Hawaii Trip Recap - Day 2

Like I always do the first few days of our vacations, I woke up before dawn. Someday this won't happen and it will be amazing.

We didn't really have any concrete plans for this trip, except for late Tuesday, Wednesday night and Thursday morning, so we decided to make Monday a beach day. We packed our cooler, grabbed our condo-provided beach chairs and made our way up the road to get one of the coveted 30 (or 40, depending on who you ask) spots at the Mauna Kea Beach, but by the time we arrived at 9:30 a.m. they were completely gone. From there we decided we'd try Hapuna but on the way there I mentioned Waialea Bay (or Beach 69) which is just down the road from Hapuna and since we always like to visit new beaches we decided to go there instead. I am so utterly thrilled that we did.

First, we got a great spot in the trees on some incredibly fine white sand, and the water was bright turquoise and like glass. After setting up our lounging spot we made our way into the water where we encountered some of the best snorkeling we've ever experienced on any of the Hawaiian islands. I saw lavender tangs which I had never seen before, and a green sea turtle (honu) swam right up to Alan. The water was crystal clear and the coral looked so vibrant and healthy. Unfortunately, my underwater Olympus camera died on our last trip to Kauai so I only bought a waterproof camera at the ABC store that I still need to get developed so I don't have any pictures to share with you of the underwater landscape, but take my word for it that it was stellar. 

A lot of our beach pictures were taken with my iPhone so please excuse the less than stellar quality on some of them.

The wind picked up significantly around 3 p.m. and the water got really choppy so we left to go grocery shopping for dinner where we bought ginger, chicken, mung bean noodles, cucumber and green onion for a meal I started making the last time we were in Hawaii. It's filling and tasty and really great after you've been in the sun all day. I imagine we must have ended the night reading before falling asleep super early but anything after eating is all a blur to me.