Tuesday: Turtle Beach and Waimea Bay

Tuesday was one of my very most favorite days of the entire trip.  We started the morning off at Turtle Beach, aptly named for the numerous Green Sea Turtles that like to hang out there.  I was dying to swim with turtles in Hawaii, and this excursion did not disappoint.  Besides the presence of the turtles, though, the beach was absolutely pristine, and not crowded at all.  

It was Doug's day off of work at BYU-H, so he and Heather and their cute twinners joined us, and we took turns snorkeling.  I had gone snorkeling with Heather on Saturday, but the snorkeling at Turtle Beach was so much better.  Adam and I went out first, and it wasn't long before I looked down and saw a giant turtle just a few feet under me.  I surfaced, whispered to Adam, "Turtle!  Right under me!"  and we both went down again.  He was literally just an arms length away, and we just hung out and admired him for a few minutes.  He was beautiful.  Then, he surfaced, right next to Adam.  It was so awesome!  I wished so bad right then that I had an underwater camera.  I didn't though, so you'll just have to trust me that it was incredible.
Later up on the beach, we saw a whole bunch of turtles in the water eating lunch.  Every time a big wave came ashore, we could see eight or nine turtles inside it.

Bryan takes a break from snorkeling

Doug and Heather's cute twins

After we had gotten our fill of turtles for the morning and had some lunch on the beach, we drove about 10 minutes down the coast to a town called Hale'iwa.  There's a shave ice place there named Motsomoto's that we were told was an absolute must-do while we were in O'ahu.  Oh. My. Goodness.  So, they start with ice cream in the bottom, then the shave ice, and finish it with sweetened condensed milk poured over the top.  It was divine.  I could have eaten nothing but that the entire time we were there and been completely happy about it.  The boys loved it, too.  In fact, the rest of the trip, Ty asked about a dozen times a day if we could get another shave ice.  It was really that good.

  

Our last stop before heading back to the house was Waimea Bay, to do some cliff jumping.  While I wasn't terribly interested in that, it was on Adam's Hawaii bucket list.

Once we got there and I watched Adam and Doug jump, I got to thinking.  How often do you get to go to Hawaii, anyway?  And how often do you get the chance to jump off a massive rock into the Pacific Ocean?  I decided to give it a go.  It took me a long time to actually make the jump once I was up there, though.  It may not look all that high from the ground, but from the top it sure seemed like a long way down!

Do you like that it took me like 5 minutes to jump, and it took Adam all of about 2 seconds?  Or that I totally screamed on the way down?  I did it though, and I earned the title of the only female Marchant to make the jump (although I have a feeling that if Susan was there, she might have joined me!).

After we all jumped, we saw this sign:

Oopsie.

I spent the afternoon chilling at the house (blogging) while McKay napped.  Ty and Adam, along with some other members of the family, took a little hike.

Stopping for a drink

Wow.  What a day.  One of my best ever.