After an adventurous day yesterday and a late night out (late for us, anyways) getting up early was not what I had in mind. And by early, I mean 8:00 AM. Hey, don’t judge, I’m on vacation! But, we had to get up early because we signed up for a glass bottom boat tour that departed at 9:00 AM.
I’ve been on these types of boats in Catalina before and I wasn’t expecting to see much except for a whole lot of murky water. Fortunately for us, Hawai’i Ocean Sports delivered a much better experience. We ended up seeing a ton of fish, lots of sea cucumbers, two turtles under water, two turtles at the surface and we even saw a manta ray. The kids had a blast and the 30-minute tour was worth every penny. Here are some of the highlights.
After the glass bottom boat tour we hung around on the beach for awhile. The sun was out in full force for the first time all week so we made sure to take advantage of it and soak it all in. The water at the Marriott beach, where we departed for the tour, was so warm – even warmer than the pool at our condo. So, we all indulged for a couple of hours. Afterwards, we headed back to our resort to have lunch at the local bistro. After lunch we decided to head out to the pool for a couple of hours before we had to get ready for the luau that evening. Somehow in that short two-hour span I managed to seriously sprain my ankle going down one of the water slides. Who does that? Me. Seriously. I could barely get out of the pool. This picture doesn’t begin to show how swollen it is but it’s the best I could do.
At 4:30 we headed over to the nearby Marriott Resort to see what I googled as “best luaus in Hawaii“. The Marriott Lu’au was not the best I have ever attended but it wasn’t bad either. The food was pretty good as was the entertainment. The only downside was you sat at a table all night long. I’ve been to Paradise Cove Lu’au on O’ahu and it was much, much better. But, we are on the big island not O’ahu. No matter, we ate, we drank we had a great time.
Here’s the cheesy picture they took as we entered. Violet was still sleepy and visibly grouchy from her nap on the way over.
Here’s a quick slideshow with a few pics of the cutie kiddos while we waited for dinner.
Even Morton got in on the fun with a mai tai of his own. Just kidding, this was Brian’s mai tai.
Here’s the traditional unearthing (literally) of the pig from the underground oven:
And then the real fun began!
Here are some random photos from the night including some more amazing sunsets.
Just when I thought I could post the final sunset picture of the night we came back to the resort to find this on our kitchen counter:
So here it is, the end of another beautiful day in paradise. Today’s sunset:
