Honeymoon: Day 3

After a day of relaxing and recuperating in the sun, we were ready to head out for some excitement on Wednesday. We decided it would be a snorkeling day. We woke up bright and early at 6 am since we hadn't quite adjusted to the time change (Hawaii time was 5 hours behind Illinois). We packed our gear and hit the road due North!

Here is a map of the Garden Isle just to give you some perspective.

Source

As you can see on the map, all of the towns on the island are along the shore, very few roads go through the middle - it's mostly nature. So, you must drive along the coast to get anywhere (I didn't mind the views!). Also, the northwest side of the island houses the Na Pali Coast. There are no roads through this area as it is a preserved state park. If you want to get from the north shore to the west shore, you have to drive all the way along the east and south shores to get there. Because of this, people mainly stay in their own local areas and don't move around the island much, even though it's fairly small. 

Andy and I at a lookout north of Kapa'a town

Our resort was in Lihue, on the southeast side of the island. On Wednesday, we drove up through to Kapa'a town to pick up our snorkel gear at Snorkel Bob's. We then drove up to Hanalei Bay in the middle of the north shore to set up shop. The whole drive was a sight. They have several lookouts on the way to give you a chance to get out of the car and enjoy Hawaii nature. It was SO beautiful! The north shore area was much more rural/natural and the views were out of this world. Lihue is beautiful as well, but it's more industrialized and houses the airport, so I'm excited to stay on the north shore in Princeville when we go back in March (EEK!)

Anywho, here is the view from Hanalei Bay. BE-A-UTIFUL! Any of my silly iPhone pictures just can't do any of the island justice.

Ocean view at Hanalei Bay

Mountain view at Hanalei Bay

I didn't get any photos of us in our snorkel gear, but it was pretty uneventful. Hanalei Bay is shallow throughout, making it easy to see the bottom. There is coral reef here and there, but it's kind of tan in color and not really all that special (in my opinion).  Supposedly there is a certain area with a bunch of sea turtles but we never got there. Andy was kind of into it, but after like half an hour in the water I was ready to move on. So, we drove down to Ke'e beach at the very end of the road. There was absolutely NOWHERE to park, but I popped out of the car just to snap a photo. It was so gorgeous. I wish we could've stayed cause that beach is supposed to have good snorkeling (and it was just plain pretty otherwise).

Ke'e Beach

We then worked our way back to Haena beach.  There was actually a designated parking lot, but we kind of made our own parking spot (seriously the area was packed!) and got burgers and hot dogs at a food stand for lunch. The area is actually a camp ground, so there were tents set up in grass before the beach. Haena was actually supposed to have the best snorkeling of all, but the surf was kind of rough and I didn't feel comfortable with Andy going out there. Plus we didn't see anyone else snorkeling and I was kind of over it by then, so we just sat in the sun. It was great boogie boarding surf and Andy was really bummed we didn't have a board to ride - we'll know for next time! This beach again was heaven. It had the bluest, clearest water I have ever seen.

Haena Beach

We sat in the sun for probably an hour or so. I will mention that the day before (our first real day in the sun), Andy got a little sun burn. He believes it was a reaction from the lotion, but he was pretty red, so I was kind of all over him to keep his shirt on for protection at this beach, since we'd been in the sun a while already. At least he says it wasn't painful! After some time relaxing on the beach, we decided to mosey back to the resort. I napped in the car and woke up to Andy parking at Anini beach. It was a short trip, just to check things out. There were benches on a large grassy area for the public, and parking. There wasn't much sandy area at this beach (in some parts the water butts right up to the grassy area against a rock type wall). This beach had beautiful trees reaching out into the water, with gigantic roots sticking from the ground. Another sight.

Anini Beach

I can't really remember what we did when we got home (this is why I need to document). We might've just had fries and onion rings by the pool.

What I remember about these first few days was being tired all the time. I think it was a mixture of the time change, jet lag, and the craziness from the busy week before. Most nights we were out at 9 pm and up at 6 am (lots of sleep at night, which was great!). Car rides wore me out, and I did enjoy a few naps on the beach. It got better as the week went on, though. Relaxing is what vacation is for, right?