Farewell to Mary Beth and to her cozy cottage… we had a bit of rain overnight and this morning these lovely chaps came out to see us off and help us with our luggage. These were by far the biggest snails I have ever seen and their shells were quite lovely.

They were being so helpful on the steps that I thought I’d move them into the garden in case they got squished.

We stopped at Haleiwa Bowls for brekky…

Chris had this divine looking bowl…

And I had one of these numbers…. Delish!

I thought it would be easier to hold and drink whilst I drove, but it was a lot thicker than anticipated, so we headed to the beach down the road to eat/drink our breakfast and since it was low tide we had a little walk along the beach and collected a bit of sea glass while we were at it.  Chris found this lovely frangipani and it came of the journey with us, tucked neatly in the air-conditioning vent – it lasted most of the day offering a wonderful aroma each time we blasted the air con.

We stopped off at the turtle beach in the hop that we might see some turtles…. but it was low tide and we deduced that they perhaps wait until it’s high tide so they don’t have to walk over the rocks to get to the sand… we also weren’t sure if turtles have a laying season… it seems that we didn’t really know much about turtles except that they sometimes come up onto this beach – except for today.

I’d think walking up these rocks on your tummy when you only have flippers to pull you along would be awkward and painful.

Next stop was Waimea Bay to check out the surf…. but when we drove around the bend, there were 2 sail boats moored there in the flat calm water – which gives the indication that there was no swell, therefore no surf.  So we moved on up the coast to Pipeline, which was also looking pretty flat…

… except for the odd wave and about 3 surfers trying their best.

Then we were on the road again heading around the island, stopping at little beaches like this when we could.

This is Chris in her happy place…

For good sea glass collecting, one needs a beach with stones and a bit of surf pushing the waves back and forth – bringing in the goods with each wave…. like this glass marble in this photo – that I only noticed when I looked at the photo.  I didn’t see it at the time – damn it!

We did find some lovely pieces though.

Down the coast a little bit and we came to the Chinaman’s Hat.

We were trying to be tricky with our photography and do a bit of panoramic work where one person appears twice in the shot, but somehow this happened…

Here’s another version of how that shot can work…

This side of the island can get a bit blustery so these poor palms get shunted from one side…

Our next bit of master photo trickery is trying to make it look like I was putting the hat on my head – the problem here was that because the glare made it impossible to see what was on the screen – so I think it worked perfectly considering….

There are a couple of little towns on the east coast and it would have been remiss of us not to visit them and have a look around the shops….  Here is Chris modelling the outfit that will be worn by Miss Hawaii in the Miss America Pageant.  Miss Hawaii wants world peace and her perfect date is the 4th of July.

The plan for the afternoon was to head over to Waikiki, drop Chris and the luggage off at our hotel, then I would drop the car off and walk back.  It wasn’t too far away from what we could tell.  I got Chris to set the GPS for me before I drove away, but as I turned onto the street the GPS lady said “You have reached your destination.”  Confused, I took the next turn and tried to find somewhere to pull off the road to enter in the details again, but they took me straight back to the same place – out the front of a hotel with no driveway or a place to stop.  I thought the entrance must be on the other side.  So around the block I went again navigating the one way streets, but all I could see was 4 big tour buses and nowhere for me to stop or pull in.  I was becoming increasingly concerned as I had no WIFI and I knew Chris was waiting for me in the foyer with all the bags.  Around I went again, this time noticing the entrance to the Hyatt was on the side of the building rather than the back, but I was in the wrong lane to pull in there, so around again and this time I made it into drive way.  “Is this the Hertz drop off?” I asked a helpful chap.  “No, but you’re soooo close”, he answered as if he was willing me to get me to guess the location…. but he gave fantastic instructions and away I went again – it turns out that I had passed the driveway to the underground garage with the tiny “Hertz” sign, but it was blocked by 4 big buses!  This whole journey should have taken about 5 minutes, but I turned up back at the hotel over an hour later….. Hertz will be getting a stern letter from me regarding perhaps putting the correct address of their drop off points on their paperwork and website or maybe Theresa could have just given me a map showing me where the drop off was rather than regaling me with stories of her almost international netball career!

Poor Chris had made it up to our room, but had already been down stairs out on the street in search of her long lost cousin.  She was about to go back down to look again when I appeared in the lift being talking at by a Russian lady – in Russian, my obvious confusion and shrugged shoulders did not deter her from babbling on in Russian… I was tired, dishevelled and in need of a drink and a debrief.  The Russian lady walked ahead of us to her room and waved at me before closing her door.  I think we are best friends now – I’m not sure. Chris immediately ordered the drinks and I got to talking about my ordeal…. I was not expecting any of the event of this afternoon.

Just being by the ocean had a wonderful calming effect and once the story had been told, we were able to laugh about it.  What a drama!

Here’s the first of our lovely Waikiki sunsets…

We popped downstairs to the Hula grill for dinner for a small bite including this pineapple creme brûlée.  As our dessert arrived a man who was standing in between our table and the one next to us chatting to the next table’s occupants – he bent over to make chatting easier, but his butt was about 5cms from Chris.  We waited a bit thinking he would realise and move, but he was not aware of his surroundings.  I said, “Excuse me sir, would you like a seat?” motioning to the bench seat next to me.  He said, “Oh, no thank you, I’m fine.”  To which I replied, “That’s great that you’re fine, but your buttocks is nearly joining us for dessert.” He laughed at the word ‘buttocks’, apologised and sat down to finish his conversation.  Eating dessert is so much more relaxing and enjoyable when you don’t have the threat of a stranger’s arse touching it!

Then it was home to get ready for tomorrow.  Chris has a large portion of her family arriving tomorrow, so she needs to be at the ready early…. I say ‘she’ cause I’m going to the beach!