Tuesday

Our day finished with chocolate chip cookies, under the moonlight, waves crashing in Waimea Bay just yards from our table. It started with a morning swim in that same bay. Now I just have to fill in the middle.

Heather held her breath and took video of all of our guests’ swimming strokes. I’ll review these with each guest individually, recording the video session with a new app called Coach’s Eye. The whole video session is recorded with our conversation and my digital markups overlaid on the video. It’s pretty slick and a new addition to our trips.

The water was a lot clearer today, as the swell has subsided. We did a lap around the little lava island at the other end of the beach, were greeted by a pufferfish and a lot of Black Durgin. We’ve been seeing a lot of these guys in the Caribbean lately, as well. We’re getting comfortable in Waimea Bay, our home swimming spot. It has a lot to offer with a tall coral formation on one side, great views of Mauna Kea, and of course the white sand beach.

We hopped out, I raked the lawn, and Amanda our Yoga instructor arrived. This is our second year with her, and once again she’s done her homework on the kind of stretching and strengthening that swimmers can use. She gets right to work, focusing a lot on our upper bodies. A noisy landscaping crew showed up in the middle of our session to work on some adjacent properties, but Amanda had us use it as an opportunity to sharpen our focus on the task at hand rather than get distracted. Lemonade from lemons.

I rolled up my yoga mat and immediately lit the charcoal in the barbeque grill for a burger and dog lunch with macaroni salad. The day seemed to speed up a bit as we packed up for a trip to Kona for our outrigger tours. We split into two groups, one swimming a portion of the ironman course, the other group paddling an outrigger canoe out in the bay. By this time of day, school is letting out, and hundreds of kids hop in outrigger canoes to train, but also to goof around. It’s a wild, adorable scene. Both groups spied some spinner dolphins, and the views back to Kona were exquisite.

Back at Treadwell House, Clair had popped some Huli Huli chicken in the oven for us, which paired nicely with a medium bodied italian red wine. We’re getting up early tomorrow for our boat trip to Kealakekua Bay, so lights out gang!

Hopper