Proverbs Thirty One: Thirty

Yes, I Jennifer Martin went snorkling!  My first attempt (and last) was on our honeymoon off this beautiful beach.  I just freaked out about the whole breathing while your face is under water.  Made me feel claustrophobic.  So I watched my new hubby float around while I tanned on the beach.  He told me I'd have to practice in the bath tub so next time I'd be ready.  So this time, I told Jon I would try but no promises as how it would go.  We went to this spot off Keakolua Bay (I think) where you sit on the edge of a rock and then just hop in to where it drops to like 10 feet.  Kinda scary for me as I am not a super amazing swimmer and don't like putting myself into situations where I might drown.  So I was sitting on the rock getting my gear on and thought I'd sit there for a minute breathing through the snorkel (I almost wrote "tube." I guess there's a name for it :) just to get the rhythm down.  I am totally freaking out just thinking about it and kind of hyperventillating.  Jon encourages me to get in and do the same thing in the water so I can try putting my face in when I'm ready.  I strongly told him that he cannot leave me for a second.  So, with my husband's hand, I get into the water.  Then I really start hyperventillating and freaking out.  Once I was calm enough to just tread and breath in the air (like 5 minutes later of "practicing" breathing) I decide to put my face in.  A couple breaths later I come up and rip the snorkel out of my mouth to try to control myself.  After a couple more tries, I force myself to keep myself under water and hyperventillate down there, all the while gripping Jon's hand.  After a few minutes I realized I can get as much air as I need and my breathing starts to normalize again to a quiet steady rate.  Only then did I start to realize how stinkin' cool this was!  This was a really cool snorkel spot with great reefs and amazing fish!  And, when you swam pretty far out, just past the reef, there was "Aloha" written in the sand with bricks and a picture of a turtle next to it.  We swam all over together...and I never let go of Jon's hand.  So fun!  I was super excited to go again!  And Jon kept telling me how glad he was that I got in with him.  I never even had to practice in the bath tub...just off a 10 foot drop off point in the ocean.  Sweet.

Breyton enjoyed swimming on the little beach area while we snorkeled and Randy walked around photographing it all.  We appreciate the pictures!

This was yesterday.  Before snorkeling, we visited the Kona Coffee plant.  How could an ex-Starbucks barista not?  I put all my coffee tasting skills to use!  And if you ever worked at Starbucks, you know how much they stress coffee tastings!  My word!  They had a ton of coffees to sample, pretty tasty.  I read about what Peaberry coffee is too...because I forgot.  Don't tell Starbucks.  You know how normal coffee beans are halves of beans?  Well, peaberry coffee are rare whole beans and they are supposedly closer to the flower locking in more taste.  Hmm.  There's your education.  We also walked through a lava tube (I had to ask Randy how they form).

Then we visited the painted church.  It has all these cool murals painted on every surface inside.  I don't remember who painted them at the moment but I'm sure you could google it.  Afterward, right next to the snorkel place, in a national park, we went to a sacred king beach area.  I don't know the real name for it.  Randy would be appalled by this posting I think for titles.  They had a ton of turtles floating around in the water at the little beach area.  None of them felt like sunbathing while we were there, just floating around, occasionally coming up for air.

Then off to snorkeling, but you already know that story.  Oh.  Jon did cut his leg on the way out that bled a lot to make it look worse than it was.  My husband, the rugged snorkeler!  I bruised my knee on the way out.  Does that count for anything?  Jon also showed me his skills of snorkel diving.  That is not something I attempted.  I knew I'd end up with two lungs full of nasty salt water.

Today we had a delicious lunch of "Purple Panda" (like Tim Kelleher calls it and has caught on in my brain) or also called Panda Express.  (I usually can't think of the real name after I think of purple panda)  Then we went to a snorkeling spot closer to our resort.  This one you just had to walk out and start swimming.  I did much better today.  No hyperventillating.  This was a little bay area that was much shallower and full of other snorkelers... you could probably stand up most places on the reef if you needed to.  But this place had a ton more variety of fish than yesterdays.  Jon pointed out what we think was a small baracuda.  He said he saw a longer one yesterday.  That guy kinda freaked me out.  I kept a good watch on him and kept my distance.  BUT!  I spotted a big turtle swimming around!  We swam behind and next to him for a good while.  So cool!  They are such relaxed swimmers, just like in Finding Nemo :)  It was a good snorkel day. 

From there we went to swim...in our last resort's pool!  :)  Hey, it's nice and has a great baby pool.  Breyton kept biting his water wing the other day when we were swimming, trying to imitate us blowing it up I think.  But he put a small hole in one of them so Jon had to keep blowing it up today since we hadn't repaired it yet.

Tonight the resort had their welcome Aloha Party.  So there were dancers, singers, refreshments and we each got a real lei.  For Hawaii, they are pretty tight on their lei giving.  They're more than happy to give you a shell necklace though!  I love lei's!

Tonight Jon and I also planned our "activity" for our trip.  Meaning, a paid adventure.  We were trying to decide between a Luau, a sunset dinner cruise, and a snorkel cruise (after I realized I loved snorkeling).  We decided on a sunset dinner cruise.  We decided a Luau would be fun but not sure it would be worth the money.  So, Saturday night we will venture the ocean on a BodyGlove boat for a sunset dinner cruise!  There's a picture of one like the one we'll go on.

So, after all the talk, here are the pictures.
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