{"id":1681,"date":"2018-02-08T18:40:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T18:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mynerdyfriend.com\/Travel\/?p=545"},"modified":"2018-02-08T18:40:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T18:40:21","slug":"hawaii-day-5-lifes-a-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mynerdyfriend.com\/?p=1681","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii Day 5 – Life’s a Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cruise ship day, so we decided to get out of town…<\/p>\n

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This is not what you want to see parked in the bay.<\/p><\/div>\n

After five days in Hawaii, we FINALLY put on bathing suits and went to the beach! (I know, I know ..) We (“I”) decided to try Manini’owali Beach in Kua Bay, just north of Kona, because it was listed as one of the top 5 beaches on Big Island, described as having Caribbean-like sands and big surf that can get “rough”. Now, I like me a rough surf. In fact, a friend and I spent about an hour body-surfing onto the beach in Maui until we were so tired we could barely stand up. However, the surf at Manini’owali was something else entirely. My friend Chrystal once wrote a blog post describing how at a beach she once got caught in a strong surf near shore and had to be helped out of it by a stranger who noticed she was having trouble standing up. Well, I totally get it. The waves coming in were so strong that they could easily knock you over if you were off-balance, and the beach floor was so uneven that it was hard to be up and balanced again before another wave was roaring in. I tried to follow the example of the beach experts and dive under the waves but the pull of the surf was still really strong. I stayed in the water long enough to get tired from a) being a bit scared and b) fighting the waves. Jeff declined to swim at all, so after we sat around in the sun and I read a bit of my book, I suggested a change of beaches.<\/p>\n

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Post Swim Selfie<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first attempt was Hapuna beach, which hit the top 5 list at Number 1. We headed further north up the cost straight into a bunch of rain, so we u-turned and decided to wing it. We ended up at Kukio Beach, which is accessed through the Four Seasons Resort entrance (you get directed down a side road to a spot with free parking AND a bathroom!) Kukio Beach is not a fabulous swimming beach, because it’s littered with lava outcroppings and the sand is very grainy and rough enough to cut your foot (as I found out). However, the beach is COVERED in green sea turtles who have crawled up out of the ocean to have a nap.<\/p>\n

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There were so many!!<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s also turns out to be a great spot for snorkeling because tons of little tropical fish like to dart around the lava rocks. We didn’t actually have snorkeling gear, but Jeff had a pair of 2X magnifying swim goggles which we shared in order to goggle at the fish.\u00a0Among the other perks – the lava flows break the waves so it’s not terrifying to drift around in the water, the beach is not busy at all, and we saw a whale frolicking out in the ocean.<\/p>\n

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If you look closely, you can see Jeff “swimming”<\/p><\/div>\n

We added two more entries to our animal species list:<\/p>\n