Let's Do This...: sum-sum-summa tyme!

Craaazy busy, amazingly amazing summer recap outline: Meegain and Kaley visited for 2 weeks, then I went to AL for 2 weeks, then two weeks of brothers: Goose's bro and his wife came to Kauai for a week, followed by my brother, Phil, and his gf. Then I beed lazy for a week or so, and headed out to Cali for a week with Gbird and kiddos! Whew! Other pertenent news: Veebert left us to live on the east coast :''''''( , we hired a new mathie - yet to be nicknamed, and I got an iPad :) !

The deets, Part I:

Meegain and Kaley showed up for a 2 week visit the day after graduation. We went to a bunch of beaches where I became an even more GOLDen peoples of Ha-VEI-ee, hiked (I'm a pro now, remember), and visited the Big Island.

The Big Island is the island of Hawaii - the state is actually a string of 8 islands, 4 "major" ones. Hawaii has an island of Hawaii just like how NY has a city of New York.

For all 4 of us, it was our first time on the BI. We covered a lotta ground in our 4 day visit - the island is over 90 miles across... but of course, you can't drive directly across, there's only one "cross road." To drive along the coast from Kona to Hilo, from one airplane to the other on the map below, takes about 2.5 hrs.

The claim to fame of the BI is the volcanoes - where you can usually see flowing lava. (Surely I don't have to explain the significance of the itallics.) What we did see was pretty cool, I guess.

kidding - this is a pic of a pic in the Volcanoes Museum. But this is what I was hoping to see:(

What we actually saw - lava glow.
It was cool, and got brighter as the sky darkened, but it was pretty far off.

dried lava... good thing they closed that road!

Snorkeling with the giant manta rays completely made up for the lack of lava flow! If you ever have the chance, do it! Even though you have to pay $70 for a 10 minute boat ride to the manta ray hangout and a cup of hot chocolate... it's worth it!

Oh, I guess you're paying for the rental of this awesome spidey-suit too!
The ocean is kinda chilly at night.

The manta rays eat plankton, which are attracted to light... so at night, a group of manta-enthusiasts shine huge lights from the bottom of the ocean, maybe 50 yds down, to attract the manta rays. Lots of charter boat companies bring snorkelers and scuba divers out to see the spectacle. Note: This is a must-watch video! The manta rays have not been trained to do this - it's just how they eat dinner ;)

This particular manta is named Choe - she's easily

recognized because she's missing half of her mouth:(

the pics didn't turn out too great... video is much better.

Did I mention they have a 14-20 ft wing span!?!? Beautiful gentle giants!

Kauai snorkeling is spectacular, but BI snorkeling is the best I've ever seen!
We also snorkeled at: (bear with me - documenting for future reference)

Kahalu'u Beach in Kona - easy snorkeling, lots of pretty fish and turtles, black large grain sand (p. 64 167 in Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed)
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau (aka Two Step) in Kona - pretty fish, great underwater landscape, saw an Eagle Ray, and heard that sometimes you can swim with dolphins here just outside and to the right of the reef, we didn't see dolphins tho. (p. 73)
Wai'opau Ponds in Puna - several interconnected tide pools, beautiful! Like a bunch of Queen's Baths right next to each other! Unfortunately the Goose broke our much beloved ocean/snow/drop-proof camera here:( And by that, I mean water got in it and finally made it stop working. Thus, the rest of the summer pics are from my phone - which isn't bad, but it's no Lumix... (We will probably be getting the newer model Lumix - yes, the last one broke... but after 3 very faithful years and oodles of priceless pics!)

Other highlights of Meegain and Kaley's trip: we saw black sand beaches on BI, ate gallons of shave ice with icecream and snowcap, we all read Harry Potter, and we discovered a supa fly beach here on Kauai - Hideaways.