Last But Not Least

This was our last day but it definitely was not uneventful. We spent the first part of the morning packing and getting checked out. We put our luggage in our car and headed over to Poipu beach for more snorkeling. We stopped by the rental store to get snorkeling gear and noticed a few people with boogie boards. I asked the guy at the rental place about it and he said there was a very good spot to boogie board on the opposite side of the beach. So we also rented boogie boards. (By this time, I gave in and took some cold medicine. I am so glad I did! I felt so much better.) We started out on the snorkeling side of the beach. The water was a bit rougher (I get sea sick very easily) but still very good snorkeling. I did not see a sea turtle but I saw a lot of new fish! My favorite was the Needle Fish. It likes to swim right along the surface of the water so it caught me off guard when I saw it. It's very long and looks just like a needle. Ron and I also saw a Trumpet Fish. I only saw it for a split second though because when I looked up to show Ron I lost sight of it. Then Ron saw one later. I also saw a very huge Blue Crevalle and a Red Parrot Fish which has colors just like a parrot. I did not however see a humu humu nuku nuku apua'a, the state fish of Hawaii :-). There is also a reef fish called a Picasso Triggerfish because of the colors and the design of its scales. I think I saw an eel though, could have been the snowflake moray eel but I'm not sure, the markings were different.

We gave up on the idea of seeing a sea turtle and packed up our stuff and walked over to the boogie board side of the beach. We sat in the sand and watched the pros for a while (mostly kids ranging in age from 8 to 16). It was a perfect little spot to boogie board, even I could see that. The waves were huge though! The kids seemed to be doing fine so we decided to give it a try. I had done some of this sort of thing on a past trip to Hawaii with my family but this was years ago when I was in middle school. It wasn't that hard and we both caught some waves right away. It was really fun. We were bummed that we hadn't tried it sooner. We boogie boarded for a while and then packed up and went back to the hotel pool and lounged in the fresh water for an hour or too.


The boogie boarding kids:

Ron is getting ready to boogie:


That's me on the left! I'm about to catch this huge wave...

Woohooo!


I was laughing the whole way:

Back at the pool:


Ron watched the Ducks game at the pool bar. Then we showered at the spa and got some pupus (a.k.a. appetizers) and watched the sunset. Then we headed to the airport for our red-eye back to the mainland.

The flight home was much better because I was able to score an aisle seat. Ron got an aisle too right behind me in the exit row, a bonus for him because of his long legs. The flight from San Francisco to Portland was nearly empty so we had a very comfortable trip on that plane as well.

Now I'm back at the house working on this blog. The air smells like fall even though the weather is still very warm. Life is back to normal. Although we had a few close calls there were no disasters and the trip was everything I expected, plus. Most of all I loved having a full seven days of one-on-one with Ron. That was the best part.

Cheers!