A Tuesday Swell

There's a big piece of public land next to our Hale, the kind where people camp, access a nude beach (beach 67), fish, test their pickup truck’s capabilities, and make bonfires. It’s dry and scrubby, and gets very hot in the middle of the day.  There’s also a section of the Ala Kahaki trail that traverses this land, and it gives us a nice little hike between our Hale and Hapuna Beach, the site of our morning swim. About half of us did the hike this morning, and Heather drove the other half. 

Half of our intrepid group hiked across the lava beds to our morning swim at Hapuna beach.

Ryan McGuckin is our local guide in Hawaii, and he’s been with us from our very first trip here. Ryan is a local lifeguard, which is a bona-fide career in Hawaii, on par with firefighter and EMT. He’s 6’4”, a cracker jack bodyboarder, and often watches over us from his SUP, creating a perfect beacon. This morning he jumped in with us, and brought us to a cave in a cliff on the south end of the beach. WIth a decent swell, it was a lesson in timing to get past a series of boulders and into the cave. Celine was the first one in. We love Celine, she’s thoughtful and kind and totally game. We swam the length of the beach and back, with a side trip to watch some turtles. Fabulous conditions for swimming here today. 

Our Pacific Green Honu friend seemed unphased by the serious tossing we all took at Hapuna, it just kept feeding amid a sand maelstrom at his lava rock buffet.

Another hike across no-man’s land and back to the Hale, where our yoga instructor Amanda was just arriving. We’ve been working with Amanda for a few years, and she has tailored her yoga session for swimmers who have been working hard for 2 days. Lots of stretching and balancing out. We do this on our front lawn, with the waves crashing nearby and the Kiawe trees providing dappled shade, a light breeze blowing. Heavenly. While the yogis dropped into calm, Celine and Miriam went for a donut float at our beach.

Naps ensued. We put lunch out. More naps and reading and sitting on the beach. Our 3pm swim was a tad bumpy, ok very bumpy, but we squeezed some fun out of it by running rocks. This is the big-wave surfer’s exercise where you dive to the bottom in about 10 feet of water, pick up a boulder, and run as far as you can with it. It’s a blast.

Our afternoon swim at Beach 69 was …. sporty.

Having Ryan in the water with us today was a treat. He’s at home in this Pacific, looking out for us, goofing around and introducing us to wildlife all at the same time.

Kyle swims far and fast, but today he stopped to check out the cave and play with us for a minute.

McGuckin sitting atop a lava rock guarding as the last of our swimmers come home.

Having had a good tossing in the Pacific swell today, I think everyone will sleep early and well after whatever master creation Dan and Clare will surprise us with. And we should, because we get an early start tomorrow for a day on a boat down the Kona Coast to two iconic Hawaiian swims.

Tuesday tossed us playfully, and we are hoping for a wildlife filled Wednesday.

Hopper

The punee is the main hangout in our Hale. A perfect place to chill out after a day of bumpy swimming.

A giant cobb salad made from leftovers and team bonding held us until the chefs and mahi mahi arrived.

PS. A very unfortunate road accident closed the highway and delayed Dan and Clare (our amazing chefs) in arriving to make dinner. Hopper started to pull things out of the fridge, and our guests jumped into the evolution of a fantastic pre-dinner salad. Team work tided us over until the chefs arrived and an amazing dinner of mahi mahi was served. Tonight’s group salad was one of those bonding moments that can’t be predicted or planned, but enhances the dynamic of a trip.