There is a beautiful and very popular snorkeling area at the bottom of the hill where we are staying, called Shark's Cove. We can see it from our Lanai. It's protected by a circular wall of large rocks that keep the water in this area relatively calm and flat. However, on some rough days when it's high tide, water comes pouring over these rocks, and I imagine it would make snorkeling here somewhat precarious.
But today is pretty calm so we head out and go snorkeling at Shark's Cove. There are lots of coral reefs here that you have to navigate around, but it's also pretty shallow, so it's relatively easy to do so. And soooo worth it. We saw tons of fish.
But after about 30 minutes, I was shaking cold, so we jumped out and headed East. We stopped at a farmer's market down the road and bought corn, apple bananas (I really love these things! How come we don't have them on the mainland??? And even worse, you can't even pack them in your suitcase and take them home!), papayas, and a cold coconut that we drank the milk straight out of with a straw. Then we crossed the street to an area that says "Private- No Trespassing", but we heard it was a great beach area so we wanted to check it out. As soon as Tommy and I walked through the trees that form an overhead cove, I recognized it immediately from my first time in Hawaii. This place has the most beautiful grouping of Banyon trees I've ever seen. It almost looks magical to me. Last time when I visited this beach, my local friend, Mo, took Mike, Kelly, and I, and we swung from the hanging vines. This time the area was roped off and we later found out that it was because the TV show, Lost, films in there (but we also found out that Turtle Bay wants to expand into this area. Fortunately, the Banyon trees are protected). We checked out the small beach and were tempted to stay, but hopped into the car and drove on.
We then visited the Japanese Temple, which I saw my first time in Hawaii and remembered it being a little more interesting. This time.... not so much. But Tommy and I made it fun.
As we were leaving the Temple, we saw a group of feral pigs running through the graveyard. This was the coolest part of this adventure, I'm sorry to say (I know the locals despise these things because they are very destructive to plants and vegetation, but it was kind of cool to see them running around like wild deer).
the pig in the back had an injured front paw, and he was limping behind the rest of the group
We left the temple and stopped at Kualoa Beach Park. The weather was pretty chilly and rainy at this point, however, this is a beautiful beach (when it's nice out) and sits in front of this huge rock, called China Man's Hat.
Then we went for lunch at a restaurant along Kam Highway called Crouching Lion Inn. The rain was coming down hard at this point, but after hitting 4 beaches the day before, Tommy and I had a few burns that could have used a day indoors. So we took our time at lunch and enjoyed our surroundings (the company wasn't so bad either, ha ha).
After lunch, we drove back to the North Shore and stopped at Pipeline to check out the surfing and the sunset.
Then we headed home and Tommy passed out early (that's what happens when you wake up at 5:30am every morning!)
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