As we were planning our trip we were trying to decide what activities we wanted to do. Should we dive with sharks, learn how to surf, take hula lessons (yeah right), swim with dolphins, go parasailing, the list goes on and on. What we finally decided on was to go kayaking. I found the place we wanted to go to and they did a 4hr. guided tour. That's what I wanted. I wasn't getting warm fuzzies about renting a kayak and then going off into the big wave filled ocean on our own. We called the night before and they had plenty of spots open for the guided tour.
As luck would have it between 5pm the night before and 9am the next morning a tour group called and took up all the spots in the guided tour. UGH! I was so sad. In my head I was trying to rearrange our schedule so we could come back the next day. In Jason's head he was getting all excited about going into the ocean without a guide. It took some serious talking into and some reassurance by one of the guides that I wouldn't drown before I finally consented to renting a kayak and going out on our own.
Our plan was to kayak to Flat Island (a bird sanctuary) and then over to the Mokulua Islands (where the Queen's bath tide pool is) and then kayak to Lanikai beach and back to Kailua beach where we started from. Can you see why I wanted a guide! The guided tour came with lunch and we were planning on that so we didn't bring a lunch with us. We had to take a little stroll to the tiny market down the street where we bought Lunchables, Gatorade, and beef jerky. After paying to rent the kayak for the day and adding in backrests (wouldn't have been happy without them) and a dry pack (keep my camera and lunch nice and dry) they sent us to the back of their run down shack of a store to watch the informational video. This part was really important seeing as how I was really scared but as you can see from the above picture it wasn't the fanciest of set ups. The sun was glaring on the screen so I could hardly see the path it said NOT to take to get to the islands. Then the background music was so loud I couldn't hear the directions it was giving. It reminded me of the movie Nemo where they are getting ready to leave the current thing and the small turtle is giving directions and Marlin says that he knows he's saying something important but he doesn't know what (or something like that).
Assuming that we are sufficiently prepared they give us lifejackets, put our kayak on some wheels, and send us on our way. Already being nervous you can see that I put my lifejacket on right away. We (Jason) had to pull our kayak a block to a canal where we got in and floated under a bridge and to Kailua beach where we made our official launch.
I didn't die and it actually wasn't even too scary. We were to Flat Island in 10 or 15 min. and it was really flat.
This is a picture of the birds that live there. The whole island had lots of big deep holes in the rocks and we could only walk around the outside of the island. At this point I started to realize that my not feeling well the day before was due to the fact that I was coming down with a cold. :(
This picture is of us on Flat Island with the Mokulua Islands that we were kayaking to next in the background. Lanikai beach is to the right between Flat and the Mokulua Islands.
There was another couple out in the water with us and she had a waterproof camera and took these pictures of us and then emailed them to us when we got home. So nice.
We luckily landed on the Mokulua Island in-between tour groups and had it mostly to ourselves. We were SUPER glad we didn't do the guided tour. It was so much fun being on our own and wasn't scary at all like I thought it would be. Oh, and it was way cheaper.


This is Queen's Bath where they say the queen of Hawaii used to come to bathe (hence the name). It's a big ole tide pool that is super salty.
We had ourselves a little snack before heading over to Lanikai. It was BEAUTIFUL. The water was the prettiest clear/blue green color. The sand was so soft. My warm Lunchable was so slimy yet delicious! We did a little snorkeling here but it wasn't long before I was worn out (darn cold). In all we kayaked about 5miles. After returning the kayak we got a shaved ice with sweet and condensed milk and ice cream.
We had checked out of our other hotel that morning so when we got back from kayaking we checked into our new hotel. They offered to upgrade our room for free and we ended up on the 2nd to top floor with an ocean view of Waikiki. It was unreal!
I wanted to die by now. I was so tired. We had made plans to have dinner with some friends who also happened to be in Hawaii and I was really looking forward to seeing them so I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and took a lot of ibuprofen.
We met John and Melissa at the Hard Rock Cafe and after dinner we walked back to the beach because there was a firework show by our hotel.

I {heart} fireworks

The fabulous view from our room that night.
I was exhausted.
3 comments:
I am all caught up on your life. What fun and cute boys you have! I am glad you had some fun in Hawaii, even with the cold.
Sounds awesome! Well - except the being sick part:(
Another trip to Hawaii!!! How fun! I was catching up and am super impressed with both of your classroom doors (teacher appreciation and red ribbon week). I also noticed your new living room furniture. It looks great! I looked back through to see if you had pictures, and noticed that you've had it for a few months at least.
Of course, all of your boys are so cute :)
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