Surfing!!!

Today I finally tried something I've been wanting to do for a long time-surfing! I refuse to get in the water in the LA area because it's cold and filthy, but the water in Hawaii is warm and so clean! There's a ton of places to take surfing lessons, but the concierge at our condo complex suggested Maui Wave Riders. I stopped by in the morning at around 9:30a to sign in and wait for the instructor. An older lady showed up a little later with her husband (who was clearly not about to go ride a wave). Turns out they are from New Brunswick and are here with a whole group of people, although she is the only one trying out a surfboard. Our instructor is Sonny. He walks us across the street to where the surfboards are stored and shows us how to carry them to the beach. The first thing we do is learn about the water we'll be in-it's a rocky bottom, but only about 4' to 5' deep so we will be able to stand up. The next thing to learn is the move we'll need to get up on the board. After practicing that a few times, we drag the boards to the water, place the leash on our ankle, get up on the board and start paddling out. Right away I realize that my weakling arms are going to be getting a real workout today! Paddling is hard work and it's 95% of what you do when you surf. We take turns paddling out to where Sonny is, waiting for a proper wave. He sets us up, tells us when to start paddling and gives us a little push to get started. I had a hard time staying up the first couple of times because I kept wanting to look down! When I finally was able to get up, another beginning surfer was heading straight towards me and we crashed. But what an exhilarating feeling, standing on a surfboard riding the waves! Although it's tricky for me to get up and balance, the hard part is really the paddling part. I was able to get up quite a few times, but I was never able to figure out how to sit back down. The water was beautiful, perfect temperatures, clean and clear and I felt totally safe the whole time. I'm going to be super sore tomorrow, but I'm so glad I did this! The company has a guy who takes pictures of you from the beach with a nice long lens, so I have documented evidence of my experience.

After the surfing, I met up with Mei and family to have lunch at Kimo's. We got a nice table on the second floor with a beautiful view over the water. There is a cruise ship docked out there today. The food was great, I had a grilled fish with a delicious sauce. We all shared their famous Hula pie, which is basically a giant mound of vanilla ice cream on a chocolate cookie crust topped with chocolate shell and whipped cream, sitting in a pool of chocolate sauce. We pretty much scarfed it up. The service is a little slow (or perhaps over worked, as there was one server for the entire upstairs) but it was a lovely lunch. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and everyone took a nap. In addition to my arms being sore, my back muscles are as well and I've got rashes on my knees and hips! We planned to have dinner at home today, but first we wanted to research some good snorkeling. The concierge suggested Black Rock, which is just at the next hotel south of us. We head to Whaler's Village to check out equipment rentals, but the shack is closed. This is a really nice mall, and we'll probably be back to do some souvenir and gift shopping, but for now, I picked up a few trinkets for friends.

Dinner is the opah fish we bought at Costco, steak and broccoli from Safeway, plus the various leftovers from our meals here. The kids thought it was the best meal yet!  The opah is a really nice fish, very thick, white mild flavoured meat, excellent with just a seasoning of salt and pepper.

After dinner, I took out my Google Sky Maps on my phone and headed out to see the stars. Although the sky is not all that dark, it's still much darker than LA and I can clearly see the milky way above us. I can also see the constellation Cassiopeia very clearly. There's probably a bunch of other unique constellations that we don't see from North America. I'll have to check them out another night.