beached

a day at the beach and what all was there to see?

besides finding a beach with hardly any people =)
there were crabs:

tiny crabs:

big crabs:

lobster shell:

brazilian red-crested cardinals:

egret:

and what are egrets good for?  catching centipedes!

a view:

a plover on one foot:

a flock of plovers

Japanese White-Eyes

endangered red billed ducks

a crab digging out a hole in the sand

rocks

Jonathan jumping off Ho'opi'i waterfalls:

and now from a higher rock:

could never take a photo of a butterfly, they wouldn't land, but I got a picture . . .and there's 3 of them:

on the trail to the 2nd waterfall we came upon an area of quite a few rock towers:

so we built our own . . .on the little island in the middle of the stream:

we put 13 rocks on our tower

hard to tell, but there's a lot of rock towers and ours is out in the middle of the stream:

the lower Ho'opi'i waterfall:

favorite flower, but never see them on a tree - only on the ground

flowers

 

just realized they're all pink, yellow and purple ;)

Mount Waiʻaleʻale

Lilies - all different - love them!

Waimea Canyons

happy colored flowers

averaging 450 inches of rain every year!

we went hiking and we didn't get rained on ;) we were the last ones out around 6:45 pm last night and we did end up using our flashlights for the last 1/2 mile - pretty dark and a pretty crazy trail.

we really just took this hiking trail to see the honey creepers - they're a tropical looking bird.

but we were there in the evening when it was cloudy and misty, we're planning on going back to get a better photo of them =)
look at those clouds rolling in:

and the sun setting

Hawaii doesn't have snakes or any other kinds of predators - NICE.  we only saw lizards and birds - no spiders, no mosquitoes - now that's my kind of tropical jungle =)
well, on the way down the mountain I did see a wild boar . . . it was very skittish so I am comforted that if we did see another we most likely wouldn't be chased by one ;)

we forgot our underwater camera

we spent the day at the beach - but snorkeling is more fun with a camera - so don't forget to pack your underwater camera like we did.  the waves were crazy today - I typically get sick from being rocked around too much - but we looked for sea glass and found a few pieces.  Like I needed something to do while I'm in the water otherwise I get bored ;)
I am good if I can take pictures though

 pencil urchin

there was a rainbow today

 Jonathan going snorkeling alone for the 2nd time ;)  I only went once for 1/2 hour today.

 love this color hibiscus - pink and yellow

another coastal view

tomorrow we're going hiking - the weather is supposed to be less cloudy on Wednesday, but we're going to find a few shorter 2 mile trails (one way)