurassic Park (most of this was filmed on Kuaui, but they finished filming here after a hurricane), and Lost. Lost is primarily why we cared, since we’re both Lost fans. 🙂
We did see the site of Hurley’s Golf Course, but unfortunately didn’t get much of a view of it. The bus traveled on, and we got a few photos only. This was a great tour anyway – relatively short, relatively inexpensive and an amazing view of some great mountains and meadows!
We had lunch at Uncle Bobo’s BBQ, a well rated local BBQ place. We bought some of their sauce it was so good.
On our way back we saw paragliders kiting in a park that we drove past, so we stopped to say hi. Unfortunately, their insurance requires that they not inflate within 50 feet of pedestrians, so while I just wanted to say hi and share stories, I was actually really in their way. I spoke with a guy whom we had seen doing some acro up and down the mountains range the day before, and we spoke with a guy who had been ground handling for 6 months on the beach and hadn’t actually flown yet! The local sites tend to be pretty rotory with strong winds and unforgiving mountains, so it totally makes sense. Still, I don’t know if I’d have gotten into the sport if I’d had to kite for 6 months before I was ready. Makes me glad we had such forgiving sites nearby Vancouver!
We drove on. Our goal – find the sunshine. We drove around the mountain range and around the tip of the island onto the North Shore, where the waves are still pretty big. Before we left on vacation we’d been told that the winter months had big waves, and were unsuitable for swimming in for all but expert swimmers. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re still near enough to winter that the waves are 6 feet still – tall enough that if we don’t find some good spots, we won’t be doing much water sports in them.
But we lucked out! There was a little tide pool just to the left of Sharks Cove which our book says is “good to let the kids splash around in”. We arrived at high tide, and it was so full of water that you could get fully submerged and get some real swimming in. This was excellent snorkeling, as we saw a ton of fish swimming around and enjoying the protection provided by the larger rocks! There still wasn’t much sunshine, and the water was colder than we’d really have liked, but it was what we needed!
We had dinner at Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck, a local institution. The garlic on these bad boys was potent, and we had a massive plate of shrimp to go through. Luckily we both enjoyed the garlic, otherwise that would have been an exercise in sleeping on the couch. 😛
We had a few games of Roll Through the Ages, watched X-Men 1 and then passed out.
A scale model of Xcaret.
The aquarium.
Reef sharks!
The underground “river”.
A few animals!
The night show! This place is huge, and filled, and this isn’t the high tourist season…
These guys are playing a soccer-like game with a flaming ball.
A few photos from our day in Cozumel!
Up early today, this time with an alarm so we didn’t miss our ferry. 645 local time. Ferry at 8. Don’t miss it, or our snorkel tour wouldn’t wait for us.
I like snorkeling on my own. It’s easy, relaxing and you can do it whenever you like in a place like this. You don’t need a tour to go snorkeling, just some inexpensive equipment and an idea of where to go. However, I like taking a tour as well. They serve drinks and food, often drive you places it would be difficult to get to yourself and provide a fun place to relax in between swims. We booked with Cozumel Watersports. The boat crew was fantastic – they had a very explanatory speech before the swim, good communication and helped out well with people who needed it. This area has a mandatory life jacket policy, which is irritating and understandable. I like swimming down to see things closer. They don’t want yahoos wrecking the coral. These guys have the same policy, but the jackets weren’t the foam type I’m used to, but were more like the inflatable jackets airlines use…And you didn’t have to blow them up! Got some fun photos from this trip, had a rather strong marguerita and some fresh guacamole on the ride back.
Their dock is at a beach bar, La Palapita DenMedio Beach Bar, so we stopped to enjoy some food and plan our afternoon. This place was really chill, and while again the food wasn’t blow me away amazing, I really liked it here. A nice place to put your feet up after a solid swim.
We had a mind to rent scooters and drive around the island. We mentioned this to our tour guy Fernando and he made a call. While we were eating, scooters were driven to the restaurant for us to rent…That’s pretty badass.
The entire trip around the island took about 3 hours at about 40 km/hr. Which is as fast as Miranda’s 50cc would go. My 250cc would go much faster, but there was no way I was going 100km/hr on a rattling Mexican scooter. We had a rain shower in the middle of our ride, which was hilarious! The island is 90% circled by a terrific bicycle path…Which is also used by scooters, a lot. This is wicked safe and separated from regular car traffic for the most part. 5% is coming into San Miguel on a 4 lane road with lots of space. That last 5% though is a little scary – driving through a Mexican town streets on a scooter. As Miranda put it – a 2 lane road with 4 lanes of traffic on it. If we did this again, I’d do it over the entire day as there are so many cool beaches and natural landmarks to see along this road that we drove by, including a lighthouse and another set of ruins.
We managed to navigate our way through town to find our guy Adrian of Rooster Scooters. He was super nice and the three of us drove 2 scooters back to the ferry.
I wrote a few blog updates as best I could (still on the phone, remember…) and we got home and all but passed out from a super long day in the sun.
Friday is Miranda’s birthday!
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Miranda was trying to get a photo that was split between above and below water. She got these cool photos instead, as the camera must only be able to focus in one area at once.
Trying to catch a little fish.
They have hammocks set up near the vendors. We took advantage of them.
A few photos of the Second Ojo.
A cool hole in the ceiling.
More underwater selfie!
Miranda preps to snorkel.
Turtle photos!
Snorkel selfie!
Birds on a boat.
This map is pretty important to successfully swimming at Akumal. Otherwise, you might not swim far enough and might miss “a turtle oasis”…
