Hawaii Halftime Report

Well I’m halfway through my vacation in Hawaii... HALF!! I just got here!! Oh well, It has been a great trip so far. I didn’t think that I would have any internet access while I was here so I had not planned on posting anything, but I have so may pictures I want to share I couldn’t wait!!

It is awesome down here, It has been warm and sunny the whole time. Well, except for today, but that is good because my skin needs a break! Im not used to this much sun!

Basically we have spent much of our time here on the beach, or beaches really, there are so many beaches that there is no way we could hit them all. There are a couple that are within walking distance from our condo and we have spent at least an hour there every day so far.

This is the view from the condo.


Here is a video of my brother doing a bit of body surfing.

Here is my favorite beach picture so far. This is Tunnels Beach on the north shore of Kauai.


An awesome tree at Tunnels Beach.


At most of the beaches there is an offshore reef to snorkel in and we have been picking the beaches to visit based on which ones would provide the best snorkeling. Oh man, I must have been a fish in a former life, I could spend all day in the water swimming around the reef. There are so many different fish swimming around and they are all beautiful. I would have ten times the amount of pictures I do if I had a camera that I could take underwater. I’ve seen turtles, eels, and so many different reef fish that it would take me forever to list them here (I used to have a salt water fish tank that I collected reef fish in, and work in an aquarium store, so I know quite a few species).

Today, for fathers day we took my dad deep sea fishing. We had such a great time! Well, everyone except my brother who had a bit of sea sickness to contend with. Anyway, we left at 5:30 in the morning and headed out in a bit of rough seas which I thought was incredibly fun, but my brother didn’t think so. About half an hour out we hooked our first fish, and it was a big one! It took my dad a good 10 min of fighting to pull it in. Turns out is was a 165 lb yellowfin tuna. HUGE fish, it took three of us to pull it onto the boat. Apparently that is a very rare catch such that the captain did not want to let us hold it up on the dock to take any pictures so that none of the other fishermen would know we caught one. I did get a few pictures of it on the boat before it was put in the cooler.



Also, here is a video of him reeling it in.

The next few hours was filled with a couple of other little (13-14") tuna catches but at the end the captain decided that we had had enough little guys and put the last small tuna on a big hook while it was still alive and threw him back in. About 10 minutes later I was reeling in a 150 lb Marlin!! OH MY GOD, that baby could pull! Without the harness I would have been overboard, it took all of my strength just to hold the rod up!! After about 15 minutes of fighting I finally had him at the boat and we got him in. I was worked! I could not believe how strong it was, I don’t think I would have been able to pull it in on my own, my dad had to help me hold the rod up and the captain helped pull the line in while I reeled.





Next week we are taking a catamaran cruise to Ni'ihau (the forbidden Island) to do some more snorkeling. Last time we were on a boat out there we had a bunch of dolphins jumping along the boat, I hope to see them again and this time I will get some pictures!!

That’s it for now, at a minimum I will write another post with some more pictures when I get home. I am still working on (by working on I mean I've thought about it a lot) a gallery to put up all of my pictures, you only get a select few on the blog.

I guess Ill leave you with one more picture... This was the sunset from outside the condo tonight.


Aloha from Kauai