Snorkeling

We slept in this morning until about 6:30AM.  No alarm set, but the beautiful sound of hundreds of chirping birds coupled with a now established early routine had me and the kids bright eyed and bushy tailed earlier than planned.  Pancakes, peaches and coffee to fuel us for the road then we were off.  Instead of taking the Saddle road that goes around the island we went strait up over the mountains between Maunta Loa and Maunta Kea who both had snow on their peaks. 

We were headed over to the Kona side of the island where hopefully it would be warm and condusive to a fun first snorkeling experience for the kids.  Kahalu’u Beach Park was touted in our guidebook as the best place to snorkle with a big reef where beginners and intermediate snorklers alike would have fun. 



As much as I would love to claim that it was love at first sight of a beautiful bright colored fish. That would not be telling the whole story. The kids have not really done any swimming where their heads have gone under in salt water before.  And this whole allowing yourself to breath with your face in the water doesn’t come too naturally either, with some practice, and mask adjusting, and some tears we got it all worked out.  Hannah is not too strong of a swimmer so she panicked a few times and tried to drowned me.  It’s a good thing the water really isn’t that deep.  By the end of the day the big kids had the snorkeling down and were excitedly discussing all the fish they had seen.  Eve got so far as putting her face in the water with the mask and snorkle on and making friends with everyone on our side of the beach.  All in all it was a good and successful day.  We had a late lunch at Costco and headed back over the mountains towards home.