I just got back from an awesome trip to Hawai‘i. We stayed at the Royal Sea Cliff resort on the west side of the big island. We’re still waiting for the underwater pictures to be developed, but I’ve uploaded some of the dry ones Melissa and I took.
On Sunday we arrived at the Kona International Airport and discovered it’s a series of stand-alone buildings, with mostly uncovered walkways. Once checked in, we spent some time at the pool and then went grocery shopping.
We spent Monday driving around the island. Our first stop was at the Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, where we took some pictures of the lava rocks and then went swimming.
Our next stop was the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. We had wanted to drive through the caldera, but most of the drive was closed due to sulfur emissions. We were only able to see it from a distance, but we did get to stand right next to some volcanic steam vents.
We woke up early Tuesday morning to go on an awesome Zip Lining trip. We didn’t take many pictures during the first part of the trip due to heavy rain, but we managed to get a few on the later lines. After the Zip Lining, we drove to a nearby hiking trail and took some pictures, but didn’t make the trek down to the beach.
Wednesday we went to two farmer’s markets and bought some apple bananas and jam, followed by snorkeling. In the water, we had a sea turtle swim near us and we took several pictures with the underwater camera.
On Thursday, we did our Snuba trip and got a taste of what Scuba would be like. We were able to touch an octopus that the guide found and we saw the silhouette of some dolphins. After Snuba, we went boogie boarding at a beach close to the condo and were surprised by some sea turtles enjoying the waves with us. Every few minutes we had to stop boogie boarding to wait for the turtles to swim out of our way.
[No Pictures for Thursday yet...]
Friday morning we bought more jam at the farmer’s market and then went jet skiing. Melissa and I had some trouble staying upright, but we had fun regardless. That afternoon, we went to the Puuhonua O Honaunau (City of Refuge) National Park. There we played with some hermit crabs, took pictures of a few sea turtles, and were briefly followed by a tiger snake moray eel.
Saturday marked the end of our trip with a final drive down the highway and then to the airport. Our plane left Hawaii at 12:30 PM and arrived in Seattle (via SFO) at about 12:50 AM.