Saturday brought more glorious sunshine and more island adventure. After fueling ourselves with pancakes the size of vinyl records at Kountry Kitchen, we grabbed some gear from Snorkel Bob’s and headed to the North Shore to check out Kauai’s aquatic life. Our first stop was Tunnels Beach, and wowsers! Such smooth, yellow sand, such rugged, green mountains in the distance, and the fish! Purple and yellow and polka dots and stripes. It was like floating through one giant, coral-bottomed aquarium.
We left the beach when we felt our backs starting to burn and grabbed sandwiches and iced tea on the patio of a cute little cafe in Hanalei.  But we still weren’t ready to part with our snorkel gear, so we drove over to Anini Beach after lunch to see what its reef had to offer. The water there was super-shallow and a little murky, so I was ready to call it quits after 30 minutes. But thank God Shane is more patient than I am – just as I was heading for shore, he popped his head up and waved me over. He had discovered a sea turtle just five feet away, lazily snacking on goodies from the ocean floor, then flipping up to the surface every so often to take a breath. Seriously, swimming with turtles…how dreamy is that?  Our little friend eventually swam away, and we ditched our masks to just sit in the water for awhile, chatting and squishing the sand between our toes.
All our ocean time had tuckered us out, so we headed back to our hotel from Anini. Â But first, one very important stop: shave ice from Hee Fat General Store in Kapaa! Upon that first ultra-fluffy bite, we believed this place had Jo Jo’s beat, but the ice melted too quickly and left us with a cup of syrupy water in the end. Â So the jury’s still out…
Once we had washed the sand from our bodies and lounged for awhile in the hotel’s plush bathrobes, we headed back out to catch the sunset at Sprouting Horn Beach. Â Between the fish and the shave ice syrup and the pink, golden skies, I don’t know that I’d ever spent a day rich with so much color.
Tacos for dinner and ahhhhhhh, another lovely day had come to a close. Â I was officially head over heels for Hawaii.