Waimea Bay AKA Sunburn Beach

Our first full day at the beach, once the waves settled down, was at Waimea Bay.  It is a big beautiful beach.  It has a pretty quick drop off which makes it great for surfers in the winter.  The drop off is only about 6 or 8 feet maybe so it wasn't too bad for us either.  The day we went, the water was very very calm and clear and the bottom wasn't rocky at all, out in the middle.
We packed up the beach bus a.k.a. Fredrick's suburban,  and headed down the mountain at about 9 a.m.. We were about  the only ones on the whole beach.

It was a little colder than we thought it would be because it was deeper than the last beach we went to, but it was actually perfect temperature as the day went on.

 Matty did not want to come out of the water.  She loved it.  She made friends with strangers, she rode the little waves.  She even learned to time them just right so she could run up the beach to us without getting tripped up by the water.

After an hour or so, Kyle took the two oldest over by the rocks to snorkel.  They saw a lot of fish and two really big sea turtles.  They did great.  They loved the turtles, and they love snorkeling.  Then he came back and got Evan and took him to have a turn.  The water was so clear, that at one point I could see a big black spot, that looked like a rock, about 12 feet out.  Then I realized it was moving and that it was a turtle.  It was a fast turtle though and before we could get the camera he was very far down the beach.  This is a video George took of the turtle by him.

They also saw some great fish, coral, urchins and other good stuff! Apparently he liked the urchins the best...or the urchins were easier to take pics of than the fast moving fish!

They snorkel over behind that big black rock.  If you look closely you can see teenage boys jumping from that rock.  I wouldn't let mine, but asked Preston later, and he said it was safe.  Maybe next time.
They came headed back to our calm middle portion of the beach, where Matty was still as happy as could be playing in the waves.

The boys buried themselves just far enough away from the little yellow shovel that they were really really stuck!

Then the big black dot returned.  I tried to grab the camera and goggles and get out to it, but I was too afraid I was going to miss him, and I was the only one who hadn't seen one yet, so I said screw the camera! and I dove into the sea and chased him down and followed him around for about 5 minutes 'til he swam off.  It was awesome.  The are fantastic creatures.  When I made it back up on the beach Kyle said - I'm really glad you screwed the camera.  As Tyler would say....Let's ruin this moment by taking a picture of it!  I didn't ruin the moment I just swam and watched and it was great.

Oh...spending 4 hours with the Hawaii morning sun beating on your back....no matter the amount of spray on sunscreen you have used, always results in a sunburn and we were all really fried.  We needed a few days off from the beach anyway, but we will definitely be headed back there soon.