Day 4

After having our flight delayed we didn't get to bed until 1am. Way too late for this girl. So this day was a slow start in the morning. Once we got moving we had a great time. We started the day grocery shopping. We ate breakfast in the hotel room everyday. One meal a day that was not a million calories. We also booked some excursions before heading out for the day. We headed to Hanalei Bay for surf lessons.

I was set on not surfing for so many reasons. The cost of a lesson, fear of sucking, my lack of flexibility. In the end the instructor was really cute, like really cute, and I knew I would regret it if I let Cyndee and Katie have all the fun. So we hired him but he was kind of in the middle of a lesson so we had a little time to shop and eat lunch. (He was less cute when he was smoking after the lesson)

We did land drills in our lesson first and then we hit the waves. It was super fun. Easily one of my favorite activities of the week. Even after my first in the water attempt, I didn't get up, I knew it was going to be a fun day. I think all of us got up on the 2nd try and then it was just a matter of figuring out how to stay on longer. Cyndee has all those pictures so I will post some later. I was laughing because after the lesson I looked at all the pictures and I was standing straight up. Knees not bent at all and I was like why didn't someone tell me to bend my knees. Cyndee then mentioned that he kept yelling at me to bend my knees. News flash I was concentrating so hard and it was loud, I never heard that feedback. You need to tell me when I am not in motion going away from you. Oh well. Next time I will bend my knees. I only took out one little surfer girl. In my defense she knew what she was doing and I jumped off the board before I ran into her. She was fine but her mom on the beach was less than thrilled. Oops!

After our lesson we got our first taste of Shave Ice. So Yummy.

Then we headed to Secret Beach where there were some Lava Pools right along the beach. Secret Beach was beautiful and it seemed like it really was secret because there were not a lot of people there.

 The beach had awesome sand on the other side of the lava rocks (is that what they are called)

One thing I loved about Hawaii is that a number of tourist spots the locals would put up signs warning you of the danger. On a lot of the signs there were tally marks for the people that had died on that beach. Apparently this beach is crazy in the winter and there were already a number of deaths this year. One problem is people try to get to the Lava Pools in the winter or during high tide.

Cyndee and I made it to the pools but we actually didn't get in because the tide was coming in and the waves were breaking right were we would be sitting. Didn't seem worth it even after we scrambled on rocks for quite a while trying to figure out where they were.
The night wasn't all bad though. There were some locals cliff jumping and so I got to do that. Super fun. Cyndee also has that picture so I may have to post it later.

Oh and I got to watch a sunset.

We always seemed to be in the wrong spot to see the sunset but this night it was perfect. I have to give Jana and Sariah a shout out. They both recommended the books Kauai Revealed and Oahu Revealed. They were awesome. On Kauai everyone kept telling me to download the app for the book when they saw me reading it. The app was $7.99 and I had already bought the book so i didn't buy it. Next time.