By Rob LeBeau

Today we beached. We were the best at beaching. They say no one has ever beached better.

We woke up to a rainy morning in Hilo and decided to head across the island to the dry side to fnd some more snorkeling beaches. We first beached at Ohai’ula after getting over our initial trepadition at swimming at the site of King Kamehaneha’s sacrificial shark beach (see Day 6 post). This was a nice family beach with picnics and camping, but the water was rough with almost zero visibility, which made for poor snorkeling conditions.

After a short stay, we headed to our second beach location which was Hapuna Beach. This was the widest sand beach we’ve seen on the island with clear waters, and it was very crowded. We snorkeled up against some lava rocks, but again the water was rough which made it a lot of effort for little return on snorkel sights. We did enjoy sitting in the sun and listening to our audiobooks, at least until I attempted to get out of my chair. Fortunately no alcohol was involved or harmed in this disaster.

Our final sight for the day was the Lava Lava Beach Club (thanks to our Stinky friends Paul and Melinda for the recommendation!). Lava Lava Beach Club has a restaurant and bar right on the ocean sitting next to a public beach. We had a table in the sand at the shoreline where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch with local fish and ube sweet potatoes. We also enjoyed their take on a clam chowder, which included fresh tuna with the clams. We happened to arrive during happy hour, and were able to indulge in some half price mai tais, with me getting a traditional Mai Tai while Betsy got their coconut Mai Tai.

We finished our meal and saw they were playing the FL-Miami game at the bar, so we were able to catch the last quarter of a disappointing game (at least for Betsy). At this time we realized we had about an hour of daylight remaining, so we decided to take one more snorkel outing at the public beach next to the Lava Lava Beach Club. We were fortunate to have made this decision, since it was the best snorkeling of the day with calm, clear waters, and lots of underwater rocks hosting many fish. We also saw two turtles and ended with enough time to watch the sunset.

Overall, it was a nice, relaxing beach day.