Final full day

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When in any area, when you want to bird, you might check out the local dump (like we did in Brownsville TX) or the Waste Water Treatment Plant, which we did today. There were dozens of night herons there, including this one who looks like he’s in prison. We went over to the adjacent state park and finally picked up the “Wandering Tattler” – yeah, we made our goal of 20 new lifers. This was a long long park, white sand and then areas of black sand. The tide was high and walking on the sand was quite a workout for the derriere muscles.

After lunch we drove all the way down to Two Step, “just in case.” Nope, the surf was really high – it was scary watching some people trying to get out and getting knocked over. But at last we borrowed the beach chairs and just sat there for a while wishing we could have done it once more! We struck up a conversation with a nice couple, after asking him what it had been like (lots of sediment and movement) -- Miguel is from Majorca, and Hannah from Finland, and now live in Barcelona. They are very experienced snorkelers and scuba divers – highly recommend Sulawesi in Indonesia. On their recommendation we drove into Kailua Kona to swim in a sheltered bay with the turtles, but when we arrived around 3:30 they were just making announcements about the surf being way too strong. So we got another shave ice instead and watched the pick up volley ball game while we ate it.

Off to the same beach park for sunset, and there in the middle of the beach was a HUGE TURTLE. The signs said it was common for these green turtles (way bigger than what we see in Aruba) to come onto the sand and rest.

We hope you flower lovers have enjoyed the photos too.

Dinner was Part Deux of the amazing wasabi ahi poke bowl from Costco (how we will miss this fresh ahi!) and shrimp, with scalloped potatoes microwaved. Yummy.

By the way, during this foray into Hawaii we garnered over 70 new life fish!!! Bet you thought it was 700 from all the photos!

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