Lagoon swimming, Coffee drinking and Stargazing

The morning began with bright sunshine, so it was clear that the early part of the day would take advantage of this and be used for lounging about out by the lagoon. What lagoon, you say? Well, that's one of the few perks of this place is that the hotel has clearly taken advantage of a space that looks to be both natural and manmade turned it into a beautiful little lagoon that is sheltered from the pounding, Hawaiian waves by a lava rock retaining wall.

Before the lagoon, however, would come breakfast. The smoothies that I mentioned the day before, is the same shop we went back to for some breakfast bowls. These bowls are positively fantastic. It's basically a acai berry smoothie (non dairy) in a bowl topped with different kinds of grains, nuts and fresh fruit. Perfect for this hot, humid clime.

After breakfast came wading in the lagoon and sunbathing on the manmade beach. It was rather pleasant since there weren't lots of people and to my delight I discovered that the water of the lagoon was home to many types of different fish. I might not be able to see them underwater, but I could stand amid some rocks and let them get used to me and swim within arm's length. One in particular seemed to follow me as I walked from one end to the other. This little saddle wrasse was a beautiful combination of orange, blue and green. The only other fish I could identify were yellowstripe goatfish, sergeant majors and some sort of butterflyfish. Later, we discovered that there was also a small green sea turtle that was stuck in a portion of the lagoon due to it being low tide. In my hopes to snap a better photo, I managed to score myself a long, deep cut on my little toe. I know better than to be messing around the slippery rocks in bare feet. I was just lucky I didn't end up kicking a sea urchin instead.

After lunch at Bongo Ben's across the street (usual tourist trap type location), we decided to head up to Hula Daddy's Coffee Planation. The place has rave reviews on Tripadvisor and after visiting, it's easy to see why. It's a beautiful open building that gives you a wonderful view of rows upon rows of coffee trees. We sampled two different kinds of coffee, Fancy Medium Roast and Dark Roast, while we waited for the tour to start. The Fancy Medium Roast completely shattered my conception of what coffee should taste like. I'm not a coffee drinker by any means, but this coffee... this is something different. It's easy to see why coffee from this planation has raised the bar for all 100% Kona Coffee. Outstanding.

So, the tour. At first it was just us and then we were joined by another couple, which makes it my kind of tour experience. We were given an explanation of how the coffee beans were picked and sorted, got to see the orchard and coffee cherries up close and see the machine that does all the roasting in action. Now, there's so much I could explain about what I learned about coffee that day. Maybe I should write it down so I don't forget but that would make this post twice as long. Needless to say, both my Mom and I purchased some coffee and left with glows on our faces about what a wonderful and personable experience that was.

As we were leaving the planation, we made a fairly quick and spontaneous decision to drive two hours up to Mauna Kea to visit the observatory. We went back to the hotel to grab some cool weather clothing and were on our way. Now, I feel like I have to mention that the drive up was one of the most difficult I've ever experienced. Worst than almost burning through my brake pads coming out of Death Valley, driving the serpentine curves of Mesa Verde with their steep drop offs or driving the roads of the Coromandel Peninsula on the North Island of New Zealand where the curves were so frequent and winding that I made myself carsick (I was driving!). This drive was more of the ever present winding curves and small, rolling hills that made it feel a little like a roller coaster except it was all done in fog that was might as well have been out of Stephan King's The Mist because it was so dense. We almost turned around because I was beginning to crawl out of my skin not being able to see more than a few feet in front of me for miles but I wanted to privilege of being able to say that I made it through that.

We made it up to the visitor's center right around sunset and immediately hiked to a nearby peak to watch the sun sink below the hills beyond. As it did, the cloud layers receded with it and we walked back to the visitor's center for wait for a stargazing tour. While we did, we peered through telescopes at the moon and saturn. It was unfortunate that the moon was still in the sky when the tour started she was acting like a big headlight in the sky to wash out many of the constellations. The tour was informative as this spot is apparently one of the best stargazing skies in the world. However, the experience was somewhat marred for me with people chattering loudly in the back, making it difficult to hear what was being said and people turning on their cars to leave and flooding the area with their headlights, which simply ruins your night vision. Still, it was nice to see the stars at 9,000+ feet on a very cool evening and be able to once again lay my eyes upon my beloved Southern Cross which was just cresting over the horizon as we were leaving.