Saturday 17 February 2018

Sea Kayaking with Turtles

When you’re living this close to the beach, on a tropical Hawaiian Island, a morning swim is simple obligatory. Got out of bed, pulled on some board shorts and walked into this scene...



After a breakfast back at base, we took the double kayak down to the water and kayaked our to a little island called flat island. 



Either side of the island, the swell was creating some waves that a few paddle boarders were riding. We got up close to the line up, intending to paddle around the island, but it was actually quite rough, so thought better of it. We did surf a few waves on the edge of the main peak which was fun.


  
On the far side of the island, just at the edge of the waves, we stopped paddling to look around at the view. As we were just sitting there, a turtle popped up right next to us! Inquisitively, it came closer to check us out, diving under the kayak and re-appearing at the front on the boat. It stayed a few minutes, the dived down out of sight. Amazing.



Dark clouds had been building through the morning, so we returned to land, rather than continuing to the two larger islands. It was the right decision as started to spot with rain as we walked back upto the house, past some colourful birds.



A short wander took us into town for the afternoon, where we met the guys for lunch. We had to take shelter in a shop on the way during a sudden rain shower, but the temperature remained hot and humid. After a good feed, we strolled the streets and shops of ‘downtown’ Kulina. These bell like flowers hung from the bushes on the sidewalk. 



When it came to walking back home, we waited a while for another shower to pass, as we were only dressed in shorts and t-shirts. When it started to look like it wasn’t going to stop any time soon, I used the last of the loose change I had in my pocked to purchase an umbrella! I didn’t actually have enough money, bit the the shop keeper took pity on us. In any case, after less than a hundred metres, the intensity of the already heavy rain stepped up a notch to full ‘tropical storm mode’, so we returned back to the cover of the shops as the pavements were flooding. We made an emergency call to Jonathan who came to our rescue in the car!





In less than an hour, roads had flooded and even getting out of the car required an ankle deep wade from the car to the front door!



On our phones, we all received a national flood alert!!



Even though it was ‘bad weather’ it was still rather exciting to us. Unable to travel far, we set about sourcing supplies to last us through the night. Helpfully, this was all provided by a nearby Mexican restaurant, where delicious food and an induction into the world of giant (Cadillac) margaritas was given. A fun night was had despite the weather!



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