Mom & Dad's Hawaiian Adventure

This was the day we were going to try our luck at snorkeling in Shark's Cove on the North Shore. Because of the many tourists, we wanted to start out early so we hit Cinnamon's again and headed north on Kamehameha Highway through Kaneohe. Our first stop was at the northern edge of Kaneohe Bay where we mugged for some pictures at Chinaman's Hat (an offshore island)!

Hugging the coastline, we made our way to La'ie where we stopped at another favorite - La'ie Point. This is where we like to watch the waves smash into the hole-in-the-middle island just off shore and also where we take a lot of pictures! There are no offshore reefs in this vicinity, so the waves really pound the rocks and toss up huge splashes! It didn't look like very good snorkeling conditions, but we weren't going to snorkel here anyways...

So, It was on to Shark's Cove! We found a reasonable parking space (which isn't always easy) and toted our gear to the water. Mom stayed on the ledge above to keep watch (she wasn't interested in the cool ocean water). Dad, DeAnna and I trekked down the the rocks and donned our gear. soon, we were in the water watching the myriad of fish among the rocks.

The water was clear and much better than the previous week's adventures in Kauai. Dad was a natural fish (a possible hint of my love for the water). I was glad that dad went out to watch! Although it was a little scary to climb around on the slippery rocks, dad never hesitated. You'd never know that he celebrated his 80th birthday just one week earlier!

I swam around taking lots of underwater pictures and movies like this one of Dad viewing the fish! Doesn't that Billabong Rash Guard Shirt look good on him? (SPF 50+, baby!) Dad saw a large eel along with many colorful fish, but missed the sea turtle!

It was great to be able to get out to Shark's Cove. This is the same place where we saw HUGE waves last year. Mom & Dad were amazed to realize that after seeing the movies of the waves from this blog!

After leaving Shark's Cove, we headed to Haleiwa for a visit to Matsumoto's Shave Ice! It's more than just a snow cone. Hawaiian Shave Ice has vanilla ice cream in the bottom (or optional Japanese Azuki Beans), three flavors on the ice and topped with a coating of sweet condensed milk! Mom & Dad got a Hawaiian (Coconut, Banana and Pineapple). We returned home to relax for the evening. It was so nice to just visit and chat without interruption. Two more days in Hawaii to go!