DATE: Thursday, December 29, 2022

Well, today, we are starting the halfway point in our vacation. It’s crazy to look back and reflect on all that we’ve done this past week and to know that we have just as much to do in this coming week. It’s been a great vacation so far. Once of a lifetime experience.

There is a friend that I’ve kept in contact with over the years who I met during my Navy days, Lacey. She dated one of my good friends at the time, and we all got the chance to hang out often back then. She has grown up on the Big Island and helped me with the planning of our time here, and she wanted to be our hostess today on the leeward side of the island. We also were looking forward to meeting each others’ families.

There were a lot of options for us today, but we decided that snorkeling would be the best one for the whole family, so that would be this afternoon.

We started off the drive north through Hilo. There was a scenic drive that took us along the coast (sort of) through lush green woods. Just beautiful.

We then came up on a small bridge at a waterfall on the Kawainui Stream that was known for jumping off of. Well, naturally, we spent a lot of time here. It was beautiful. Zach and Eli, following a demonstration from a local, finally mustered the courage to jump off the bridge, and Savannah and Seth jumped off a nearby rock. At one point, Seth lost his Apple watch in the water, which was later found by a local they’d been talking to. He then insisted on us giving him money on our way out. This guy seemed really sketchy, and we had our doubts that he just happened to find Seth’s watch at the bottom of a deep pool. Anyway, $10 shorter, it was time to move on.

From there we headed around the north shore on our way down to Waimea where Lacey’s family lives. Along the way, we stopped at Tex’s Drive In for lunch and their world-famous Malasadas, a kind of filled donut with no hole, with your choice of filling (which is the best way I can think to describe it). So good!

We then headed for Waimea, which is on the Kona side, sort of on the northwest part of the island. Beautiful area. We got the chance to meet Lacey and her family. They had obviously done a lot of snorkeling and scuba diving. Their crash course tutorial for us Hoosiers communicated to me that this may be a little more serious than we’d thought. We got our gear sorted, our sunscreen applied, and we were off.

They knew of some spots to snorkel at Puakō Bay, which was about a 1/2 hour away. We followed them to the point we were going to snorkel and settled in, got our gear ready, and we were off. Lacey was tasked with staying behind with Vivian and playing with her in a nearby pool. They had a good time.

*Due to the flurry of activity, I didn’t get too many pictures.

Snorkeling was, shall I say, quite the adventure. The first part of the journey would be to make it past the reef into open waters. Michael, Lacey’s husband, and Asa, their son, were optimistic, but we could kinda tell that they had their doubts about this being a good time based on their experience. That time of day had a low tide, which meant not a lot of water above the reef to swim in, in addition to some pretty serious waves, making it very difficult to make it out to open water. Meagan, with not much swimming experience, even compared to the rest of us, needed a little extra attention. Most of us were riding the struggle bus trying to make it out there. On top of that, there were a black type of sea urchin (I can’t remember the name of them) that lived in the reef, that we were instructed not to touch as they had barbed spikes, which were toxic and very difficult to remove from your skin. They were everywhere! In the end, most of us weren’t able to make it out, unfortunately. Zach and Eli made it along with Asa, and they said the view was very cool. The sea was angry today, my friends.

We headed back to shore to assess the damages, which was a chore in itself. We were all exhausted and needed a moment to catch our breath (meaning, Dad was exhausted and needed several minutes to catch his breath). As soon as we got to shore, Michael noted that it was now calm and that we should try again (joke). It was quite the experience for sure.

Back to Lacey and Michael’s to shower up and for dinner. We really enjoyed getting to know them all, catching up and reminiscing, playing shuffleboard and bochieball (?). Lacey made pasta for us all, enough to send leftovers back with us. We had a great time today.