We finally made it to Hawaii!  We’ve wanted to go to Hawaii for years but have never made the time until now.  It was great!  Getting there was convoluted since Jenn had to work at the beginning of the week, so we went from SFO to LAX to HNL.  We stayed one night in Honolulu before flying to Kona because flights didn’t work out.

We picked up the rental car after landing in Kona and drove to the condo we rented off VRBO.  The place we got was pretty nice.  The location was fantastic, and toward the end of the trip we enjoyed just sitting by the ocean in the grass.  We got some groceries, got set up in the apartment, then walked into town (Kailua-Kona).  We drove to a few snorkel sites to reconnoiter, but it was getting late and we decided we’d get in the water tomorrow.

The next morning, we got right to it bright and early at two step.  It was about a twenty minute drive south.  Two step was  great because it was very easy to enter the water from the tiered lava.  We brought our shorties and wore them the first day (and off and on through the trip).  The water seemed a little chilly but maybe that’s just because we hadn’t been snorkeling in a while.  The water was super clear and maybe 15′ deep with a gradual slope.

We went to Kahaluu Beach after stopping at Super J’s for lunch.  We tried kalua and laulau pork.  Both were excellent, though I favored the kalua pork.   After lunch we headed to Kahaluu beach.  The water was probably 4′ or 5′ deep!  There were a lot of smaller coral patches (probably due to the popularity of the beach) but the tons of (rather tame) wildlife.  It was easy to get very close to the fish.  Because it was so shallow, many people at this beach don’t even use fins and just enter the water with reef shoes- and end up standing on coral heads.  It was a bit of a bummer to see so many people treat the reef this way.  There were people from the education center at the water’s edge trying to keep people from standing on coral, as well as pointing out the names of fish.  It was a cool program.

The next day we headed back south to Kealakekua.  We saw that many snorkel trips go to the Captain Cook monument, but Jenn and I thought we could easily swim it, so we gave that a go.  That was a mistake.  We got there pretty early and for the whole swim it felt like the water was pushing us back to shore.  It took forever to get there.  We had not worn our shorties in the past year or two, and during the long swim Jenn found hers to be very uncomfortable.  We had hoped the guide books spoke true when they said we would find dolphins and all sorts of magical sea creatures as we crossed the bay.  Sadly, the bay was devoid of interest on the swim across.  When we finally got to the Captain Cook monument, we were supposed to find the best snorkeling on the island, though I think the guide books missed here again.  The reef at the monument was very nice but it was very similar to that which we found at two step or Kahaluu.  After swimming back we ate our packed lunch and went back to Kahaluu.

We swam at Kahaluu early the next morning before heading back to Kona for lunch in a restaurant.  That evening, we went out on a night snorkel with manta rays at Keauhou Bay near the Sheraton hotel.  It was outstanding!  There were a handful of do not miss activities on the Big Island and this was one of them.  Sadly, the photos do no justice.

The next morning we took another snorkel trip, this time to snorkel with dolphins.  Another amazing experience!  We picked up the tour from the same bay as the day before, but this time the boat went north, past the airport.  We probably saw a hundred or more dolphins over the course of the trip.  We hopped in the water and swam by the dolphins as they headed on their way.  Unlike when we snorkeled with dolphins in NZ, these dolphins had a mission and were really not interested in us at all- even when Jenn used her ‘dolphin magnet’ skills.

After several big days in a row, we were pretty beat so we got out of bed late. Eventually we went to Hodl beach, which was immediately beside our condo.  It was quite rough, so getting in and out of the water was a little ugly.  Further, the water wasn’t very clear so there wasn’t much to see at this beach.  I happen to snap a pic of a turtle about ten feet from shore while I was on my way out.  Later, we went to Mauna Kea.  Very near sunset a manta ray swam with us for a moment. This time we didn’t have the tour group or their powerful lights, so we were pretty lucky to spot one.

The next morning we got up super early and drove to the Hilo side of the island.  I did a hike out to the lava flow and Jenn took a helicopter flight over the flow and crater.  The hike wasn’t as bad as it could have been- the week before when I set up the tour it was believed we would have to hike out 4 miles with 1500′ of elevation.  In the end, the lava had picked up speed and the hike was only about 4-5 miles total with very little elevation change.  Hiking out across the lava field was rough enough, though.  The old flows were very uneven and since the lava is half silica, nearly everything had a glass like edge.  I picked up a few stones and they sliced my fingers.  I roasted a marshmallow over molten lava!  I don’t think I was smiling… it was painfully hot.

Jenn took an open door helicopter ride over the crater and past the lava flows.  She saw some pretty neat stuff that I wasn’t able to from the ground.  She saw skylights (open windows in lava tubes), an overview of the flow, peeked into the crater, and even flew by some of the beautiful waterfalls.

The hike to Akaka falls was beautiful even though it rained on us.  Soon, it got dark and it was a long drive back- making it pretty late when we finally went to bed.  The next day we went to the seahorse farm.  This tour was really interesting.  I thought it would be cool to ‘hold’ a seahorse, but it was also very informative.

After the seahorse farm, we stopped for shave ice for one last time.  Gotta love hawaiian shave ice!  We headed back to the mainland the following day.