Tunnels Beach

The boys left bright and early to go hike a little bit of the Napali Coast.  They hiked to Hanakapi’i beach.  The kids were fairly hiked out by this point, so my Mom and I opted to stay behind and meet the boys at Tunnels beach a little later in the morning.  They said the hike was awesome and that it was so fun to be down on the secluded beach. 



Tunnels beach is up on the North Shore, which meant a long drive for us with the kids.  They were getting restless, so we turned on some music and had a dance party. We sung all our favorite songs as we drove along the beautiful coast line.  Today was the first totally sunny day and Blake said, “Now we’ve seen the REAL Hawaii!” 
There is only a tiny parking lot close to where we wanted to be, so we parked further away thinking it would be no big deal to walk along the sand.  But holy cow—that was tiring!  We were dragging beach chairs, beach bags, snorkel gear and the lunch cooler.  By the time we got to our spot we felt like we had completed a marathon :)

But it was all worth it.  The view, the crystal clear water…ahhhh. And then this quote from Josh.  “Mom, do you know why I like the ocean? Because it’s basically just like a huge toilet.  You can go whenever you want!”
We had a perfect Hawaii day snorkeling, laying on the beach, and playing in the water.  Landon and Halle even saw a Sea Turtle! Landon spotted him first and then Halle Rusty and Blake went searching for it.  Halle got separated from Rusty and Blake as as she was trying to catch up to him the turtle swam right up in front of her.  She was so excited she didn’t stop talking about it all day. 

 
Josh couldn’t quite get the hang of breathing through the snorkel, so Rusty would tow him around on the body board and then he’d just stick his face down in the water to look around.  It was really cute. 
Blake belongs in Hawaii.  He body surfed, snorkeled and laid in the sun with the best of them.  And he cried every single day when it was time to leave the beach. 
We build a “sandman” and took a family photo for our Christmas card.  Here’s a little sneak peak.  Josh and Blake loved destroying him when it was all over.  But one tragedy did occur while we were at Tunnels.  A drowning.  The victim?  My iPhone.  I thought I was doing everything I could to keep her safe.  She was nestled in her waterproof Otterbox case, but that wasn't enough.  Rusty took her snorkeling to capture some pics of the fish, and she swallowed too much water. Apparently "waterproof up to 6 feet under" means something different to Otterbox than it does to me. We tried many methods of resuscitation but none were successful.  RIP, iPhone.
No one wanted to leave Tunnels but we also wanted to go see Queen’s Bath.  So off we went.  We were in for another muddy, slippery hike down to the rocky shoreline.  The snorkeling wasn’t very great, but it was such a unique setting that we are all glad we went.  Our favorite part was when huge waves would crash over the rocks.  We were there to watch the sunset over Bali High.  Stunning.

We hiked back to the car in the dark, which was certainly a unique adventure with all the slippery mud.  Halle is such a little trooper.  She never complains, she is always excited.  That girl is going to be a major adventurer some day. 
After dinner in Hanalei at Chicken in a Barrel we headed back to the condos, content with the memory of our perfect Hawaii day.