Hawaii Hiking

We stopped by the local farmers market and bought a variety of local fruits to try. I wasn’t brave enough to try most of them, but everyone else gave it a shot. We learned that passion fruit, though it has a pretty name, is actually a pretty unappealing-looking fruit. They also tried lychee, papaya, fresh pineapples, apple bananas, and a few others. The only one that was universally liked was the apple bananas, which are small like little bananas but have the texture of a banana with a sweeter, apple-like flavor.

Today we drove to the start of the hike for the green sand beach. I guess different areas have different minerals in the water and it makes the beaches different colors. It was a 2.5 mile hike to the beach. It wasn't the easiest hike due to the lava type rocks and it was very hot out. 

The hike was totally worth it once we could see the inlet beach area. Everything here is so beautiful. 

We all hopped into the water to cool off. Robb and Lester tried their hand at snorkeling, while Steph and I relaxed on the sun-warmed rocks, soaking up the rays and drying of

Local people that have off road vehicles offer rides back for $20 so we took them up on that. The ride back was rough and a little scary to say the least. It was better than walking back in wet clothes and shoes filled with sand.

We also visited a spot called 2 Step, which is known for having a public snorkeling area—so named because it's supposed to be just two steps to the water. The waves were a bit rough that day, and I wasn’t feeling very brave. Robb and Lester swam out further and started snorkeling, but I stayed close to the rocks, which, in hindsight, was probably a bad idea. Robb had warned me to swim out farther, as the waves could push you back toward the rocks, but I didn’t listen—and it definitely came back to bite me.

A big wave came through and sent me crashing against the rocks. I scrambled to get out, coughing and sputtering. Not only had I forgotten some of the basics of snorkeling, but my anxiety was higher than I remembered, especially with the mask on. On top of that, the lava rocks left me with a bunch of tiny cuts, and when I stood up, I had little streams of blood running down my legs and arms. It was enough to make me decide I was done with snorkeling for the day.

Lester and Robb had a laugh later, concluding that, while the spot is called 2 Step, we definitely didn’t find the "2 steps" into the water they were referring to. It was a small snorkeling fail, but we didn’t let it stop us. We gave it another go later in the trip.