Westside Once Again
Hey everyone,
Yes, as the title implies, I went back. After repeatedly vowing never to return to the Leeward side, in a crazy turn of events I found myself there today after class.
I was thankful enough to start my day by opening at work. The opening shift is at 5:30, and while that's an extremely early time to be out and about, I like it because I get my work over and done with for the day. Once done at 8:15 I quickly made my way back to my room and got ready for my day.
My first class of the day was Chinese, and it was a quick review of our homework and some grammar structures. After class ended I went back to my room to study up on my last exam of the week. In my East Asian Civilizations class we would be given an exam with some multiple choice questions, two descriptive questions, and one essay question. For only being given 50 minutes, this appeared to be very hard to accomplish.
However, thankfully I was wrong and was able to finish faster than expected.
After the test, and since this was my last class of the day, I went back to my room to have lunch. I then heard from Eric, who said he wanted to go snorkeling. He was vague about which beach, but after getting lunch and grabbing a weight belt to assist with diving, he told me it was Kahe Beach Park.
That's how I ended up on the westside.
We took an uber, about an hours drive from Kapahulu, and were greeted with a long stretch of beach and a very rocky shore. It was around 5 when we arrived, so the beach wasn't crowded at all.
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| View from Electric Beach |
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| View from Kahe (we were in-between the rocks and the wall) |
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| Another beach picture. The sand was incredibly soft! |
But before we went home, we snorkeled!
The waves were very rough, and were nothing like Hanauma and Paradise Cove. No, this was, quite literally, open water, which meant we were literally swimming in the ocean. Hanauma and Paradise are both enclosed areas, but this area was wide open.
Once we got past the rough shoreline we found ourselves swimming over reefs that had quite a few different species of fish. The water was a little cloudy, but not to the point where we couldn't see anything. Interestingly enough, there is a water plant across the road with pipes throughout the ocean, where supposedly they collect and release water. I didn't know it at the time, but at one point I was swimming directly into the bubbles from one. However before I could get too close Eric was quick to tell me that swimming over the pipes was not a smart idea. I made sure not to get too close to them for the rest of our time there.
Snorkeling today was a much different experience than any of the previous times that I've been snorkeling. The water was pretty deep (I would estimate anywhere from 15-20 feet?) and being so open didn't make me feel claustrophobic at all. I really only struggled getting into the water. What came afterwords was quite easy.
I believe the time of day played a big part in what kinds of fish we saw, but supposedly if you go in the mornings your chances of seeing dolphins are relatively high. While we didn't see any dolphins, we still saw lots of fish, and for that I would say it was a successful trip.
We were also witness to an incredible sunset! By this time we were out of the water, but some people chose to stay in and enjoy riding the waves. This area, where we were, was nowhere near crowded, but did have a few others enjoying the surf.
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| The sunset featuring Eric |
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| The water was stunning during the sunset! |
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Once the sun set we regrouped with our driver and proceeded to head back to campus. The man was extremely kind and told us that the ride back was on him!
Now we're back and I am utterly exhausted. While I don't have any pictures of me snorkeling (they're out there- I promise!) as always I will update when I receive them.
Happy aloha Friday, y'all!
Until next time,
Aislinn
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