Hawaii 2009: Day 10

Crazy huh? Ten days. Yeah, baby.
Judy and Barb really wanted to see some of Hawai`i’s green sea turtles. L and I had seen a couple in the water at the Place of Refuge, but Barb and Judy weren’t with us that day and we hadn’t seen any the day we snorkeled. They were leaving tonight so it was now or never time. I tagged along while L stayed and read.
We met their friends Mary and Jess for breakfast then followed them to a little side road down a residential street until we got to the telephone pole number 120. (The telephone poles on the street all had numbers. I don’t know if all Hawai`ian poles are numbered or not.) There was a vacant lot that turned out to be a beach access. I don’t remember the name of this beach but the truth is, I could just grab a handful of vowels, toss in a few p’s, h’s, m’s, a couple “, and an l or two, scramble them together and you wouldn’t know the dif. So for now, we’ll just keep it our little secret at pole 120. We grabbed our gear and walked in. It wasn’t a great swimming beach, rocky, evidence of a past lava flow, a little sand here and there. We walked to the water’s edge. In only a couple minutes Mary spotted the first turtle, then two, then five. Jack pot! We watched, Barb and Judy transfixed, I wandered a little farther down the beach and there were more. I lost count. I believe officially there were skads (by definition a skad is more than a dozen and less than 100). There must have been a notice posted in Turtleville that morning: Free Buffet at the Beach Today. One big guy (maybe gal) was in a pool munching away at whatever it is that turtles much. A wave would catch him/her, and it would float back and continued munching. It was oblivious to being watched. I watched, took some pictures and video with my iPhone then waved to B and J and they came over. Barb was especially mesmerized. She got out her video camera and shot for at least 30 minutes, then shot stills, then more video. I think she would still be there but we finally convinced her that we couldn’t snorkel at this beach, the rough surf and jagged shoreline was less than inviting. It was fascinating to be to such creatures in their own environment and be close enough to touch – but we didn’t because that is illegal.
After an hour or more of turtle watching, we went about 2 miles north to another beach. The white sand beach was the most crowded I’d seen on this trip, maybe 50 people lazing on the beach or in the water. We took turns snorkeling (we only brought gear for 2 and there were 5 of us). There was a coral reef less than 50 feet of shore and a very decent number of fish to watch, some pretty good sized, but no camera this time so we’ll leave it to imagination and I feel I have made you jealous enough at this point. No reason to rub it in. The water was nicely warm, the sun hot. Time flew. About 1:00, we had to go back so B and J could get their packing done.
L had spent the morning at the Hilton resort, not the condo, so we picked him up on the return, dropped B and J off at their condo and continued to ours. I went to the pool to get a little more relaxing in, L joined for a bit. Before you knew it, the day was mostly gone. We went to a nice little restaurant nearby called Roy’s, had a delicious meal, then took the cousins to the airport, all the while knowing it would be our turn to go tomorrow. Alas.
This is short but your eyes are probably still bleeding from yesterday’s saga so we’ll leave it at that.
(for some reason, I can’t find the turtle photos so will upload them later)