October 30: On and In the Water

To paraphrase the naturalist John Muir, "The water is calling and I must go."  

Yesterday we kayaked across the Kealakekua Bay, where the British explorer Captain John Cook landed in 1778, the first known European contact with the Hawaiian Islands.  It was a beautiful morning as we started out and Ben and I were pleased at how quickly the rudiments of kayaking came back to us.  Lotus had kayaked across this very location a few years ago which was a great help in navigating, but Ben and I hadn't managed to do much kayaking since we moved to Colorado and so I was glad that we didn't capsize or otherwise get in trouble.  The folks who rented the boats to us gave us some directions, helped us launch and off we sent.  

It was lovely to be so close to the lovely blue Pacific Ocean. 

Our goal was the Captain Cook monument on the other side of the bay which commemorates the death of the explorer on that site.  It is known for having great snorkeling in the area near it and while we didn't plan to snorkel on this trip we wanted to get there and check it out since we had booked a snorkel tour there for the next day.     

We found that the site was, indeed, very popular for snorkelers, and was crowded enough that we didn't get too close to the monument.  And the wind was picking up so we decided to head back across the bay.    

It was a fun ride, especially since Ben was in the back of our tandem and did most of the hard paddling.  I stuck my oar in whenever it seemed prudent to help navigate the waves, which was made easier by following the lead of a couple other boats going in ahead of us.  

As we approached the rocky beach to come ashore the nice folks who rented to us came out to help each boat disembark, which was tricky because of the waves.  It wasn't until later that I realized that when I got out I'd shook the boat just enough for it to tip Ben right out! 

Doesn't look like he minded it too much, does it? Gotta love that spirit. 

This morning were took a raft tour out to the bay to get our chance to snorkel there.  The raft was fast and fun; look at that water fly! 

We were one of the first arrivals at the Captain Cook monument so it was nicely uncrowded and we had a great time literally hanging in the water ogling lots of interesting and colorful reef fishes. A real treat was seeing a group of spotted eagle rays swimming near the bottom of the bay.  A ray looks like this:   

photo from Defend Them Foundation

After snorkeling we came back on board to enjoy a nice little shower from a hose, a drink of cold water, and and a little snack before setting off on the return ride home. 

 Instead of zooming back we took a more leisurely ride and explored the interesting volcanic rock shoreline.  Captain Mike told us all about lava flows, lava caves and lava tubes.  The two circles shown here in the lava are tubes and you can see some of the differences in color and textures of the types of lava.   

And the water was gorgeous.

Well, it was a great excursion.  Here I am smiling away in my new octopus-inspired sun guard shirt in front of Red Hill, one of the volcanic features along the shoreline.  

And it that wasn't all enough for a great vacation day I'm now watching an Hawaiian Halloween variety show taking place right below our lanai as I type this.   Pretty cool!

Not to mention another beautiful sunset.