Kauai Day 3 - Snorkelling Day 1

Woke up before the sun after an 11 hour sleep. LOL. (read last post to find out why I was so tired) I'm excited because today is our first day of snorkelling! I didn't know I loved snorkelling so much until this time last year when we were here in Kauai for the first time, and I tried it near the end of our week. We decided to go to Lydgate park again because it has a nice cove (formed by lava rocks) for snorkelling and it also has another little cove that's good for the kids to play in as it's fairly shallow. After breakfast though, we tried the snorkel gear in the pool so the kids could remember how to breathe through the snorkel. They are naturals. Nathan (5) is like a fish. Taylor (8) swims around like she was born with a snorkel (which I'm sure her mother is glad that she wasn't!) and even Andrew (3) tried it out for the first time. He was great. He'd put the snorkel in his mouth and just push off from whomever he was with...didn't wait for them to support him. Guess he figured if he could breathe, then he could swim. No fear in that kid, I'm telling you! We drove through a short rain storm on our way to Lydgate, but when we arrived at the beach, it was sunny and beautiful again. I like hearing (and watching) the waves crashing over the lava rocks. We put on our flippers and headed out. The first little while was disappointing because there was so much silt being swirled around that you couldn't see any fish. We swam almost all the way to the rock wall and still couldn't see anything. We were about to give up when we passed James on his way back in who said that if you got right up to the rock wall, you could see lots of fish. We immediately swam out...and were rewarded by TONS of fish. There were several large schools that went by, and lots of coloured and striped fish, too. Not sure what all of them were. Snorkel Bob gave us a fish chart (Which is in the truck, and not at my fingertips) and we definitely saw some of the fish listed there. We were snapping pictures like crazy! It was so amazing to watch them. Chantelle and I put our fingers out in front of us to see if we could touch any, and there was a little brown striped one that was curious about us and kept swimming closer. At one point, it carefully darted out and bounced off my finger with it's nose. I was so surprised. I didn't really think it would come that close. Not sure if the same one touched Chantelle, but she got the fish touch, too. We swam back in after that to enjoy a delicious lunch (sandwiches, fruit, chips, veggies and drinks) and then we sat in the sun and visited and read our books. Nathan wanted to be buried in the sand, so Kathleen helped him. His face was getting a bit red as he was lying there, so they brought him a towel and he put it right over his face and announced "this is so relaxing".  When we left Lydgate, Joshua guided us to the Wailua Falls and to a place where we could overlook the Hawaiian Village (on the Wailua River). Andrew and I found a chicken and her 2 little chicks hiding behind the fence. The roosters crow here all the time, and you see chickens and roosters running around just about every single place you go. After Wailua Falls, Joshua took us to the "Fantasy Island" falls. They are amazingly beautiful (and just like they were on TV). Since a helicopter was flying over at the time, I called out "Boss, boss, da plane, da plane" (Not everyone got the reference). We made our way back to our Villas with a stop at Wal-Mart for shoes and chocolate. Nathan blew out his flip flops in Calgary and so far Wal-Mart is the only place we have found our favourite chocolate covered macadamia nuts with coconut. Everything is better with coconut! We had pizza for supper, and while it was being made, Nola, James, Peter and I went back into the pool to cool off (and to wash the sand out of places that sand shouldn't be!) and to play volleyball. After supper I showered in the outdoor shower to get the rest of the sand out, washed my hair and put my pjs on (for the first time this trip. LOL. First night, no luggage, second night fell asleep in my clothes) After supper we tried to get to the beach in time to watch the sun set, but we didn't quite make it. Consoled ourselves with shave ice. This shave ice wasn't the best as they just crush ice cubes instead of shaving the ice - but it was still good. I had a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom and then watermelon, pineapple, and honeydew syrup overtop. DELICIOUS! Another great day in Paradise!