Punalu’u Black Sand Beach

I have been on salt-and-pepper sand beaches before (a mix of volcanic sand and regular beach sand), but never before had I seen anything like this beach, which was pure black volcanic sand.

We stopped and spent a little time here on our way from Kona to Volcano Village. It was the oddest sight, and the sand had a feel to it that is hard to explain, definitely unlike regular sand.

The boys found it fascinating and it took no encouragement for them to explore and dig and play.

And that is the last installment on the highlights from our week on Big Island!

Manini'owali/Kua Bay and swimming with the endangered green sea turtle

This is another installment from our Big Island trip – we spent a morning at Manini'owali/Kua Bay in the Kekaha Kai State Park. I have to say that this is one of the most breathtaking beaches I have ever been on.

Beautiful white sand, turquoise water, black volcanic rock, and as if that wasn’t enough of a reason to hang out there, we also got to go snorkeling with four green sea turtles who happened to be eating off the rocks near the shoreline.

We swam right next to them, they were quite relaxed with our presence, and in fact with the waves we bumped into each other several times as well.

Needless to say we had some rather pleased traveler’s after this visit!

Kayaking and snorkeling in Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park and underwater preserve

We put aside a whole day of our Big Island trip for Kealakekua Bay and I am so glad we did. If you only have 2 days on this island I would say spend one in Kealakekua Bay and one in Volcanoes National Park (although I would more strongly suggest that you not limit your trip to this awesome island to only 2 days! ;) ). But these parts of our trip were undoubtedly the highlights of our week there.

{the bay}

In the morning we rented a kayak, threw all our gear into the wet bag, and set to rowing the 1 1/2 to 2 miles across this beautiful bay. I have to tell you, not a single one of my photos (much to my disappointment) show how absolutely turquoise the water was there. It was gorgeous.

{climbing into the kayak}

We canoed about half way across the bay when met with several pods of very friendly spinner dolphins. They put on quite a show for us, continually leaping up and spinning on their tails. There were also a few too cute babies in the pods who swam so close to our kayak you could reach out to touch them, it is an incredible experience to have these majestic creatures so close and in the wild.

{swimming along side us}

Needless to say, it took no encouragement for the boys to jump in and swim with them. Both boys were in awe and giddy with excitement, and should I point out that I was in awe of the fact that they seemed quite unaffected at the 20-30m depth of the water! The dolphins swam around and under them…and mom so taken with all of this wonder did not get one decent photo of it…at the time I was so absorbed I did not think too much of the camera, but afterwards I was so sad that I did not have my wits about me…oh well…next time! :)

{little Damian watching the dolphins beneath him}

{Ramtin, Rylan, and Mr. Spinner}

After spending a considerable time with the dolphins we continued to kayak to the other side of the bay. At which point you tie your kayak near the Captain Cook Monument, and there under the water is the most gorgeous underwater preserve. Pristine coral and a rainbow of fish. We could have spent all day snorkeling there.

{the area where we snorkeled}

It was a beautiful day. After we kayaked back to the shore, went to the hotel to shower and change, we took our very hungry selves out to a lovely dinner, at a lovely restaurant, and enjoyed talking about all the amazing experiences we had just shared. And not a day has gone by since then that Damian has not reminded me that he swam with dolphins…

An amazing vacation

We are back from an incredible week. We spent the week on the island of Hawaii, Hawaii (more affectionately known as “Big Island”). I cannot even begin to explain how amazing all the experiences were that we had during our time there.

It is a fantastic place to visit, the diversity is quite something to behold, you can go from pristine tropical beaches to lava fields.From snow capped mountains to dessert like terrain, to fern filled rain forests, white sand beaches to black volcanic sand beaches, and waterfalls galore.

I am going to be sharing more details on certain aspects of our trip in future posts, because they were most certainly field trip worthy for our home learning, even if they were in the guise of a holiday! But I will tell you this – we kayaked in the open ocean, swam with wild/free dolphins (they were all around us in the kayak, so we jumped in the water with them), we snorkeled and saw the most beautiful coral and fish, we swam with green sea turtles, hiked through tropical forest, across a volcano crater and through a lava tube, and we witnessed new land being formed while watching the flow of surface lava after dark.

It was a wonderful week that will definitely go down as one of my fondest memories.

And now as an aside…if any of you are planning (or ever plan to) travel to Hawaii the BEST travel guides you can invest in, and they are worth every penny, are Andrew Doughty's ultimate guidebooks.

Beach hiking

Let me just start by saying that all the crafting and homeschooling posts will probably be a little few and far between right now, because, to be honest we are not doing too much of either at the moment (I am embroidering something when watching t.v. at night, which I will share soon...did I mention that I used to have an embroidery business while we lived in Swaziland for four and a half years? I will post on that someday...), now back to the point...what we are doing a lot of is enjoying having "the aunties" here and showing them around the island. This is our first winter in Hawaii, and I have to say it is the best winter I have had in my life! Now, given the fact that I have spent most of my life on the coast of either Africa or Israel, that is saying something! Winter here is, well, basically, summer minus about 2-5 degrees depending on the day. BLISS, I tell you!

So, a couple of days ago we went on this beach hike, but this time we went a little further on the trail. First up that cliff...

That's my little man crossing that cliff edge path (the other "littler" man was safely on my back)!

See the golf course in the background, if you like golf, this is a killer place to play!

So many interesting rock formations, I could photograph them all day!

Daddy helping to rest weary feet!

Two of my favorite people

Two of my favourite people are here visiting us right now, my lovely sister-in-laws. They have come all the way from South Africa, to visit us here in the Aloha State.
A couple of days ago we took them to Oahu for the day. Here are some shots of the island from the air as we were landing.

Pearl Harbor from the air.

You see a whole lot of limos in Honolulu, but this was a first for me, a stretch Hummer!

Walking along Wakiki Beach.

City streets.

Had a wonderful day in this picturesque city!

Back from our break

So, we did a little island hopping, and spent a lovely, long weekend in Oahu, thanks to Hawaiian Airlines' $25 island hopper special, and a generous friend who leant us his car and Waikiki beach front condo! This was the view from the condo:

We did things that we cannot do on our island...which meant no beach trips (yes, that is right, we went to Oahu and didn't go to the beach, because ours are better (if I do say so myself! ;) ). Instead we went to the zoo, museum, and aquarium to satisfy our little animal lover in the form of Rylan! And Damian is now old enough to appreciate all these things too and had a blast! Neither wanted to come home at the end of the weekend, and Rylan made us promise to bring him back before the end of the year, so that we can check out the museum's upcoming exhibit...I am sure you have already guessed it...yes, that's right, DINOSAURS!!!

My three delicious boys enjoying the zoo.

The museum had a great volcano display...being a volcanic island and all...you could walk into a volcanic mountain, slide down a lava tube, and up on top make the lava bubble and boil, and steam pour out; and here Rylan is doing just that.

During the "Hot Spot" presentation Rylan jumped at the opportunity to volunteer as the speaker's assistant in creating a volcanic-like explosion a.k.a wildly shaking a soda bottle and then taking cover as it sprayed up in the air after mentos were added to it.

Damian made his own waves at the museum too.

And on a less explosive note, learning about the gentle art of hula.

My LEGO crazy boys couldn't resist stopping here for a good long while...

Then the aquarium, where Damian giggled in glee at the beautiful fish, and as they swam by he would say "hi" and blow kisses to them. Rylan was like an info sponge with his little audio guide. He listened to all 90 some audio blurbs at the various tanks, in rapt attention...and now, well, now I am hearing a WHOLE lot about fish! :)

We also took a very brief walk down Waikiki's oh-so-posh shopping district.

All in all it was a wonderful getaway. We loved watching the kids enjoy themselves so much and soak up new experiences. Ramtin and I enjoyed the "buzz" of the city where there is always activity and people on the go (mostly happy ones on holiday), but after several days of negotiating too many one-way roads that keep looping to lead you back to where you started and six lanes of bumper to bumper traffic, we were ready to return to our quiet island, and when the plane landed, we both said, "Well, there definitely could be worse places to come home to!".

Island hopping

We are all packed and ready to go (this suitcase has already travelled many laps around the house today, compliments of Damian). Rylan even made up his own little travel journal to record his experiences...

Hope your weekend is wonderful, see you in four days!