Week 20

Last weekend, Romney and I went to the North Shore with Caleb and Jen. Jen's mom and sister were in town for a week-long visit so we all went to Malaekahana Beach.

There is an island a little bit off-shore called Goat Island. Because the water is fairly shallow, it's possible to walk all the way over to it, without needing to swim. Romney and I had water socks so it wasn't too hard, but Caleb and Jen went barefoot and got a few scraps. Luckily they didn't step on any sea urchins. Most of the time, the water was around our knees or waist and the deepest it got was about up to our chest, before getting shallow again as we approached the island. Here's an aerial view of where we walked. We started at the left point and walked to the nearest point of the island. We guesstimate that it is about 1/2 a mile and it took us 20 or 30 minutes to walk it because it was really rocky and the waves kept pushing us around as if we were in a a washing machine.

After getting to the island, we walked around for a few minutes and then decided to head back since it was getting late in the afternoon. However, as we approached the tip of the island, suddenly a huge Hawaiian Monk Seal started heaving itself out of the water and onto the beach to sunbath in the late afternoon sun. Romney was the first one to see it and gasped out loud, causing the rest of us to look up. It honestly startled all of us as it was so close. To top it off, it beached itself right where we needed to reenter the water and Monk Seals can be very territorial so we didn't want to scare it but we couldn't wait for it to leave as we'd end up spend the night on the island. Instead, we got into the water farther away and walking wide around the beach where it was sun bathing while it kept turning to keep an eye on us. I was really nervous that it would get back into the water and then attack us while knee deep in water. Thank goodness it stayed where it was and it was shallow enough we could walk wide of it and then cross the channel. It was an amazing adventure! We were all devastated that no one had a camera on us since we don't have waterproof cameras. However, we spotted a turtle out in the water where we were sitting on the beach and I was able to capture a few good shots.

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