Final entry

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Well, all good things have to come to an end. All bad things do too, but we won’t worry about that.

Today was a magnificent THREE hour snorkel at Two-step, which really has such a wide-ranging variety of environments that even today we picked up two NEW FISH. Plus, with our new Scuba Fish Hawaii app, we’ve been realizing that some taken in the past need renaming. So we are concluding that we have found 20 new fish. (and because we found the parrots this afternoon, 10 new birds).

After that 3 hours, we had a lovely hour chatting to friend Pam again, and a new friend who also was traveling alone. We all enjoyed the ice creams sold on the corner, and had a few rambutans for lunch. We “saved” a few families from killing themselves on the rough entrances, and in fact we came out once again through the baby area of the boat harbor when the tide was much higher (when it’s higher it’s really hard to enter even at the recommended two-step spot).

We did a very hot visit to the National historical park to find the elusive parrots (they fly out over our AirBnB every morning, and back every evening, but who can ever be ready?) Last visit to Costco for gas (did we mention gas is about $5.05 if not at Costco where it’s 4.79). Had our last bit of tender fresh ahi as a starter tonight. Sure will miss that.

BTW, as we were wrapping up our running and returning to the AirBnB, someone pointed out that the cloud which we usually do see hanging on this mountain behind us was not the usual but "vog," the volcanic ash from the Sunday-starting eruption by Kilauea, which is at the southern part of the Big Island. It can irritate eyes and lungs, so good tiime to leave.

So, now we are sadly packing up, and it will be a challenge. Hopefully the snorkel booties will dry out enough overnight. We have a hotel in Columbus tomorrow night after a long day of travel. And arrive home as soon as we can on Thursday. (with getting used to the 6 hour time difference it might indeed be hard to wake up with the birds on Thursday morning!!)

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