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Published: September 9th 2023
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Friday? Yep. After our hearty breakfast of bacon-flavored Spam and eggs we got to the beach inside the Mauna Lani fancy hotel area, where we had to ask for a pass – 3 more spaces only. It was PERFECT – hardly any waves, and excellent visibility.
We saw a WHITE TIPPED REEF SHARK (moves too fast for photo). And a rare (though we see them all the time in Aruba) Flying Gunard. What a wonderful way to spend 2 hours. We saw a man coming in with a bag full of golf balls so just for fun we went searching for one – and found it!
I sat out for about 20 minutes with an interesting man named Steve from Rochester NY, who says he runs a national TV show on hunting. We’ll have to “hunt” him down. We did have some fun conversations, including that he said his wife saw some spinner dolphins, but someone else told her it was probably monk seals. Seeing monk seals leap out of the ocean and spin would be like seeing me do something like that. Unlikely!!! And then, because he’s so into hunting, he pointed to the heights in the N
part of HI and said that good hunting is carried out up there on the Parker Ranch: deer, boar, etc. and 3 types of sheep and feral cows. I said, I’m sorry, we just rewatched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the attack rabbit, and can’t imagine sheep or cows being very vicious without thinking of that.
After we changed into dry clothes we headed north for some birding, stopping first in a town for some lunch. Great poke bowl to share, and then off to a lovely ocean-side park to eat it. Boy it was windy there, but very interesting historically (a village used to be there).
Then to the end of the road to overview the valley. So, in effect, we were about 5 miles to the west of the valley we had looked over the other day. It only took some young French folks 13 minutes to do one-way, so guess we could have done it, but we were mostly looking for birds and it was quite hot by that time. We never did find the suggested point of land for birding, but David DID finally capture a great photo of a tropic bird
for our NEW list.
Back to the nest pretty early by our standards, so we even had time to walk down the street a bit to watch the sunset. Not so amazing as the past 2 days though. Oh well.
Wonderful dinner of – surprise – fresh barely seared ahi and the rice/corn mixture. We have to enjoy it while we can. We were told it was caught earlier today. Yum.
In general we want to comment on how dry it is in the North portion of the island. Evidently they have 6” a year average, because Mauna Kea creates a desert on this side. We saw a sign at a ranch thanking the firefighters for saving their ranch. We have done great with not burning – mostly because we snorkel in the morning and with rash guards – but both of us must have gotten some water in the ears because laying down and standing up causes the room to spin.
PS. Here we are in paradise and you want to know more about the car locking issue!!!??? The electronic key was double beeping, and then when David checked the door handle, it was open.
It wouldn't lock. Well, duh, when the key is in your hand, every new car door opens for you without hitting the open button on the fob. In fact, we returned our new Kia to the dealer onc, saying the trunk wouldn't lock. So we should have suspected this same reason.
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