Hawaii: more adventures!

So what other fun stuff did we do in Hawaii? LOTS of beaches! 

At the top of our list of beaches to check out was going to the Captain Cook monument, which is known as one of the best, if not THE best, snorkeling spot on the island. You can spend $60/pp to take a boat ride over to this cove, or you can hike 4.5 miles (rt) down to the remote spot. Of course, we chose to hike it and it was quite the experience! 4.5 miles isn't long, but to get there, you have to fight your way through 10-ft tall grass for probably about a mile before descending through some rocky, hot terrain with no shade all the way down to the water. It was quite the long trek going down because the kids were not happy with the hike! Once down there, there's no real beach - just lots of rocky shoreline, and lots of ferrets (mongoose?) just waiting to steal food from you. The snorkeling itself was okay - super clear so lots to see but I think for the effort to get there and how hard it is to get into the water, Two Steps is better. Evie didn't know it but she snorkeled with dolphins while she was out in the water with Scott! And while they were out swimming, Nora and I spied a sea snake on the rocks so that was pretty neat. 

On the way back up, we got caught in a ginormous rain storm. We were completely drenched at the end, and going back through the tall grass fields in the dark/cloudy rain was like being in a horror movie. Nora stuck super close to me throughout. And bummer, in my haste to put our beach blanket over our heads to block the rain, I lost my Maui Jim sunglasses! I only realized it after I got back to the car and while Scott offered to run back to see if he could find them, I can imagine they got eaten up by some weird time warp machine hidden in the grass a la Lost, the TV show.

TALL TALL grass to cut through. This was an "easy" section where there's actually space to move between the grass!

The grass all of a sudden turns into lava rocks.

It started as a beautiful sunny day!

See how clear the water is?

You can't tell, but that is Evie and Scott.

On the way back, we picked Tamarind off the trees and the kids gobbled it up like candy.

Some of the other beaches we went to this time were also pretty good, all for various reasons. The most interesting was the Queen's Bath in Kiholo Bay - it's a lava tube filled with fresh water that you can go swimming in. It seemed a little bit freaky and I didn't have my suit on so didn't go, but everyone else did and can now say they've swam in a lava tube!

We also tried Kua Bay (beautiful but high surf), A-Bay (the kids did swim lessons here!) and Spencer Beach Park (lovely shallow calm waters) as well as went back to our favs like Beach 69 (although it now has a pay parking lot which makes it NOT worth it!), Kahalu'u Beach Park (MUST calmer this time around), Mauna Kea and Mauna Lani.

Kahalu'u Beach Park - this time, it was much calmer!

The kids didn't want to snorkel so instead just played in the shallow areas.

Getting into the Queen's Bath in Kiholo Bay.

There's actually 2 openings into the cave. Here, Evie is about to swim under me to get to the next cave.

This is the other opening into the cave! Apparently, you can swim way deeper in. Scott and Kathy explored a bit but it was too dark they said.

This is right outside the Queens Bath. It's strange that this is the eerie landscape outside and then all of a sudden there's a hole in the ground with cold water!

Back to Beach 69!

Relaxing on the beach.

Spencer Beach Park. SO calm. We saw a turtle, and I saw several colorful needlefish.

It's a State Park so had lots of great places to sit and relax.

And how can I go to Hawaii without talking about the food??? Of course poke was top of the list of must-have eats! I think supermarket poke is actually pretty good there, but I couldn't stop myself from checking out a local poke restaurant and I'm kicking myself now for sticking with my favorite order (spicy ahi and tako) and not having tried their abalone poke! 

Never seen Abalone poke before. 

Evie enjoying her poke bowl. She didn't want to share.

Scott and I shared this one. Huge, right?

We also tried out Surf Burger. No bueno.

Shave ice from Kona Wave Cafe. The syrup is fresh fruit and was super good - quite possibly the best syrup we've ever had on shave ice!

Lastly, how can you have a Hawaiian vacation without a luau? Okay, for sure, these are cheesy and expensive and if you've done one, you've done them all. But, the girls love them and the Wongs had never been so we took the plunge and booked some seats at the nearby Marriot's luau. It was a super nice evening, with surprisingly good food, strong drinks and good entertainment. It was nice that they had some dance performances and the band playing throughout dinner so we had some lovely hawaiian background music to enjoy while we all chatted and ate. The main show came on after dinner and of course, everyone loved the fire dancers! We had to pause the show for about 10 minutes because of a light storm that came through but that made it all the more fun. 

All dressed up in our hawaiian gear!

Cute kiddos

All four smiling and looking at the camera!!

Me and my girls

Kids were so excited to have "free" drinks!

Us adults were happy about the open bar too. 

My "glam" lipstick made an appearance.

Family photo at sunset

Quintessential Hawaiian sunset pic

Beautiful backdrop to the luau

They passed out ponchos when it started to rain. The kids had fun dancing in them.

Fire dancer!

Our trip felt too short even though we were there for almost two weeks! I am glad we were able to take advantage of working remotely and be able to stay extra there and we're already trying to think of whether we can do this even longer next summer. Who's in?