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Published: September 17th 2007
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Punalu'u
Beach in front of condo. Oahu. Over labor day weekend, Veronica and I stayed at her friend's beach condo in the small town of Punalu'u, near the North Shore of Oahu. We were walking distance from Kaya's (our favorite shrimp plate place). We ate there daily...yum.
Unfortunately, Veronica had minor surgery on Saturday and was instructed not to go in the ocean for 3 weeks. She managed to stay out of the water over the weekend, so these pictures from Punalu'u were taken when I had to swim around and snorkel by myself, just steps from our weekend condo.
The next weekend, we headed for the Big Island.
Captain James Cook was killed on Hawaiʻi. So it is not confused with the state, the island of Hawai'i is referred to as "The Big Island".
By labor day, we were both unemployed.
Veronica and I already had this trip to The Big Island planned and booked before we lost our jobs. We were going to stay in Kona with her friend, Ashley. He has an apartment within walking distance to town (although we never did walk there).
We arrived Friday evening and master chef, Ashley, met us at the airport, took us
back to his apartment and cooked a great dinner for us while we hung out by the pool. On Saturday, he took us across the north shore of the island to go check out the town of Hawi and look for good beaches and/or fishing places. Veronica slept. It was just too much for this little island girl to take. She would die on a real road trip on the mainland, for sure. We saw a couple of ok beaches. None really great for swimming or snorkeling. I guess the Big Island isn't really known for great beaches. I will go explore the volcanos on my next trip here.
Saturday night we went to a local place to eat dinner. They had a guy playing good music there. Stuff I like, singer/songwriter stuff. A change from the usual island fare of Hawaiian or reggae.
After dinner, Veronica and I took our rental car to Walmart so I could get a bathing suit. Veronica did not bring a suit (since she was still under orders not to enter the ocean) and when she decided that she could no longer resist, we stopped at Walmart and she bought a suit
(on a big sale). Now we were returning so I could take advantage of the clearance sale. Veronica opened the car door when we returned to the parking lot, then screamed, which in turn caused me to scream (this happens all the time when we are swimming at Bellows beach or Man o' war beach, as we call it), which frightened this guy standing next to his car in the space next to us. He moved around and got into his car. I realized she was screaming
because she saw a roach in the car (a frequent occurrence in rental cars here). We drove with the inside lights on after that.
Later, Veronica and I went to the Farm Fair by the old airport. It was typical fair fare with local bands, rides and carnival games and food. There was some local food, but not much. Definitely no malasadas. It was CROWDED. It seemed like the entire side of the island was there. After that we headed to a local bar, Lulu's, to watch all the attempts from people trying to hook up with each other. It was somewhat entertaining. Neither one of us are very big nightlife people.
Punalu'u
right off the beach When we got back in the car, there were lots of baby roaches crawling all over the place. I squished the ones I could and we drove with the interior lights on all the way back to Ashley's, which was less than 2 miles. After we turned into the parking lot, Veronica saw a roach crawling on the dash and screamed, then, of course, I screamed and a lady came running out onto her lanai to see what was happening. It was so funny.
Sunday, we only had a few hours after waking up to hit the beach before we had to get to the airport. Ashley took off early to go fishing and said he would not be back before we left. Veronica knew of a great beach for our level of bodysurfing. It was perfect, albeit, small and somewhat crowded.
All in all, we had a nice, relaxing, Big Island weekend and hated to leave.
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