The Honeymoon, Part VII

Sunday. Big day. August 2nd. It was our last day in Hawaii. The last day of our honeymoon. And it was my 40th birthday. We'd planned the trip so we'd leave on Monday specifically so we could spend my birthday together and to avoid spending it on a plane.

Anyway, we woke up and rolled into our favorite breakfast spot, then drove down the coast to snorkeling at the same bay we were at the day before. I think we arrived even earlier than we had the day before, so parking was even better. We strapped on our swim fins, put on our masks, and dove in.

Since we were in the same place, we pretty much saw all the same things as the day before. Regardless, we still loved it and we were able to do a bit more exploring. The most exciting thing we saw was a big, black eel! Julia spotted it swimming along and pointed it out to me. It was veyr cool to see it smoothly cut it's way through the water and both of us kept expecting it to worm its way into the coral once it found a good spot, but it just kept swimming and swimming until it was out of sight behind an outcropping of coral and we lost it. That was great.

Back on shore after a couple hours of swimming we found an open picnic table, snacked on some of the food we brought, and watched the dolphins swim around in the bay -- much farther out than we were swimming.

You know how easy it is to watch a campfire burn, or watch the waves come into shore, well, it's the same way with watching dolphins swim. It's just very peaceful and calming, but at the same time very interesting, maybe even exciting on some level. Anyway, we sat, chatted, enjoyed our food, and watched the dolphins. Not a bad birthday at all.

The area off to the side of the picnic table had a couple of nice tide pools formed from the uneven terrain of the lava rocks, so we did a little exploring (me in my new aqua-socks!) to look for fish, crabs, and whatever else we could find. It was fun, but I misjudged the depth of the water one time when I was stepping down from a rock -- and I even thought, "I think this is a bad idea" -- but I did it anyway . . . and promptly fell over sideways right onto a nice pyramidal-shaped rock that broke my fall when my lower back hit it. Julia said she looked over and all of a sudden I was sideways. It hurt. I didn't smack my head and somehow managed to avoid landing on anything sharp, so I got up, rubbed my back a little, and hoped I hadn't hurt something that wouldn't show up until later that day or the next. And as it happened, I was fine. I figured out later that I'd actually hit the rock the section of my back just to the right of my spine and low enough that it was mostly just padding from my butt. It smarted a bit, but it was fine.

Back on the picnic table we watched as (I assume) a father and son walked out on the rocks near where we just were. The father was quite a bit older and was holding a weighted net for fishing. They both fanagled the net for a good twenty minutes, getting it so the older man was holding it just so, then he watched the fish swimming in the water and when the time was right he threw the net. Julia and I were both curious about what he'd get and if that was even legal, but as it turned out the net came up empty and the pair walked off probably to try their luck somewhere else.

We also saw a younger Hawaiian boy traipse over to Two Steps with his swimming gear and a spear for spearfishing. We'd heard that wasn't legal, but maybe the native Hawaiians have rights that others don't. I dunno. Anyway, he dove in and we never saw if he came back with anything. Even so, that was interesting to see.

We backed everything into the car again and headed north again, but stopped at a couple of places along the way. First was a "Green Market," which was really just a small farmer's market. It was interesting to see what people had for sale, but we didn't get anything. Oh, we did try some white pineapple, and if you get the chance you should do the same. It was very sweet and tasty, but the best part about it was its lack of acid! Such a nice treat. A bit further along the road we stopped at Bong Brothers Coffee Co. It was a nice little store with all sorts of organic foods and coffees. And oddly enough their shirts are very popular with the stoner crowd, how odd. (The name came from the owners, brothers whose last names were Bong. Really.)

A few times during our trip we'd seen signs for a food called "malasadas" but we'd never seen the actual food or picked them up. We heard they were some kind of "donut-like" thing, so when we saw a streetside stand, we turned around, parked, and picked up a bag. Yep, they're donuts, alright. Tasty little chunks of fried batter coated in sugar and cinnamon.

We'd snacked on a few different things, but they didn't really add up to make a proper lunch, so we stopped at Pizza Hut. I know, lame, but it sounded really good to us and it was. And it was nice and cool inside -- so much so that after a couple of minutes Julia asked me to get her poncho-scarf-thing from the car to keep her warm.

After lunch we dropped off the snorkeling gear at Snorkel Bob's, which was a sad event because it meant no more snorkeling. Then we went home, showered off, napped, and packed for the trip home. We were a bit bored after packing so we drove down the hill to check out the Border's bookstore for a few minutes and followed that up with a trip to a grocery store for something to drink and some cake. And of course, we followed that up with a little reading and sleep.

Yep, pretty good birthday.