#1476 vacation recap day 8: staying close to home

After our epic 12 hour journey around the Big Island the day before, no one was eager to jump in the car and go anywhere. In fact, we all pretty much kept to ourselves for most of the day. I spent the morning at the pool reading and chatting with a Hawaiian family. They were from the Hilo side of the island. I told them I had been over there the day before and they wanted to know what the weather was like. When I told them it had been cloudy and rainy, they nodded and said that is why they vacationed on the Kona side of the island. :)

Our family all got together for lunch and we went to the Macaroni Grill. It was a mistake to go to a chain Italian restaurant. The food was fine, but it just wasn't the right choice. Plus it was very expensive and none of us were very pleased. Oh well.

In the afternoon, MT, Kelly, Denise and I went back to the quiet side of A Bay for some snorkeling. Kelly and MT snorkeled while Denise and I just sat on the sand and chatted and took in the scenery.

The sand there is fine but there are little rocks hiding underneath. It was an absolutely gorgeous day! The sun in Hawaii is hotter than anywhere I have been. The temperature is mild, but the sun beats down on you ferociously. I was slathered in 30 SPF sunscreen all day (50 SPF on my face and on the scar on my knee) and at the end of the day, my skin was quite red. It didn't hurt or burn though. I did put on aloe vera and the redness turned to brown the next day but holy smokes! Thank goodness I had sunscreen on all the time!

The guys got out of the water a little up the beach from us, to my left in the above photo. Their first question was, "Did you guys go look at that turtle?" We hadn't seen it because we were having a nice chat and watching the dudes snorkel. We scrambled up and we could actually see the turtle was very close to where we were sitting.

I took these pics with my beloved iPhone and zoomed in on the turtle. His face and the front part of his body were getting wet with every wave that came in. He sort of had a sad turtle face.

He had enough of the wave action, so he slowly turned himself around and skibbled up a little higher on the beach. I took a video of it, but I can't figure out how to upload it here and it's sideways anyway. I'm still working on my video skills with the beloved iPhone.

There were a couple of things that MT really wanted to do in Hawaii, and one of them was swim with the manta rays. That evening, he, Kelly and Denise drove to Kona to go on the manta ray excursion. They went with Sea Paradise for the excursion. Since I didn't go, I can't say much about it except that the three of them absolutely loved it and said it was the best thing they'd done on the whole vacation. I know that Denise was a little worried about the adventure but she was so happy and excited when they got back and were telling me about it. I was so glad that they had a good experience!

All in all, it was a pretty mellow day. I liked it!