Snorkel, Surf, and Relaxation

We went snorkeling the next day as well, but we went just a tad more into the wild this time.  We trekked through a little bit of rainforest to snorkel at Honolua Bay, a secluded bay off of a rocky beach on the north side of Maui.  We saw beautiful and exotic fish, another turtle (extremely close to us) and the biggest school of fish that I have ever seen.

After snorkeling, we headed up to the Nakalele Blowhole in hopes of seeing it, well, blow.  If you look behind Jesse, you will see that the blowhole failed to blow while we were there.  We nonetheless got a fantastic view of the coastline (and you can see my wild island hair!)

After our somewhat unsuccessful excursion, we did something that I have always wanted to do -- get massages on the beach!  That was a real treat.  We had a relaxing evening too, eating lau lau at a local dive and renting a movie.  

Good thing we rested because we were much more active the next day.  We got up early for our couples surfing lesson.  I know what you are thinking.  I am not athletic (that's no secret), but turns out I can actually get up on a board and stay there (on my first try)!  And of course we already knew that Jesse can kill any water sport there is, so he looked amazing.  Despite my abilities on the board, I think I amazed our instructor with how completely useless my little arms are at paddling me out to catch a wave.  I took forever and there were many tortoise and hare jokes because Jesse took less than half the time I did to paddle back out and catch another wave (he towed me a couple times!)  

I have to admit, I am still a little sore from all of that paddling, but I am so glad that I tried surfing!  After a fabulous lunch at Star Noodle (their pork buns are really good), we relaxed on the beach outside of our hotel.  Well, this picture of Jesse laying on the beach didn't last for very long.  We decided that we would burn to a crisp being out in the sun all day and opted for covered beach chairs STAT!  Right before dinner, we were treated to a lovely sunset, the perfect end to our day.