Today we hit the north side of the island. We started at the Kilauea lighthouse, which was a really cool scenic outlook and wildlife refuge. We saw a few seabirds, but the place wasn’t officially open until 10:00 am, so we weren’t able to go inside.

We went to the beach at ‘Anini. (It used to be Wanini, but the “W” on the sign fell off years ago, and people just started calling Anini instead. Funny, huh?) We climbed in a big tree and looked at the water for a few minutes, then we were back in the car.

Our next destination was Queen’s Bath near Princeville. You get there by taking a short hike down to the volcanic rock ledge. Before we left the car, I asked, “Do you think we’ll want our swim suits?” and everyone said no. Then we got down to where the waves wash over the rocks into a pool, we all wanted to get in. We considered skinny dipping, since there weren’t any other people out there, but Brad and I trekked back to the car to get the bag with our swim stuff in it. Once we got our suits on, we had a great time swimming and playing there. We also had the only rain of our whole trip — a very fine and airy sprinkle that felt quite refreshing.

We went to the next beach at Wai’oli and ate some more PB&J’s for lunch. Then we laid out and boogy-boarded some more. The sand at that beach was perfect, with no sticks or shells or rocks to hurt my feet. The waves were really good too — they had gone down since their peak of 50 feet earlier in the week, but they were really good for surfing and boogy-boarding. As we were leaving the beach, I stepped on a bee that stung me. Even after I rinsed it off on the water, the stinger was still in my foot and Sarah had to dig it out. It hurt like heck for several minutes, but eventually it felt better. Still, we all thought that this was our favorite beach of the whole trip.

We saw a couple of cool caves near Ha’ena and Ke’e, then changed back into our regular clothes and headed back home. After a soak in the hot tub, we headed to dinner at the highly-recommended Duke’s restaurant. It was over-priced but tasty, and we left feeling very full.